Bird watching and knitting tiny sweaters

Once again I have a couple of Unicef dolls coming. This is the first one almost finished, a little boy doll for a little boy.

I knitted  this sweater to use up some yarn that was not so nice for socks or mittens. It is waiting for a girl doll to get some hair and the rest of her clothes.

On nice days we have been bird watching and met some new birds. This is a male Goldeneye, Bucephala clangula (telkkä). We met in April for the first time. 

The other end of his pond was still covered with ice.

On today's walk we met some punk birds I had never met before. They had like brown hair standing upright on top of their head.

According to our books and the internet, they are Horned grebes, Podiceps auritus (mustakurkku-uikku), and there was another couple on the same pond. 

And finally another bird we didn't see near our old home, an Eurasian wigeon, Mareca penelope (haapana).

If you missed our local swans, here they are from an earlier walk. One is hiding behind the other.

Today they were having lunch near their nest so I didn't want to disturb them by taking photos.

 

Green patches

This week all my 9-patches are in greenish shades. I try to keep it limited to my plaid shirt collection, mixed with some solids and some stripes.

This no-snow Winter is confusing for the nature. Blue tits are looking for suitable houses for their nests already, but their normal house-hunting season is in April/May.

The first snow bells are open in our garden, at least a month too early.

Day 17

Feed the birds! This is oats for the bullfinches and yellowhammers.

Day 12

On the twelfth day of December my dear husband gave to me these. Just a few days ago he showed me a hazel grouse in a birch tree. Partridges need more rural surroundings than their cousins.

Dolls playing in the snow

Hi readers,

it is Titty here again. The other day we had sunny weather and just a little minus degrees so we sneaked out without jackets (because Auntie Ulla has not sewn us any yet). You know, frozen snow is dry so we didn't get wet socks or anything.

Oh yes, this is our little brother Roger. He is only seven, but clearly bigger than baby Bridget, so he can join us on our adventures.

Of course he can make his own adventures as well. When I was not looking, he climbed a tree to see far beyond the garden.

This Winter there has been lots of snow. Uncle K. said it was twice as high as what is left now. Auntie Ulla said it was as deep as her quilting ruler could measure, and then some. Some snow has now melted, and the rain has packed the layers tighter too.

My new trousers and hat with the pompom are really nice and comfortable. Can you imagine, Roger has managed to get tiny holes in the backside of his dungarees! That comes from climbing trees and sliding down slopes of snow.

We spotted a redpoll feeding on the sunflower seeds on the ground, and a bank vole is hiding under the little twig in the upper left corner. He too likes the seeds. Then we had to hurry inside, because it was getting cold for us. We had some hot chocolate with biscuits, and there was a nice fire in the fireplace when we came in.

Have a nice weekend! See you next time!

Busy December

December started with Santa's arrival to Järvenpää, as usual in a sleigh on wheels, pulled by his faithfull Finnhorse Uuras. Unfortunately my photo didn't catch the whole horse.

  Here is a portrait of him from an earlier visit when we had some snow too in early December:

Santa greeted us, his little tonttu elves were not looking very happy in the cold wind.

The parade included several sport clubs and such, but they were not carrying any signs with their names so we had to guess who they were.

This group at least was obviously dog friends

or maybe sheep farmers? Or are those dogs with reindeer antlers?

I have been making little gifts

in red and white

and socks in many sizes

some so dark I could hardly see what I was knitting.

Other gifts were mailed before I remembered to take photos, and some will not be shown before Christmas for obvious reasons.

We started feeding the birds again in October after a long Summer break. Surprisingly, the bullfinches come in biggest numbers, 6 to 15 at a time, but there are great tits, blue tits, coal tits, willow tits and even long tailed tits (who are not really tits any more but have their own group name) regularly coming to enjoy their sunflower seeds. Today we saw a tree creeper again, jays (Eurasian Jay) come often just like magpies. Sometimes the blackbird (Turdus merula) visits, they may stay here fort he Winter. We have just a little snow now, enough to make the world seem less black.

Antique Fair and end of knitting tour

Last weekend was the annual Antique Fair in our village. Well, they have started calling it antique, vintage and retro, as much of the stuff was far from being antique.

The birch bark shoes on the table look brand new but the technique is old and the shoes are probably only used for interior decoration.

Some fishing gear from the 60's, glass fibre rods and modern reels.

Glass from the 50's to 70's is a popular theme among collectors. It looks like people are looking for things they used to have in their childhood home.

Old copper pots and pans, washboards for mother and daughter.

By the end of the Tour de France cycling race I finished the lace socks in this upside down picture,

and a pair in the bubble pattern in yellow and green.

A baby thrush was "hiding" on the lawn and only moved after I had taken this picture. The future berry thief looked quite endearing!

Sneak peek of the new quilt

Now that  the blue and white baby socks are all knitted, I came back to my colourful yarns. I found four balls of this lovely yellow in a shop and knitted a pair of socks in adult size, and went on in a smaller adult size. Because there was still yarn left, I knitted a third pair in a child size. Each pair has a slightly different heel. After having knitted three pairs I still had those two tiny balls left. I thought they will make a nice stripe in a new pair of socks in a different colour.

I was putting the rest yarn in my storage box where I keep this type of yarn, and guess what? I found two more balls of the same yarn I had bought last year because I really liked this colour, and the rest from the first pair I had knitted. That means I can knit two more pairs in a child size!

When I arranged the blocks for the blue and white quilt of my previous post, I played with them a little and came up with an idea. I really liked working with big blocks for a change, and the plaids look better in them too. So I took this lovely grey flannel I have been hoarding for many years, and a pile of other than blue shirts, and made these blocks:

Next time I will show what became of them.

We had some sunny days and migrating birds started coming. This small thrush, redwing, is a welcome guest we have not seen in many years.

Yesterday's weather brought new snow. We had already decided to keep filling the bird feeder until the weather gets warmer, and now with the snow it is essential to take care of our little friends.

Half Square Triangles

Completing the Paper Lantern quilt top in a short time made me think I could keep on piecing simple quilt tops that don't take a year. While I was suffering from a nasty cold. I thought of all the shirts I have waiting in cardboard boxes, cut apart and ironed, sorted according to colour. Blocks have been cut from them, but there are large bits left. The blue box is full, especially because I didn't use any blues in the big Shadow Plaid quilt. Dolores is making a red and white quilt to celebrate Canada's 150 years of independence, so I thought I could do the same in blue and white for our 100 years.

I cut the fabrics in 7" squares and made them into HSTs. Ironed and trimmed to 6½".

Much time and 107 squares later:

The 8" Bias Square ruler is perfect for trimming any HSTs. I place the diagonal line on my diagonal seam, and the squares will be not only the correct size but also look correct.

The trimmed squares waiting for the next step.

After the baby sock project I needed something different, so I dug out the scarf I have started maybe two years ago. The yarn is lovely and very fine, 800 metres for 100 grams, alpaca and silk.  The lace pattern is very difficult to follow when the knitting looks like this:

I laid the project aside all those months ago after I had to unravel a whole lace repeat of 18 rows. Now I tried again and I think it went right this time. I didn't want to take the risk of running out of yarn in the middle of the last lace repeat so I knitted less garter stitch between the lace rows. Naturally there was some yarn left. I need to get some kind of urethane board so I can stretch my fine scarf into shape. I'm back to sock knitting again!

Yesterday we saw the first robin of the spring, and today came the first finch. I don't have new pictures of the newcomers so I will show you the treecreeper hiding on our oak in February:

Have a happy weekend!

New quilt top, last socks and this and that

Today I finished this Paper Lanterns quilt top, just ten days after starting it. It has 100 blocks like my previous one, but half of them are just plain solid squares and the others are not too complicated either.

The pattern is Stephanie's Paper Lanterns, and you can buy it here. Her version is smaller and very feminine. I wanted to make bigger blocks and a bigger quilt, so I enlarged the blocks, and I made my lanterns shine in a dark August night. - I think I can manage to quilt this one on my sewing machine.

I used all my "impossible" fabrics, large prints, almost no colour in some, and fuzzy cut some big flowers from an odd shaped leftover piece. Some of the fabrics are from my mother, corner pieces left over when she made a round tablecloth. Some are my own curtain or cushion cover rests, and many come from my sister P. The fabric in the bottom row center is from a summer frock of my dear great auntie Saima. So once again I have sewn memories of the family into my quilt.

The blue and white sock challenge for babies born in Finland this year is doing really well. Of the 56,556 pairs of sock estimated to be needed, 55,706 pairs have been delivered to maternity wards throughout the country. A few hundred pairs are still missing from the big hospitals in the metropolitan area, and it is only March. I used up all my blue and white wool yarns and finished this lot last week:

I took them to the Flying Mitten on Monday, and once again they had a basket full of socks waiting to be collected and delivered. I reached my goal of 60 pairs, and even exceeded it by one pair. This has been a fun challenge, but it is over now and I have gone back to other colours and larger socks.

Little grandson has been busy painting and drawing, and his apron needs to be washed a lot. Therefore I was asked to make another one, and as there was some material left, and the pattern was there, it only took a little while to put this together for him:

It is time to clean the bird houses again for new residents. One house had fallen down in the strong wind, and another one had a big hole after an attack by a woodpecker. Mr K. made six brand new houses, with some variation in the opening diameter so the blue tits can take the smallest ones and others can choose between the larger entrances. Our trees have their birdhouses, so the new ones were placed in the woods around us.

We can see almost all of them from the kitchen window or from the places where we drink our afternoon tea in the garden. Not yet, but when the birds are nesting.