Hidden treasure

Last week Mr K. had brought in a big cardboard box when he was reorganizing our storage. I had a sneak peek to see what was in it. Ooh! It was unbelievably lovely, everything was like hand picked for my taste. I thought it was like a dream come true ... well, before I thought of where to put it all.

A few seconds later I understood this loot was what he had brought for me last Autumn when our daughter Kaija moved to Helsinki and told me she was sending me "some yarn and scraps for fabric" she didn't need. (The fabrics need another post.) As I had not seen the box on its arrival I had forgotten all about it, maybe because I had enough yarn to keep me busy. Now the treasure box really made my day!

You can see that she had some unfinished projects, with needles and patterns and the necessary yarn.

It took me about half an hour to knit the thumbs for the mittens:

And two evenings, some trial and error, to make the second sock approximately the same size as the one she had finished. I needed to use smaller needles.The leg part was finished, I just knitted the foot in the darker yarn. Alpaca, lovely to knit. All the yarns in Kaija's box were really good quality.

Finishing other people's UFOs can be very satisfying, as I don't have the experience of the problem that made them stay unfinished. The pale beige mohair lace scarf may be tricky, as Kaija told me there is an error somewhere. Finding and fixing it may be difficult, and unraveling that kind of yarn is no child's play! I did unravel two of her UFOs, a fingerless mitten crocheted so tightly that I have no chance to create the missing pair, this is the brownish curly skein on the left of the thumbless mittens, and a black circle crocheted to make a hat. There was a big ball of that yarn, so I can give it a try and make her a black beret. At the moment I'm knitting something with the red self striping yarn from the top photo. 

This sock yarn I have knitted earlier is also self striping:

Suddenly we have Summer temperatures and I have planted the first summer flowers.

December 4 - Christmas Market

Today we are still at the Christmas Market in Järvenpää. There was a carousel!

And a big Christmas tree. It was almost sunny and the event was at noon, so the lights were not on yet.

Have you seen my daugher Kaija's amazing matchbox art non-christmassy advent calendar yet? She is posting a new piece of art every day until Christmas Eve. Here is where you get started: Paperiaarre .

Knitter's Block

This is my newest pair of socks, honey coloured honeycomb socks among autumn coloured bilberry leaves.

I like to spray the finished socks with water and stretch them out to dry to make my stitches look smoother and the pattern more visible.

My dear, clever Mr K. made me sock blocks in three sizes, and now the socks get a new, almost professional look.

Earlier this week we visited our DD Kaija and brought her some old things, and she designed and printed nice price tags for all my new socks and mittens. It was good to see her, and a lovely trip through beautiful landscapes, with the trees still in their autumn colours in bright sunshine.

Since my last post I have been busy with two more blocks for the Splendid Sampler quilt.

I'm again three blocks behind, but the ones I have waiting are all nice ones.

Our nights are cold by this time of the year so the morning temperatures are just around the freezing point.

 

Brassica and Calluna have replaced my summer annuals. It is time to cut down the perennials in the flowerbeds. All apples are cooked for the winter, I'm quite proud of my new record of 112 jars. They should last until next summer.

Accumulator Seriali Spinoff Series - Needle Keepers and a mystery tool

Last Saturday my daughter Kaija, the original Accumulator, showed her vintage pins and needles here. I don't have a single old package of needles, they have all gone straight to her, but I have quite many old and new needle keepers. So many that I can call it an accumulation, as I have not tried to collect them.

 The first one is a stitched little thing from my mother's side of the family.

On the left is a little pocket, and there are two pieces of felt for different needles.

The two holders at the top are traditional crafted items from Lapland, with an engraved reindeer pulling a Sami man in a sleigh. I would think they are souvenirs, maybe for my Grandmother and her younger sister, my great auntie Saima. Needles are fastened in a little piece of red felt sewn on the leather that goes from the bone ring through the hollow piece of reindeer bone, ending in the twisted loop used to hang the needle keeper on one's belt or on a hook.

The three small ones hold the needles loose inside. The wooden caps are just pushed on, but the tiny bone thing has a twisted on cap. The middle one has a text Gütermann's Nähseide, so it advertises popular sewing threads.

These three are my modern needle books, all from a very dear friend. I'm sorry I have misplaced the pink needlebook Kaija made for me when she was a little schoolgirl.

With the heart needlebook above at the bottom came also this pincushion I couldn't find when I showed you my pincushions here.

Which brings me to the other pincushions missing from that post:

On the left, the red dressmaker's pincushion and the felt flower were my mother's. The small round one with an elastic band is one that Kaija made for me at school. The red and greed one with an edelweiss is from my mother-in-law. The big acorn in felt and the little angel with a back pocket for scissors are by Melanie. I remember how my mother made the felt flower pincushions, I had one of my own as well. They were made for a craft fair to raise money for our school. The Women's Committee did an amazing job as money raisers and provided all kinds of useful things for the school, like a language laboratory which at that time was a rare treat. It took much more than some pincushions to reach their goals.

Finding all the needle things I came across this mysterious tool, two of them in fact:

The shaft is hollow, and there is a hole for some kind of yarn or thread. Any idea about the use?

Many of the same kind ...

... will make a collection before you know it.  Earlier this year my dear daughter Kaija started to write weekly about her various collections on her blog Paperiaarre . Her Accumulator Seriali stories and photos are published on Saturdays. Visit her blog and enjoy. As many of her treasures have passed through my hands, I started to think about my relation with beautiful things, tiny things, old things, and whether I collect something or not. Well, naturally books, but other things? Well, naturally crafty books too. I don't want to mention fabrics here, I really don't collect them but they accumulate in our household for various reasons. That's it: I really don't collect anything, I just happen to buy/get/keep/find many things that are alike. Take for instance pincushions. If you sew, you need a pincushion. If you have one sewing machine upstairs and another and an overlocker in the basement, and you do your hand sewing on the sofa, you will need three pincushions. The ones I use most are these:

On the left is a needle book with a tiny pincushion for hand projects, a gift from Melanie years ago, on the right a sand filled beauty with a hanging bag for thread ends, from Suzie years ago, perfect for the overlocker, and in the back one that Kaija made for me, also years ago.

But there are others. This one my mother used to keep on a side table with some other old things, and I would't dream of pushing any pins through the delicate silk (which is torn on the underside).

This little one is also very old.

I have some fancy ones:

and some beauties with cross stitch by Simone.

Some have a mushroom theme

and some look like something you could eat

This reversible one came with a wall calendar in the 70's from my sister M in Germany

And this one is from a swap in the early years of my blogging, from Marie.

These two are the only ones I have made for myself. I know there is at least one more pincushion misplaced, one that Kaija made for me in school.

Once more all together:

When I was picking the pincushions up from where they were used or displayed, I noticed some other accumulations of a crafty kind. I try to make a blog post about something else next week, and if al goes well there could be a series. I have no quilt in process right now so this could be a way to keep my blog active.

And do go and visit Kaija's Accumulator Seriali posts. She is a poet and has such a way with words. Seeing this post not only reminded me of the rocks and sand I had seen at home but also the numerous trips my parents made together. I went with them three times and saw an adventurous side of them I never thought such old people (they were over 60 by then!) could have. And I could suddenly smell my father's Old Spice after shave lotion. Go and read, and if you are a keeper, I hope at least one of your offspring or their children has inherited the gene.

Strawberry season continues

It seems like ages since my last post here, and I felt like I hadn't finished anything after the large quilt top. Then I noticed that I haven't shown you this needle book  I stitched for a dear friend for her birthday this Summer.

The wool strawberry is filled with emery to keep her needles sharp.

Our tiny strawberries give us a handful of ripe berries every day now. We have finally got Summer weather, just the most perfect sunny days with a fresh wind reminding of the Autumn just behind the corner.

On a sunny day about two weeks ago our DD Kaija was married. After the ceremony and lunch we helped to arrange the food on plates and in bowls to be served to the younger guests in the evening. The couple looked so happy! And therefore I'm so happy for them.

My morning glory has grown. The large blue flowers really only open for the morning.

This morning there was a lot of dew on the roses. The nights are getting cold, only about 5C, but I love the daytime 21C more than really hot days.

Learning the hard way

For the quilt show at Villa Cooper in April I borrowed some quilts from their new owners, and one of them was my greatest effort in quilting, the Grandmother's Garden quilt for my daughter Kaija. It was also the beginning of this blog in 2008. The quilt was started in 1993 when I didn't know very much about quilting. One of the important things I didn't know back them was that it is not wise to use very old and very worn fabrics, however lovely and filled with sweet childhood memories they might be.

I picked the fabrics in my mother's attic where she had boxes of old clothes and fabric rests to be used for rag rugs, like old clothes usually were recycled in my country. Frayed fabrics were cut wider so they would last, no problem there. But if you find a lovely pair of doll's long trousers in the sweetest fabric with apples and green leaves and little red stripes, you are tempted to use that fabric for as many hexagons as you can, aren't you?  And look what happens:

The other fabrics are all nice and without any holes, but the apple pants just didn't make it. Six whole blocks, all with damages in so many hexagons that it it not worth it to try to save the best of them to make even one new block with them. I'm going to repair this quilt before returning it to my daughter.

At the moment Kaija's quilt has six gaping hopes like this:

I still had the paper templates I used to make the quilt, and some leftover hexagons too. 

  

I found some matching fabrics, and spent yesterday's Giro d'Italia TV time basting them on my papers.

Today is stage 5 of the Giro, and my plan is to finish the blocks, and maybe do some knitting.

P.S. I checked all the fabrics for the new blocks, and they are either unused or in good condition.

Quilt Show at the Villa Cooper

There it is, my polka dot peppermint candy quilt with a border and binding.

Kaija brought me the solid red binding fabric on Sunday and helped with the hand sewing at the other end of the quilt. I needed the quilt for my quilt show we were scheduled to put up on Monday.

Welcome to Villa Cooper! On the wall, hanging with the generous help of Mr K. is my pride, the Grandmother's Garden quilt for Kaija. Hand pieced during 1993-2003, hand quilted in 2008.

The show's title says something about many shirts making a quilt, and these quilts have many shirts in common. The Bear Paw is from this year, the Maverick Stars is older, and the 9-patch was made for Anne Marie's challenge in 2011.

On the chair is the String Quilt, on the other chair the polka dots and a light blue Friendship Star quilt from 2008.

This closet is usually reserved for small exhibitions but as my quilts are so big, I was allowed more space. On the double doors are my two quilts that combine embroidery with a quilt, the Raggedy & Friends on the left and Scandinavian Snowball Fun on the right. These quilts go around the door so you can see the other side too. The Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls are a gift from Eileen many years ago. Further on the left is the Granny Square quilt from 2012.

Inside the closet is the tumbler quilt I made for Mr K. in our Summer Stash Challenge in 2008 when my blog was very new, and next to it my own After Work quilt. On the upper shelves are some table runners, place mats and such, and on the walls some bags, almost all of them made with Stephanie's patterns. 

On the little table is a folder with photos of other quilts I have already given away but wanted to show too. Kaija was playing a computer wizard and made everything look good, and edited and printed my photos.

Now you have seen why I have been so busy and finished three quilts this year! Luckily there were also many old quilts I could borrow from their owners.