Plus size quilt top

Finally I have finished a new quilt top! I even managed to make a little dent in my recycled shirt stash with it. I used all kinds of  light greys and creams, and red plaids and one plain red, as this quilt is for the Finnish Red Cross. 

Getting that step out of the way, I can now concentrate on a baby quilt using these fabrics I have cherished for many years. It will be a boy quilt, with worms and bugs but also with some hearts or flower petals.

We have been travelling abroad too, and for the long waiting hours at airports I had of course a book but also a knitting. I knitted the striped chemo caps during the trip and the plain ones at home.

Two new baby hats have been finished too. There is a little yarn left from a 50 g ball in all my baby hat yarns, so I think there will be a pink-blue-and-white striped hat on the needles sooner or later.

The little misses Purple and Yellow spent a fine holiday in Lapland before Easter with their family, and the girls learned to ski, make snow castles, roll in the snow to refresh during a sauna bath, and to have Winter fun like native Finnish children. For this, the socks and mittens I knitted for them were naturally useful, and so they wanted to thank me with this:

100 % Irish wool to knit something for my own use! I think I need to dare take a step into the unknown and learn to knit some Celtic cables in a scarf or something like that.

Weather report: This morning we had -4C, today is sunny but not warm, on Wednesday we had rain for most of the day. The snowdrops and tiny yellow crocuses are the only flowers up in the garden. By the roadside we can see bright yellow coltsfoot dots where the sun has been shining.

Spring colours in snow, and some nalbinding news

On Easter Monday we had a snowfall that lasted all day. Nothing fancy, just tiny flakes or larger ones, slowly or with a wind, but by the evening we had about 20 cm new, fresh snow covering the dirty old, melting snow. The next day was sunny and lovely, so I took my newest fingerless mittens and other knittings out for a photo shoot.

From the rest yarns of the mittens I knitted some baby hats for a charity.

Then I made a group photo of the yellowish chemo therapy caps. I used the last remnants together with a light grey yarn for a striped beanie.

My nalbinding has taken a leap since my last posting, with the simple chain of stitches. I tried the Finnish stitch, well, naturally, because I am Finnish. I was right thinking that it would be easy to learn after having practiced the Oslo stitch. I didn't care about the odd big loops left from the starting stitches, nor about the Oops! stitches where I missed a loop or picked one too many, nor the lumpy joints of yarn. I just tried to get a feeling to the movements of my hands. It was easier to make new stitches when there was something to hold onto, unlike the floppy tail of loose single stitches.

With this technique you don't work from a ball of yarn but thread a needle with a suitable length of yarn and when you have almost used it up, you felt the end of the new yarn to it. This little pouch is hardly good for anything, but it has given me tremendous courage to start a proper project. I like the texture, and there is stretch in both directions.

On the right you can see my new nalbinding needle. My dear Mr K. made it for me just this week! He is building a bamboo fly fishing rod and used bamboo to make this for me. It is glued together of two slivers so the smooth enamel surface is on both sides.

Here you can see the amount of snow we had on April 1st! Mr K. shoveled just a track for the car.