New Quilt, New Tunic and Old Books and Bears

Have you seen Stephanie's Long Johns quilt? She remembered her grandfather's long johns on the washline, and made the polka dotty pieces like them, up and down. She also made a Christmas version, very pretty. She gave me the pattern for my senior home quilts, and here is what I came up with:

 

Long johns on the line are, in this climate and this family with two men and just one me, a very usual sight even today. (So there you see, Mr. Squash, you don't have to be "a woman of a certain age" to have seen that sight.)  The quilt top is made with what forms another substantial part of my laundry, men's old shirts. Old men's shirts, whatever. That's why I named my quilt Laundry Day. Take a look at Supreme Candace's version here. She too added a border, but I made an extra row too. This way the quilt will be big enough to keep any tall grandpa warm and cosy when he is taking a nap. The backing is checkered flannel like the binding. Tomorrow I'll be taking this and the Bee in my Bonnet Row-Along quilt to the nursing home.

This quilt is also my 4th project in the Special Category of the Craft Olympics hosted by Flickenstichlerin. I have been on a new sewing class, just 6 evenings with the theme tunics. I learnt to alter the pattern to my personal measures, and here is the result:

 

 

I'm really pleased with it, and the jersey's cheerful grey and greenish colours are just me. This is my 4th project in the New Category of the Craft Olympics.

 

Last Friday we went to the Helsinki Book Fair, a perfect place to test use my new tunic (can be classified as one of the "cultural ladies robes", you know the roundish ladies between 40 and 80 who go to concerts, theatres, art exhibitions and interesting lectures, wearing figure flattering long tunics/vests/jackets). We concentrated once again on the older books.

 

This raven has been on every book fair I remember.

This year the teddy bears had a special place at the fair.

I didn't even know there are so many literary teddy bears.

This one I know!

 

And here's for you, Melanie! (She is going to Rupert's cottage next Spring). Bamse is sharing this shelf with Rupert.

 

 

Do you know Rasmus? He comes from Denmark. I have read about him to my children...

... but not as much as about this brave fellow, Uppo-Nalle. He is created in Finland but according to the story he floated here from France.

Some of the teddies were really old.

Some were more famous as toys than from stories in books.

Winnie the Pooh like he originally was and what Walt Disney did to him.

The modern Pooh Corner gang.

 

We spent a lovely day at the fair and I found a used copy of the new Finnish translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illlustrated by Helen Oxenbury . Perhaps I can finally read the whole story!

Have you a favourite literary teddy bear? Was he on this exhibition? I had a toy teddy bear that my best friend made for me when we were maybe 12 years old, and my childhood literary bear friend was Winnie the Pooh like Uncle Shepard drew him.

A new finish

 The Row-Along quilt of The Bee in My Bonnet is now officially finished with machine quilting and scrappy bindings. There was an almost sunny moment between rain showers yesterday so I tried how my rattan chair would feel on the new terrace. You can see the yellow leaves on the floor - the Autumn is trying to come already!

I stitched wavy lines between the blocks and free shapes on and around the pictures on this quilt.

 

Our summer apples are ripe, but there will be no apple sauce cooking this year.

 

 

My basket will remain empty!

 

I'm almost pleased with my stitching ideas, as the flowers look like flowers and the leaves and apples look like leaves and apples on the reverse.

 

The photo makes the borders look all blurry, but they are of a very pretty red and white checkered fabric and the corners are mitred.

 

 

I'm glad to have completed a project, and now I can concentrate on the two other quilts I'm working on, and maybe start a knitting as a TV project.

 

Two new rows for the Spring quilt

Finally I could join the blocks for the June row of my Happy Scrappy Spring quilt with the big stitcheries:

 

and the July row was really easy after that effort:

 

 I'm waiting for the wool I bought for the applique before I join the rows together. There will be so many bunnies, and flowers and carrots too. It will be easier to add them to the separate rows.

Yesterday I met this little fellow fast asleep in the shadow of my geranium pot. In the evening he or she was running around our yard, first looking at my work and then on the lawn wondering about Mr. K's casting exercises.

The hedgehog's legs are quite long when he walks on a hard surface. This is in our yard. Today he was loitering in the street, very dangerous for a little hedgehog.

 

I was having a space problem with layering of the Bee in My Bonnet quilt in the house, because it is a big one. Then Mr. K. built me a nice new floor just perfect for this.

 

 

Just kidding, this will be our outdoors coffee place when it is finished. I just borrowed it for the sandwiching. There I was, on my hands and knees, with hundreds of safety pins on the quilt top for more than an hour for every passer-by to see. I never knew how many dog-walkers and joggers go past our house on a beautiful summer evening. I was surprised nobody asked me what I was worshipping there, because they must be tired of asking Mr. K. funny questions about his "fishing on the lawn".

 

Quilt top finished, the abundance of peonies, and some local news

My computer was attacked and we needed to take it to the computer ER for treatment, and now I finally have access to my pictures again. Advice from the experts: always keep your important updates updated, and don't trust a security program that suddenly appears on your screen and looks just almost real but not quite.

 

Anyway, the time away from blog reading - I just made quick visits from Mr. K's laptop to see that you are all OK and busy - gave me time to add three borders to my scrappy Row-along quilt. I made the last one just plain and not scalloped like in Lori's design. The backing and batting are waiting.

 

 

My peonies are early this year, they usually blossom in July. This was on the 19th of June:

 

... and this on the 23rd. Today the flowers are almost white, turning brown and dropping their petals.

 

They can keep their heavy heads up because they grow through a grit of garden twine in a frame about knee high.

I took some more pictures of the boot installation in Järvenpää.

 

The yellow boot was the only one where the plant had been robbed from. I wonder if some of the black boots have been painted in bright colours just for fun or to keep the plant cooler.

 

The pied flycatchers in 5 or 6 birdhouses are so busy feeding their families.

 

Often both parents are at the door at the same time, so one has to wait on the roof, this time the father.

 

Järvenpää is having a blues music event from Wednesday until the weekend, and the pedestrian area is full of stalls.

 

During the week there are free concerts for children as well, and this place offered them a chance to paint with watercolours and fabric paints while waiting for the concert to begin.

Apart from the usual hat, jewelry, fudge, licorice and bag stalls there were some nice handicrafts too, like these felted pouches for mobile phones.

 

The humid heat quite unusual for our climate, and the crowded street made me just want to get away as soon as possible. Today we had a tiny thunder and some rain, but that hardly made the air any fresher. Tomorrow we are heading to a hot and crowded place too, but the conditions are OK because we are going to see (and buy) old books again. 

Summer flowers

 

Mr. K has made me a new flowerbed. We plan to move the irises and day lilies from the old bed in the background, and add more colour and plants that will bloom later in the Summer. I tested how tulips would look here.

 

This was the last row for my Bee in My Bonnet row-along, and today I arranged all the rows and stitched them together. Beginning from the top with spring tulips, then comes summer and butterflies. Stars shine above the houses when autumn comes with geese flying to the South, with apples, and falling leaves.

 

Then it is time to take out the sewing basket and spools of thread, and have a mug of hot tea, when the winter has arrived and you need your warm mittens again.

Next week I try to get the borders added, but I have not yet decided what fabrics I will use. For the blocks I have used small scraps, and the borders require yardage.

My first peonies were lying flat on the ground so I brought the buds in, and after a few days they opened!

Some spools and sewing baskets

This week I have made a row of spools and a row of baskets for my Bee in my Bonnet Row-along quilt. Both rows were fun and ended up pretty straight.

 

My mug row is the most curved one, so next week when I have finished the row of flowers which is the very last one, I must be careful when I sew the rows together. There will be an inner border and a wider outer border to make after that.

 

The Spring came late this year, but it was very short. We have such an abundance of flowers everywhere. The lilacs are in full bloom too, and I brought these home when I was pruning dry branches in my FIL's garden and accidentally cut some fresh ones too.

 

The temperatures have been up to 25C (77F) and more during the last week, and today my first peony opened!

Still Rowing Strong

My computer connects me again normally, and I have sewn my two rows of The Bee in my Bonnet Row-along I'm making at my own pace. The new rows are Winter Stars and Houses.

 

 

This red one looks a little like our house. Just a little!

 

With the help of friends, Nina Lise and Melanie, I got the patterns for last week's rows before my computer was co-operating. You have seen the Autumn Leaves already, here together with the new Mittens:

 

Ten down, three to go, and of course borders, backing and label.

 

It is time for the first harvest already! The rhubarb is growing fast, and I made us a dessert

 

with some raspberries from the freezer. Strawberries would have been better, but I only had raspberries and bilberries. This desert is typical for our corner of the world, maybe a bit old fashioned nowadays, but just wonderfully refreshing on a hot day. It is like a thick berry soup, served cold with sugar and maybe whipped cream or ice cream.

 

The lilies of the valley are blooming! When I was very very young, I had a deodorant spray that smelled of these flowers and the text on the bottle was Muguet, so fine in French. Another popular scent was Apple Blossom, for some reason in English.

 

 

I picked a bunch, and they smell so lovely every time I walk by.

What is your favourite flower scent?

Edit: naturally the rhubarb is a dessert with double s., like my observant daughter kindly helped me notice.

Happy Scrappy May and some Autumn leaves

This week has been fun and busy. We visited our daughter Kaija on Monday and Tuesday and enjoyed the first really warm, no-coat-on-in-town days. DD has been binding some amazing books lately, and she has her own study too, finally. I have been working on two quilts again, and finished the May stitcheries for Happy Scrappy Spring BOM designed by Kaaren at The Painted Quilt. You can click the pictures to get a better look.

 

I still need to make the sashing to go between the two first rows.

 It has not been just fun: I can't open The Bee in my Bonnet blog to get the mitten block instructions! I had only written down the measurements for the leaf blocks of row 7 when I lost the connection. Well, I have some measurements for the mitten blocks too, so I can start cutting, but that's it. I hope the problem will go away so I can get the remaining instructions for five more rows. I think I can manage borders and backing on my own. This has been such a fun quilt, so I really would like to finish it the way it was designed.

Nest building time has brought unusual visitors to the remains of last winter's bird seeds. Birds that are very common here but just not here at the edge of the village, like jackdaws and crows. I took this picture for you, Melanie, because you had not seen hooded crows very often before you saw them here. The map in the link shows that they are in fact rare in Western Europe and England, just like their all black cousin, Carrion Crow is rare here.

It has been so warm that we have been having our afternoon coffee on the veranda, equipped with binoculars (Mr. K), camera (me) and two bird books at least. On Thursday we spotted this little fellow, only because there are not yet leaves in the apple tree. After having consulted the books we decided this is the Lesser Whitethroat, Sylvia Curruca. I took several pictures, catching sometimes just the tail, or part of the wing through the twigs, but putting all the details together we could identify him. It is really hard to see the colour of a bird's legs, or to say there are or are not shades of a certain colour on the back or wings. Luckily the camera catches every detail.

 

Wish me luck with the missing rows for the Bee in my Bonnet. Hvae better luck with your projects!