Scandinavian Christmas once again

Two years ago we had a sew-along to make Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas quilt together. Melanie and I started it together, and some others joined us. I made the quilt using my own fabrics. I really had no place to hang it, and it was too small for a lap quilt for the nursery home. Then I got the idea of putting it to use in another way.

My sister P knew some ladies who raise money for good causes. The Zonta ladies' Fistula Project sounded like something I wanted to support. So finally my little quilt was the raffle prize at a larger Zonta meeting, and they managed to raise €420 or $530, which sounds like even more money.

Then two of the ladies came to thank me, and brought me all these yellow roses to lighten up my day. Happy End!

The Winner is...

... randomly generated number 36!

 

Counting from the newest comment back, number 36 is Dolores from True Blue Canadian with her comment on Colours are changing on October 17th. This is a funny coincidence: I promised to send something typically Finnish as today is our Independence Day, and Dolores has Finnish roots. Congratulations, Dolores! Rye bread will not be a mystery to you then.

 

Today we finally had some snow to lighten up the landscape.

 

 

 

I have been sewing a little, knitting a little and Tunisian crocheting too.

 

I wish you all lots of ideas and energy for your Christmas preparations.

 

 

Tour de Fibre 20 - more stitching

Yesterday's post reminded me of the Scandinavian Christmas quilt I was stitching last year as a part of the Tour de Fibre 2012. I took out another Lynette Anderson project, Scandinavian Snowball Fun, that I was going to stitch together with Melanie last Autumn. Life (and the opposite) happened, and I couldn't get my project started. Melanie has finished ages ago but said she will keep her project secret until I'm ready.

 

 

So I have built a cosy nest on the sofa, where I'm surrounded by the pattern sheets, three snowball blocks to stitch, and my floss and thimbles and needles.

 

I had prepared the blocks months ago but for some reason - again - didn't proceed. I know I have too little dark red floss, so I have stitched on all the blocks with other colours and keep on doing so until on Monday I can buy that missing floss. There is still so much to stitch here! The long  Eurosport broadcasts from the Tour de France in the Alps have been just perfect for this project. Yesterday the Finnish reporters told about a lady who was supposedly knitting on her 4th sweater during the Tour, and they found the idea quite hilarious. They immediately imagined a family wearing a yellow, green, white and dotty sweater. How little do they know! In addition to our Tour de Fibre I have seen a Tour de Fleece for spinners - and they were not having a spinning group at a gym, but making yarn - and there must be other more or less loosely formed groups, who all combine the great cycling event with things to do with their hands while watching. Three weeks of intensive work on old and new projects mean good results! A stitchery in the hand also prevents me from eating all the time quite efficiently.

 

In the garden the hosta is in bloom. We planted 5 plants of 4 different species of hosta some three years ago, and it looks like we have to give them a little more space and replant some of them in a new place.

A break between projects

Today I enjoyed a peaceful moment in the sun. I had a new book, a cup of hot chocolate on my new coaster from Melanie, and some home baked gingerbread in the little basket I made. These were the little gifts we sent together to all the ladies who have been stitching Scandinavian Christmas with us.

A closer look: Melanie chose the little bird from the appliqué for her wool coasters, and I used a churn dash block like the quilt had between the blocks and snowflake stitcheries. I will keep updating the link list on the right when our stitch along ladies post about their achievements.

For my part the Scandinavian Christmas is finished, but I bought a new book by Lynette Anderson. There are some smaller projects in it I think I can manage by myself. The SC was such an amount of cross stitches that I could not have finished it without the others.

My next project for the evenings looks like this:

Kaite from Australia sent me some soft baby acrylics for charity baby blankets. My fingers are already itching for them, but I have two and a half squares to knit on the heavy wool blanket I started during the TdF. Actually, the wool is a bit itchy but the baby yarns feel super soft.

The hostas are in bloom in our garden.

Tour de Fibre day 5 - SC finish and some knitting

Yesterday's cycling was nothing too dramatic, and as I don't have any countrymen participating, there is no extra excitement. Therefore I managed to get my Scandinavian Christmas quilt officially finished, with binding, label and sleeve. 

Today is cloudy so the picture quality is what it is. You have seen close-ups of the blocks during the SAL so I will not bore you with new ones. On my sidebar under the Scandinavian Christmas button are all the links to the 7 stitchers who have told me or Melanie that they are playing with us. Each link is to the latest post of the block in question. If I have missed your post, please let me know and I'll add the new link. This has been a demanding project with lots of work, but also satisfied feelings after a goal has been reached. Without the group's support I would not have finished the quilt for a long time, and I hope my finish will encourage others to keep up their good work.

For the rest of the evening I continued work on the baby hat. You can see on my ball of yarn how much I still have to knit to get where I was before unknitting the enormous hat with a dropped stitch.

Finally a peek in the garden; the hosta is about to show its pale flowers:

TdF day 4 - binding experiences

My Tour de Fibre post has been rescheduled for the next morning because we watch the Tour de France in the evening after work. Preparing for the 4th day I sewed the binding on my SC and thought it looked a little odd.

This was not the first binding I made ever, but someone might think otherwise. Anyway, after unpicking it I had a perfect , endless binding to attach to the right side of my quilt. During the cycling I managed to hand sew it almost all way round, just the corner for the label is waiting for tonight. I remembered to add a sleeve too, as you can see in the top right corner below. The other edge of it needs hand sewing too.

Our pink peonies are in full bloom now, and their scent reminds me of baking.

I have been working on the Helping Hands scarves from Melanie as well. The squares need to be cut to same size now. The scarves had slightly different widths and lengths too.

I have this book by Kaffe Fassett, and my quilt is inspired by the cover of the book.

TdF day 2 - a minor setback

Day two of Tour de Fibre didn't bring much progress as you can see:

A pink preemie hat among my pink peonies, close to being finished. And here ten minutes later:

I had dropped a stitch way back and couldn't make it good again, and the hat was more suitable for a one-year old than a preemie, so I will use a pattern that will not be so loose.

I decided to add some stitches to my Scandinavian Christmas instead:

If you want to watch the Tour de Fibre, there are links to many participating blogs on Hanne's sidebar.

Tour de Fibre day 1

I have joined Hanne in her Tour de Fibre, trying to get some handwork done during the Tour de France. My main project will be the Scandinavian Christmas quilting and binding.

Today I finished the stitchery on the label, and tomorrow I hope to get some quilting started. As I can't sew for long times without a break, I have some knitting projects at hand too. I hope to blog every day about my progress - today was an exception with two blog posts!

SC 5 and some PIPS finishes

Today is the day which meant end of school and the beginning of three whole months of Summer holidays when I went to school. My first Summer holiday started with my first wristwatch and measles.

Wagtails have returned from the South, marching busily on our lawn and catching insects.

I set myself a goal to finish the Scandinavian Christmas top by the end of May, and so I did. The hearts for the outer border were easy to applique.

The top grew so much bigger with the borders! I will use the greyish brown linen of the inner border for the binding too.

Yesterday I visited my big sister P, and now I can show you what I have been making for her new cabin. First, a tea cosy with the same fabric as in the old big tea cosy from our childhood summer place. I have the original one, and mother had given me the leftover square to make a potholder or something. It was not very big, so I used black cotton for the other side. I hope my sister will remember all the lovely summer outdoors afternoon coffees from back home when she uses this.

Her new basic apron used to be her own kitchen curtain. I made one apron to be a "staff uniform" for the Villa Cooper shop earlier this year using this same fabric,

and here is another of her fabrics I used for an apron then. P asked for covers for guest pillows used on a sofa when not needed for sleeping. Both have a hidden zipper at the back.

That was about everything from the sewing front.  All these have been waiting in my PIPS box for my mood to change so I can get them done. It feels good to see the project bags disappear from the box! I have been knitting baby things for the hospital in the evenings but there is not much to show yet.

Our apple trees are in full bloom now. This was a few days ago, now the petals are falling from the tree in front, but the bigger tree is still getting whiter. I could use the apples again, as last year there were hardly any apples. The weather is not warm now, but I have seen bees around the trees so let's hope for a good harvest. A moderate harvest, please.

Secrets revealed and wonders of the nature

It has been a long time since my last post, due to Internet problems. Things are getting better now and I hope to catch up my blog reading soon.
This is what I have been working on in secret:

In February I heard through Simone about the Stained Quilt Along hosted by Sarah at Narcoleptic in a Cupboard. After seeing Simone's blue and grey fabrics I thought my son's shirts would make a lovely stained glass quilt to match the Business Class quilt I made for his birthday.

His long-time girlfriend has her birthday this week and I had a chance to give this to her yesterday

They had invited us and her parents for a very delicious Mother's Day lunch at their home. The quilting is in the ditch as I didn't want to disturb the "glass".  -  I couldn't resist borrowing DD's stained glass angel for the last picture. There is no border in this quilt, just a narrow binding in the same grey as the sashings. Sarah's pattern was for a crib size quilt and I wanted to make a lap size, so I added a row at the bottom and to one size. I forgot to measure the finished quilt but it should be around 55.5" x 66.5".

Marimekko has taken old prints into production again. This one is "Helsinki - Helsingfors" by Per-Olof Nyström from 1952, the year of the Helsinki Olympics. I don't remember this print from my childhood, but my mother used to have summer dresses and skirts in this style. I found this piece of fabric in the local Marimekko shop and used it for a shopping bag for my sister Maija in Germany.

And now some spring feelings. Wood Anemone is one of the first wild spring flowers, usually popping up for Mother's Day.

My daffodils like their new place and are blooming right now. This is their second spring in this spot.

The green finches were courting over lunch. He on the right is showing his nice yellow wing feathers.

Mr. Pheasant has four lovely ladies, here he is watching over two of them having lunch. He is wearing his spring feathers, with brighter colours and much red in the face.

 

I almost forgot to update my Scandinavian Christmas. Here is Block 4 all finished:

And here it is added to the other three. I'm slowly starting work on the border of hearts and snowflakes. If you want to see a finished Scandinavian Christmas, pop over to Melanie. She is being a star pupil!

This is all for today, I hope to come back soon with new finishes.

Trip to Germany, Part 2, about Fly Fishing and Scandinavian Christmas

Between two rainy days, Saturday was warm and sunny. We headed to the 7th International Experience the World of Fly Fishing. On our previous visit we had a wonderful lunch at the Restaurant Fürstenfelder at Kloster Fürstenfeldbruck old monastery, and there we saw posters of the coming event. We could not extend our visit to the fly fishing event at that time, but before booking the flights for this year's visit we made sure to be there at the right time. In the old monastery buildings the exhibition was spread on two floors. - I promised you some more traditional clothing, here the gentleman is wearing a felt hat. Pictures of my SC are at the end of this post, feel free to jump over the travel report part.

 

Examples of finer fly fishing gear: silk lines. 

The most interesting part of the event was outdoors at the casting pools.

The Austrian casting guru Roman Moser demonstrated different one-handed rod casting styles; here he is showing an Englishman's style:

At the end of his demonstration he showed that a rod is not always necessary if you master the double haul cast. He shortened his rod with every cast, ending up with just the line in his hands and the fly still reached the wanted spot every time. Looks so easy when you know what you are doing. For those of you who are not Candace or otherwise familiar with fly fishing, the fly with the hook weighs "nothing" and it flies because of the weight of the line and the energy transmitted to the line from the rod movement.

After the demonstration Mr. Moser had a casting clinic at the other pool. Mr. K. got some useful tips and a velcro band for holding his wrist in line with the rod.

A girl's eye wandered after fashion: a Scottish fly fisherman met with a local one.

Among the audience a traditional Bavarian men's jacket. Antti Guttorm from Finland is demonstrating casting with a two-handed/switch rod and Skagit casting.

In the Monastery's park there are modern sculptures. This one was on the lawn where visitors could test rods and practise their casting.

The name of the sculpture is "Istsituation", could be translated as Status Quo.

Wild Primula on the lawn.

Fritillaria - one flower checkered, the other white, with a dandylion under it.

Before going home we had grown quite an appetite, so we decided to try the other restaurant at the Monastery, Klosterstübchen.

The Wiener Schnitzel was big enough to feed a small family, but somehow I managed to eat most of it.

On Monday, when changing trains on the way to the airport, I had a chance to take a photo of the peculiar "nests" we had seen on many trees.

No nests at all, but mistletoe, Viscum Album. They don't grow in Finland.

Finally, at last, my finished Block 3 of Scandinavian Christmas by Lynette Anderson. I'm stitching this together with Annik, Elin, Grethe, Hanne, Lynn and Melanie. You can see their results through the links on my right sidebar under Scandinavian Christmas. Here's my stitchery:

And here the new block with numbers 1 and 2. I'm starting number 4 now.

While bonding the applique parts for block 3 I made some hearts for the border as well - there will be a lot of blanket stitching with these in the evenings when the time comes!