A week of very small accomplishments

Weather report: the winter is still very much the same, cold and long and snowy. The temperatures keep around -20 to -25C (-4F to -13F) in the mornings but warm up to about -10 C /+14F by early afternoon. The sun must be working a little on the snow, because in the morning the trees are often covered with frost as the humidity in the air concentrates on any surface. It has not been snowing in over a week.

I had more cupcake mail from Melanie:

She used up her cupcake fabric rests to make me a mushroom mat for autumn. We have had long correspondence about the use of mushrooms in the kitchen and for dyeing yarns and fabrics. Melanie knows so much about history and old methods in handicrafts.

I have been sewing some more QAYG blocks for Oz Comfort Quilts, satin stitching the shoes I showed in my last post, and using little scraps of fabric for a needle book for my friend P who is desperately waiting for the wallhanging to be finished:

She started in my sewing class last autumn, and for her new hobby I equipped her needle book with small scissors and a seam ripper

and some machine needles so she can continue sewing at home when school is out.

At the moment I'm working with some silk threads I have inherited from my Great Auntie Saima. My regular readers know a lot about her, she was like a young grandmother for us and lived many years with our real grandmother, her elder sister, so she was always there for us.

If you want to see a picture of Saima, you should visit my daughter Kaija's blog here. My mother has given her a photo album with pictures by Saima's husband. Now Kaija has started a new blog, Emil's, to show the contents of this great amateur photographer's work. We have very little information about the people and places in the photos, but they are great pictures from the early decades of the 20th century. Enjoy!