Secrets Revealed

This weekend we went to Tampere to celebrate my Mother's 93rd birthday. Every one of her six children was there, together with two of her sons-in-law and both her daughters-in-law. The youngest grandchild, the only one still living with his parents - my younger son - was representing the next generation. Mother had cooked a giant soup for us which I helped finish, and everyone brought something to share as well, like drinks or bread or cakes or pies. Like in the old times, we all squeezed around the big dining table and enjoyed a delicious meal. - Thank you everyone who sent her congratulations! She was planning the celebration we will have in seven years.

Now I can reveal my secret project, a birthday present for my mother. It is a bedspread for her double bed, matching the curtains I made for her new bedroom four years ago. The big print was originally bought and cut to be curtains by my sister P, but she never finished them. I used the main part of the fabric for the curtains, edged with solid blue.

Now I just cut the remaining prints in biggish squares, added frames in the blue and solid white. I had just enough print (because I found some more at a flea market) for a border around the quilt, and blue for the binding.

My other secret project was a custom order of three more Unicef dolls for my sister Maija. She now has six of her own, representing herself - the first one I made for her - and all her sisters and brothers.

On Tuesday, when my sister P was visiting me, I asked her to change the eyes I had made for the doll representing her. P has heavy eyelids, and she had told me the doll should have too. I had no time to make a new doll from scratch, so all she could do was make up the doll's face. I think it turned out just perfect! The dresses of the dolls T and P are made from each sister's original dress scraps. These dolls are numbers 42 to 44 on my list. I'm still dreaming of making at least 50 of them in total. Unicef gets the adoption fee of minimum 20 €, which will rescue one real child's life through the vaccinations Unicef will buy and arrange for the child.

On Friday I had to deliver stuff for the Christmas Shop at Villa Cooper - why are all the deadlines so close to another? - and luckily I found quite a lot of things that didn't sell last year. Let's just hope the buyers will like them now. I also made some new angels, my main Christmas item. These can stand on a table or a shelf.

The other group prefers hanging around.

This was all for now. Today we have been raking leaves in our yard (yes I know it is kind of late for that) as the snow has melted away and the weather was good. 30 heaps wait for transport to the leave composting area in the back yard! Yesterday morning the temperature was -11C (12 F), and today we had + 4 C (39 F). The winter doesn't know if it should come already.