Softies for Mirabel 2010

For the fourth time already, Pip from Meet Me at Mike's is organizing a challenge to get toys for children for Christmas. You can read more about the Mirabel foundation here.

This year my softie is a modern toy, not to be specified as a bunny or a bear or a doll. The pattern is from Suuri Käsityölehti, a Finnish handicraft magazine. Like in the pattern, all materials are recycled except for the polyester wadding.

If you want to make your own softie, you can join here. Pip's blog has many links to free patterns and good ideas.

The Softies for Mirabel have been a Brown Owls project for me every year. Last year I made some knitted bunnies,  the year before I made a pig, and a hare and a kitten.

Easter flowers and some knitting

Yesterday I was shopping for groceries for the holidays, and naturally had my latte at the café. I couldn't resist taking some photos of the florist's yellow flowers:

They had some Easter bunnies as well. I really like sitting in this café gathering my strength for the shopping and looking at the always changing flower arrangements.

This time of the year is too cold for anything to flower in the garden so we must let the professionals grow our Easter flowers. Time for daffodils in the garden will be late in May.

I have chosen the chemo cap campaign for Finnish Brown Owls' charity of the month. This is the first time I have heard of this campaign in Finland. (All these links are in Finnish only.)  I use baby yarns or cotton or bamboo yarns for the caps. Here are the results so far:

Two of these - only about 35 grams goes in one cap so I think I can knit a third one from the same ball if I make it slightly smaller. These caps are made for the summer or indoor use, just to cover the lost hair and make the person feel a little better.

The crocheted cap used almost one 100 g ball of yarn. There will not be enough for another one, even if I would knit it, so I will crochet a flower for decoration.

This pattern is fun and easy, so I'm making yet another one in brown shades. The patients can pick any cap they like, and I hope there is someone who likes brown colours as much as I do. The campaign started in Northern Finland and has spread all over the country. My caps will go to Helsinki, which is the closest chemotherapy hospital.

 

With these flowers I wish you all Happy Easter and happy spring!

New finishes, from stash

I have been busy sewing this week. On Wednesday, when I had my day off duties, I visited my mother in Tampere and took the train there. On the train I was working on this:

It is the Hope block of A Christmas Wish. I have also finished Peace

and Believe:

Now I'm working on the last three blocks. All the material for this project is from stash, I only needed to buy the white embroidery floss. So far I have not bought any fabric this year!

I took the pillowcase challenge Stephanie wrote about, and used Jackie's 20 minutes pattern for the pillowcases. Again, all fabric comes from the depths of my boxes and plastic bags. This is also the first charity project of the Finnish Brown Owls of this year.

  

The Finnish Brown Owls chapter has so far only one member, so I can pretty freely decide the time and place of my meetings! If you care to join me, please say so. There will be no fee, there will probably only be virtual meetings and projects shared through the internet, just like I have been doing the last two years as a faraway member of the original Melbourne Brown Owls.

The weather is still cold even for this season, -18C or 0.4F. The wind makes it feel even colder. My walk from the bus stop to mother's house was therefore a very quick one, but I needed to stop and take some pictures. The water in a little brook was running so fast that it had not frozen:

 

If you click on the picture, you may see the snow crystals and the ice forming above the water.

The big trees were all covered in snow. This was about 9.30 in the morning, the sun had just risen.

 

And finally the snow castle with the brave snowman guard. Have a lovely weekend!