Titty's Secret Project Revealed

Hi again, Titty here in my new summer frock among the primroses.

Auntie and I finished the secret project, and John and I climbed a local mountain for the launching. It is the Swallow flag for our sailing boat in the books by Uncle Ransome, but as we don't have a boat here, we will take the flag to new places we are going to conquer.

John helped me put up the flag but here I wanted to pose alone with it, as it is my idea and my design, Auntie Ulla just helped with the sewing.

Yesterday it was like it was snowing in bright sunshine, just click the photo and you can see yourself. It was just the hairy seeds from the aspen! They flew in our teacups when we had afternoon tea on the veranda.

These violas or pansies appeared on the gravel by the front steps, growing from the seeds of last year's summer flowers in a planter just a meter away.

We have been living quietly without any adventures to mention, so there is not much to report. I do like my new frock! It has daisies printed on the fabric and tiny green buttons on the back. Next on our wish list are a summer skirt or frock for Susan and a shirt for Roger. Auntie just keeps cleaning her windows and washing laundry and ironing and cooking and when she is not busy like that she is just lazy and reads books when she should be taking care of us and our clothes. Window cleaning n the middle of the pollen season and with rain forecasts for the rest of the week! I'm just saying. It is not very comfortable to sit in a wool sweater and long trousers waiting for a summer outfit, when the sun is shining and the temperature is almost 60 degrees higher than when I got the winter clothes. - Sorry Auntie, but it is true. I could help you pick nice fabrics to get you started. I hope you will let me write here again some time, I would love that.

Yours,

Titty Walker

Yarn bent on different curves

 My first attempt to make a shawl with a very hairy mohair yarn was a) too long and b) impossible to unravel, so I decided it will be a scarf for dark winter days, wrapped around my neck 4-fold and three times round. It looks rather like something you could draw from the vacuum cleaner hose when it is clogged, dust caught by a long piece of yarn.

The rest of the ball was used for this shawl. This time I started with the desired width and crocheted as far as the yarn reached. A nice mosquito net for cool summer evenings, don't you think?

The pattern is Solomon's knots or Lover's knots. Easy to crochet, but also easy to crochet too many loops or too few, and then you need to un-crochet.

I had this lovely hand-dyed merino/polyamide yarn for my birthday and found a nice new almost lacy pattern to try on. French heels almost done!

On the 3rd of May we had already tiny leaves on the silver birches but also new snow for two days. Some parts of Finland had more, up to 6", and it snowed on top of old snow so it must have felt like proper winter again.

But today we have a sunny day and the ground is covered in white again, but this time it is wild wood anemones. Where I grew up we didn't have them, but hepatica was what we picked for Mother's Day in May. Here wood anemone is the spring flower for Mother's Day or "just so". Sometimes I miss the beautiful blue and purplish shades of hepatica.