New year, old memories

Hi again! A new year has begun but I'm showing you some pictures of my Christmas doings. This ice skating outfit was a gift for my sister's Unicef doll in Germany. One of my newest dolls is just acting as a model.

When I was just learning to stay upright on my hockey (!) skates, my big sister's skills were on a totally different level. She had figure skating style skates, and our mother made her a grey felt skirt with white pompom trimming and knitted her a red jumper and a matching beanie with an opening for her ponytail at the top. She (and her doll) has dark hair which looks so much better with red than this amateur model's red and orange.

I can't remember what my sister was wearing under the skirt but could imagine red damasks as they were called back then when leggings or even pantyhoses were not yet invented. I never could skate properly and never got to wear this loveliness even after she had grown out of it. I liked skiing better, and I had a beautiful yellow and white jumper.

A year ago a new crafting fashion swept over Finland, and this year I could not resist the idea of making a little door for Santa's little tonttu elf.

I thought the children would laugh at my idea, but to my big surprise our daughter was excited to see it and took a photo to show her friends that the doors and the tontut do exist. This was a kit from a hobby shop, I just painted it with my half dried out crafting paints. The wreath is crocheted on a seal ring from a juice jar.

December was a busy knitting month. Bright red stripes to cheer up basic men's socks.

I hardly ever knit patterns with one yarn going behind the stitches, but in this one the loops are only one stitch long. This lot has been knitted after Christmas, when so many films were on TV.

One of my favorite combinations, pale pink with grey.

The remaining grey was enough to make basic stripes for this pair.

I'm not one of those people who make new year's resolutions and keep them or not, but I have started a project in my so called sewing room. I'm trying to make it more organized and while doing so, trying to let go of many of the things I really don't need/like/use any more. Nothing drastic, just something I could have done years ago. Today I tried to get something organized again, and after a while I found myself at the sewing machine busily working on a project I had intended to finish for Christmas. Maybe I ought to go back and take the next step in that project. It will also help to get some order there!

Merry Christmas

Today is a December day at its best: snow on the ground, no wind, minus 10 degrees and the sun is shining for a little while. No more waiting, it is Christmas Eve, and we get to open the gifts tonight already!

Happy Holidays for all my readers!

Busy December

December started with Santa's arrival to Järvenpää, as usual in a sleigh on wheels, pulled by his faithfull Finnhorse Uuras. Unfortunately my photo didn't catch the whole horse.

  Here is a portrait of him from an earlier visit when we had some snow too in early December:

Santa greeted us, his little tonttu elves were not looking very happy in the cold wind.

The parade included several sport clubs and such, but they were not carrying any signs with their names so we had to guess who they were.

This group at least was obviously dog friends

or maybe sheep farmers? Or are those dogs with reindeer antlers?

I have been making little gifts

in red and white

and socks in many sizes

some so dark I could hardly see what I was knitting.

Other gifts were mailed before I remembered to take photos, and some will not be shown before Christmas for obvious reasons.

We started feeding the birds again in October after a long Summer break. Surprisingly, the bullfinches come in biggest numbers, 6 to 15 at a time, but there are great tits, blue tits, coal tits, willow tits and even long tailed tits (who are not really tits any more but have their own group name) regularly coming to enjoy their sunflower seeds. Today we saw a tree creeper again, jays (Eurasian Jay) come often just like magpies. Sometimes the blackbird (Turdus merula) visits, they may stay here fort he Winter. We have just a little snow now, enough to make the world seem less black.

New kids on the blog

Finally I got my sewing machine back and these new kids got their clothes on! Instead of the usual two days my machine had to stay away for more than two weeks because a spare part took so long to arrive.

I could not show this lot dressed in just undies or jumpers. I used many small yarn rests for their jumpers. The multi coloured yarn works fine in the small garments.

The girls' dresses have zippers in the back, the jumpers have buttons on the shoulder. It looks like Pertti here below on the right has grown fast! I was sure I knitted the sleeves long enough before starting to knit in the round with the front and the back. That's teenage boys for you.

I try to find more of that funny yarn for the boys' hair, it makes hair creating easy. I just crochet in the round and sew the wig in place. These dolls will be a part of the Villa Cooper Christmas display of Good Gifts for charity.

Another finally is here:

Our daughter Kaija was here yesterday and I managed to remember to ask her to pose for the Aino 2.0 fingerless mittens pattern. The Flying Mitten will publish my pattern as a spin-off of their original Aino'S mittens pattern based on the original mittens knitted and worn by Aino Sibelius. Fingerless mittens are useful for anyone who wants to use their smartphone in cold weather.

Just knitting ...

 ... is all I have been doing as my faithful Husqvarna sewing machine is having her irregular check-up with the service and we need to wait for a spare part. This time without her seems so long, and it feels like I right now would have so many interesting and fun projects to work on. Luckily I have a collection of knitting needles and wool yarns, and Christmas is a big time for hand knitted wool socks at the Villa Cooper, so I have been knitting these in pine tree colours

and these small ones in graphite and old rose

and these in jeans blue with stripes with lighter and darker blue rest yarns.

And those two other pairs as well.

Frosty mornings, even days now. Mr K. has blown and raked all leaves away and the garden is getting ready for the first snow to come. Other parts of the country have already had their first snow, but we may expect some less cold days next week. This week I saw the local whooper swan family swimming peacefully on the pond by the school in the darkness at nine in the evening.The six cygnets are about as big as the white parents but still grey until they are adults. The young ones still need to practice their take-up and landing and build up some muscles for their flight southwards for open waters.

More Potter mug rugs and some knitting

After finishing the four mug rugs I still felt like doing more, and chose the Quill that writes the invitation letters to Hogwarts school

and the Mirror of Erised.

The whole set once more.

Next week is the Night of the Homeless, and beanies, mittens and socks are collected to be donated. I knitted this set in an average men's size and will take them today to the Flying Mitten, one of the places where donations are collected.

This Aviatrix  hat is one of my favourite patterns and the striped beanies in my last post are made with the leftover pink from this project. I just forgot to take this picture for that post.

This pair of socks is once again inspired by some odd little rests from other projects, and the usual thing happened: there was not enough yarn in one colour, so I bought some more ...

This morning the rain water in our little pond was frozen. Mr K. had already taken the pump in for the winter and emptied the pond, but leaves are falling and rain water gathers there. It will be cleaned again in the Spring.

The rowan tree in our garden has the most beautiful colours this year.

Knitted beanies and pompoms

I had some pink yarn left and some white, and this funny pattern had been on my mind for a long time, so I tried the pattern. It required a pompom on top, so I made one.

With still some yarns left, I made another baby beanie, with a pompom. That used up all the pink yarn.

A small ball of multi coloured yarn with the white made another beanie.

Two rest balls of bright red and some more white, and a peppermint beanie was born. I used the last meters of the red for the pompom.

Red and white are also the toadstools popping up all over our lawn.

Leaves are turning red and yellow, Autumn is definitely here. We have had mornings with just one plus degree. The garden furniture has been stored away. This week we had the first little fires in the fireplace, starting slowly to warm the big mass of bricks.