New start and another finish

Last week I finally started my string blocks for Stephanie's No Strings Attached challenge. It also qualifies for my own Use Your Stash 2010, as everything comes from a box in my sewing room. Here are the 14 first blocks:

I think this will be a bed quilt. The blocks will be 7" finished, so I need a few more. Luckily there are more blue scraps than I can use. - Reading the blogs joining in this challenge and another one I joined last year has made me think where I'm going with my life. In real life I'm a rather shy,  usually quiet, middle aged mother of three grown kids and happily married to Mr. Kotkarankki. Last May I became a hooker when crocheting the granny squares, and now the string block ladies are writing about stripping and referring to themselves as strippers. Great Aunt Saima would have understood this kind of play with words. Oh yes, and my mother (a very talented word twister as well) has called me an angel maker because I sew angels for Villa Cooper. I don't know about the term in English but the Finnish word has been used for someone illegally helping women with unwanted pregnancies. Oh dear! Sounds far more ominous and exciting than it is.

My first real finish for this year is the Country Calendar quilt. I have been working on it all last year, and now have put the month blocks together to make a wall hanging. Finishing it I only used fabric from my stash for the sashings, corners, borders, batting, backing and binding, so this qualifies for my UYS 2010 challenge as well. I only bought the black fabric for the October block background, and it was last year.

This morning was again beautiful like from a fairy tale. I took these pictures about 8.30, twnety minutes before sunrise. It has snowed a little last night. This is my washline, waiting for warmer, sunny days:

And this is where the sun comes up, not yet East but more like Southeast:

The days get almost 10 minutes longer every day here in South Finland. Up North the change is bigger: from the 'no sun at all' day the first day has almost an hour between sunrise and sunset, and a week later the day is 3 hours 15 minutes from sunrise to sunset. By Spring Equinox their day is longer than ours, and in mid May they will have no more sunsets for 10 weeks.