Midsummer flowers and unfinished business with my Grandmother

Today is Midsummer Day here, as most public holidays have been moved to weekend. The old Midsummer Day was June 25th. We didn't celebrate much, but we have fresh potatoes with butter and dill, herring and warm smoked ham for lunch. It is something you need to taste up here to understand why it is delicious and special. It is our favourite summer meal for the next month or so!

My irises are in bloom:

And the lupins by the road:

Ranunculus by the steps in the garden:

Phox subulata in pink and white:

And the early peonies:



We had our windows replaced this week and hope to get the builders back next week to finish the inside and weatherboards. I was hoping to get clean windows when I get new windows, but it looks like I have to clean these after all. Anyway, it will only be four surfaces instead of the six I had in the old ones. The new windowsills will be smaller than the old ones. We need to find a way to keep my pot plants happy with sufficient light.

On Wednesday I met with a friend from my student times. She lives in Germany but her family is from this area and we have met a couple of times while she is here. I made her an eye glass/phone pocket in a bright Marimekko fabric with Winnie the Pooh design.

Kaite has challenged me to use my tiny ends of wool yarn to make a blanket over a long period of time, and here is what I'm going to start with:

While I was digging in my bags and boxes for those yarns, I found these two unfinished mittens:

They are both from my Grandmother, who used to keep all her grandchildren well stashed with socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and even dresses she knitted. I have kept these two so I can copy her pattern and use it. I know I have used the pattern on the right for some mittens for my own children but never wrote it down. The one on the left is knitted on regular needles up to the end of the pattern. I will let you know if I can figure out how she made it.

Knitting and ranting

Almost two weeks have passed and I don't have much craftiness to show. I have been knitting these tiny preemie baby beanies in the evenings. This is my last ball of baby yarn, and I think it will make four little hats as there is over 240 m yarn in the 50 g ball. I almost fainted when I heard the price: 6.75 €, but then I remembered that I had entered Mrs. Greedy's shop again, against my earlier decision. (Back in 2009 she charged me in € the old FIM price of all the old knitting needles I bought from her for charity, which makes it 6 times the correct price, and made me pay for more thimbles than I actually got.) Don't ever go to her shop, and if you do, don't buy anything.

We are approaching the shortest night of the year. Last Thursday night when I had to go in the middle of the night, I saw a funny sight through the round window in our hall. The full moon was shining from a very light blue sky at three in the morning (so it was actually Friday already). For some reason the moon looked a lot bigger than in the picture.

I have made plans for a couple of new quilts waiting in my PIPS box. I found the outer border leftovers from the big Grandmother's Garden quilt, and some sand colour fabric. It is my old safari suit trousers from the time I was young. They will complete the blocks in process.

The second plan includes a chambray all-in-one suit from the early 80's, and some Egyptian scarf halves from Melanie.

These two great black woodpeckers spent a long time on this aspen in our garden. They were playing hide and seek or learning to find food, or then something else. They looked rather small to us so we think they were young ones. It was fun to watch the one on the right shake his head from side to side. Both made quiet noises, maybe they were whispering something about me and my camera. Just when I took a few steps closer to get a better picture of the one on the left, they decided to fly back to the forest where we often hear their calls.