End of Tour de Baby Hat

 The cyclists have reached their destination and so has my knitting. There is still one hat on the needles, but

66 hats are here, all ready to be delivered to the maternity ward for new babies. Some of my hats ended up rather large so I decided to take them to the Red Cross collection point where they take donations for the refugees who come to our cold country with so little. Winter clothes are needed, and anything for little babies.

Our grandson has naturally grown out of the white outfit I knitted before he was born, so I made him a new set. The hat covers the ears and forehead, the size is for right now so I can see myself knitting a Winter version very soon. The mittens are without thumbs, but the next pair must be with thumbs so he can hold his shovel or make his first snowballs. The socks are once again train socks (if you click the link, you find the English translation of the pattern, and the story behind the socks).

I made him two bibs too now that he is eating delicious food with a spoon.

September means often the beginning of new classes or hobbies, for me too. I'm taking a class in yarn techniques, just once a month for an evening. Last week we started with Bavarian crochet. With the big holes this will be no good as a potholder, but when it grows a little, it could be a nice dishcloth.

For dessert a picture of my flower box in August to remind of the Summer that is clearly ending.

Flying Geese, Dresden Plates and more hats for babies

After a lot of cutting and sewing, all 88 geese are flying in a nice formation around the houses of this mystery quilt I'm making after Kaaren's design.

The corners have blue Dresden Plates appliquéd on yellow table cloth (really, this was a self-made tablecloth for a Summer party some years ago).

I like trying new blocks in a small scale, like just four Dresdens. I only have made a Dresden plate block once before in my life, when I made a bag after Stephanie's pattern.

Then of course I have been knitting. The broadcast from the Vuelta is usually just a little over an hour so these baby hats are not strictly Grand Tour hats. I simply like to keep my hands busy when I'm watching something not too demanding or interesting on TV, and so there are 11 new hats for my bag to be taken to the maternity ward. I try to make them for every taste, for boys and girls, small heads and bigger ones. It is fun to try out new patterns, and I happened to develop a new one too: the white hat in the middle was going to be 2 tog, yarn over, purl 1 but I started accidentally with ssk, yarn over, purl 1 and so the zig zag pattern is softer than 

in this yellow one in the middle of the front row. Oh, I see these make together already 21, my goal for the Vuelta. I still have some yarn left, and the Vuelta ends on this coming Sunday.

Maybe 70 hats instead of the intended 63 would make a nicer number?

Shadow Plaid quilt top and Tour de Baby Hat 2015

Finally the Shadow Plaid quilt top is finished, with all four borders and extra rows in the centre.

I'm quite pleased how I managed to get the corners right, only one corner needed some adjusting to make the bias squares meet. The next big step will be the layering of this large quilt and quilting it on my machine. I don't know about the Queen and King sizes, but this will cover two beds nicely. It feels good to have the quilt at this stage after maturing the plan for so many years. It wasn't even an UFO really, just some squares cut and some unlucky bias seams sewn.

The Tour de France is over for this year and I can have some free time again ;o). It just happened that I knitted one extra baby hat. This baby boy yarn only needed 64 stitches and about 70 rows so I often started a second hat and didn't keep count on the finished hats every day. The finer yarns I used for the lace patterns needed about 90 stitches.

All Tour hats in a group photo. Now I only need to knit 20 hats in August during the Vuelta which is not so interesting to watch as many of the stages are on big open roads.

Tour de Baby Hat, second day of rest

The cyclists are reaching the Alps and enjoying their well earned rest today. Many have been hurt in crashes during the first stages, many continue the race with bleeding limbs patched on the road and later properly. Last night I experienced some dangerous moments with hard cheese and a cheese slicer:

My grip slipped, and I sliced away the scar on my thumb from a previous cheese slicer accident some years ago. There was a lot of bleeding, but luckily I just missed a proper vein. This picture is from this morning, with a new dressing on the wound. I'm just showing you how far I was with the next baby hat before I had to stop for the night.

Here are the week's hats, the last bits of the light green and the white I used during the Giro, and a collection of the tiniest rests in the green, blue and multi colour hat. On the right is the first hat with the Sirdar Kisses baby acrylic, the second one is on the needles. I found a bag with six balls of this yarn, in green and blue shades. This will look a bit boring but keep me busy for the rest of the Tour and beginning of the Vuelta d'Espagne.

In celebration of the 50th year since I hurt my knee I'm on the waiting list for a knee replacement. My old stick from the school days didn't look too great, so I decided to do some yarn bombing. I didn't want to look like an old granny with a walking stick, so I crocheted some bright granny squares to cheer up my stick and maybe to get a smile or two when I limp around.

Close-up of my grannies:

I was wondering if the doctors would give me a smart looking knee after all the years I have been walking around with chubby knees and a huge scar in one, but I can forget about mini skirts for the rest of my life: they will only replace the damaged surfaces of my old bones and add another scar to the knee. Now it is just waiting for Winter and my turn on their long list.

Tour de Baby Hat, first day of rest

Here is the rest of the "Giro pink" yarn with the rest of the very light pink.

Then I moved to a rainbow ball of yarn - the cycling world champion always wears a "Rainbow jersey", a white shirt with five coloured stripes.

Finally a group photo of the first baby hats of the first nine days of the Tour de France watching. Today the cyclists are resting, and tomorrow I'll be visiting DD Kaija in Jyväskylä.

The Shadow Plaid quilt centre is finished, and after taking this photo I have added the two first borders. I just need to cut more squares to make the pieced border, so it may take some time...

 Some projects don't want to play with me nicely. This is one of them. I was excited to start it quite a long time ago, one Winter.

I had not much experience with HSTs at the time, so I cut my fabrics exactly like the pattern said. My seam allowances weren't as scant as they ought to have been. Arrgh! Better store such a project away for a long while. Now I have unpicked some seams, cut down several hopelessly too small squares for a smaller project, and cut lots of new more generous squares. I have drawn diagonal lines, sewn diagonal seams and cut 146 medium/dark HSTs and so far 116 dark/light HSTs.

Still a lot of sewing and cutting and trimming to do before I get to the fun part, arranging the squares to blocks.

This year we have had to wait for warm (over 20C/68F) days longer than in 50 years. In Järvenpää, the same organizers as before have planted flowers to cheer up the streets, especially this ugly fence around a parking lot.

In 2013 they used boots and in 2014 handbags as planters. The florist shop sells a special bouquet of flowers all year, and for each sold bouquet they donate one plant for this project. They have donated 1,000 plants again this year!

I really like this year's idea with bicycles that have reached the end of their cycling life, painted all in different shades, with all kinds of baskets and 

even an old barbeque on top of a painted suitcase or a metal bucket look fun.

Another Aviatrix baby hat for a friend to give to the future granddaughter (?) of  her sister. I really like this pattern and I hope it will suit the baby. The flowers can be removed if the baby is a boy.

This is the first year that our rhododendron is in full bloom, at least this one. Maybe it likes this 12C/56F temperature and the strong winds!

First baby hat goal reached

Do you remember the baby hat challenge I set for myself in May during the Giro d'Italia? I wanted to knit one baby hat for the hospital for each of the 21 stages of the cycling tour I watched with Mr K.

Here are 19 hats, including the top left one I knitted before the race, but not counting one white hat that already went for a tiny baby due soon, and the hat and booties set that I sent to our nephew's son. The next knitting session will be the great Tour de France beginning on 4th of July, also 21 stages and about 3,000 kilometers.

Mr K. has been busy again with his Summer projects. This week he added the wall triangle to this end of our terrace and painted it red. The other end is more difficult so he will rent a lift thingie.

Last night we had a 0 temperature but the garden flowers are used to it, they seem to last longer in this not so warm weather. Today is the day when it is traditionally safe to plant the potatoes and summer flowers. No more night frosts to be expected.

Baby things and finished repair job

This week we had baby news from a nephew, and I knitted this set of hat and booties for his brand new son. The yarn is 50% cotton, 50% acrylic, and the colour is more teal than in the picture.

This set counts for one stage of the Giro knitting. Two more stages to watch and knit!

Earlier I made this nursing cushion for my daughter-in-law.

The idea came from Dolores, and the pattern from one of the links on her blog.

I made two covers, the baby fabric one has the zipper in the inner curve and this other one in the outer curve, which seems to be both easier to sew and easier to use. For some reason this cover is not as tight as the other.

Last week I finished the repair of my daughter's quilt and gave the quilt a final touch by soaking it and giving it a gentle wash in the machine. 

Here it is drying on the line in the sun. you really can't tell the new blocks from the old ones any more. 

The garden has recovered from the winter very well and we have more pearl hyacinths both is blue and in white than we had before.

Autumn Break

This is the beginning of Autumn. See how bare the young aspen already are! They didn't even have time to change their colour properly.

 

 

The Summer flowers have been replaced by Chrysanthemums.

 

The rowans are full of berries. That was good for our apples, no need for the bugs and worms to attack them when they had enough of their natural food in the forest.

 

 

I have crocheted half of my granny squares for my cardigan. The other half must wait until I can use both my hands again.

 

 

Another baby thing knitted, to go with the Princess Estelle's cardigan.

 

I'm prepared for the weeks with idle hands:

 

 

Here is about half of the books I have kept waiting. Some of them are too big or heavy to read in bed, some were just new hand-me-downs, and some especially borrowed for this special occasion of having the chance to read all day long. About a dozen of the Elm Creek novels are waiting on the shelf for me to I finish the triple volume that comes first in the series.

 

This is it, dear friends. I'll be back some time in November or so ... keep posting about your lovely projects and I will visit your blog when I can. Comments I can't promise for quite a while.

Travel report and a tiny new finish

A week ago we attended our nephew's wedding in Germany. The wedding ceremony took place at the town hall where they had a special room for it. This is a part of a large appliqué on the wall.

The celebration started at noon in this garden of the restaurant where dinner was served in the evening. The weather was rather chilly so we didn't feel like sitting in these chairs facing the wind from the lake Pilsensee.

The wedding cake was cleverly chosen: each layer was a different cake, just the icing was the same. I hade some dark chocolate cake from the bottom layer. A young wedding guest was admiring the cake before it was cut.

As always, the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, the food was delicious and the wedding party was a happy one. After 13 hours of driving and celebrating, elderly people like we were quite exhausted!

At home, the apple trees are doing their best to compensate for last year's harvest of 10 apples/tree. The branches reach to the ground under their heavy burden. I cooked the first lot today.

I couldn't resist the pattern of the Swedish Princess Estelle's cardigan pattern in my handicraft magazine. The original was knitted by Queen Silvia's mother Alicia, obviously for baby Silvia 70 years ago and not for baby Estelle.