Yarn bent on different curves

 My first attempt to make a shawl with a very hairy mohair yarn was a) too long and b) impossible to unravel, so I decided it will be a scarf for dark winter days, wrapped around my neck 4-fold and three times round. It looks rather like something you could draw from the vacuum cleaner hose when it is clogged, dust caught by a long piece of yarn.

The rest of the ball was used for this shawl. This time I started with the desired width and crocheted as far as the yarn reached. A nice mosquito net for cool summer evenings, don't you think?

The pattern is Solomon's knots or Lover's knots. Easy to crochet, but also easy to crochet too many loops or too few, and then you need to un-crochet.

I had this lovely hand-dyed merino/polyamide yarn for my birthday and found a nice new almost lacy pattern to try on. French heels almost done!

On the 3rd of May we had already tiny leaves on the silver birches but also new snow for two days. Some parts of Finland had more, up to 6", and it snowed on top of old snow so it must have felt like proper winter again.

But today we have a sunny day and the ground is covered in white again, but this time it is wild wood anemones. Where I grew up we didn't have them, but hepatica was what we picked for Mother's Day in May. Here wood anemone is the spring flower for Mother's Day or "just so". Sometimes I miss the beautiful blue and purplish shades of hepatica.

New year, old memories

Hi again! A new year has begun but I'm showing you some pictures of my Christmas doings. This ice skating outfit was a gift for my sister's Unicef doll in Germany. One of my newest dolls is just acting as a model.

When I was just learning to stay upright on my hockey (!) skates, my big sister's skills were on a totally different level. She had figure skating style skates, and our mother made her a grey felt skirt with white pompom trimming and knitted her a red jumper and a matching beanie with an opening for her ponytail at the top. She (and her doll) has dark hair which looks so much better with red than this amateur model's red and orange.

I can't remember what my sister was wearing under the skirt but could imagine red damasks as they were called back then when leggings or even pantyhoses were not yet invented. I never could skate properly and never got to wear this loveliness even after she had grown out of it. I liked skiing better, and I had a beautiful yellow and white jumper.

A year ago a new crafting fashion swept over Finland, and this year I could not resist the idea of making a little door for Santa's little tonttu elf.

I thought the children would laugh at my idea, but to my big surprise our daughter was excited to see it and took a photo to show her friends that the doors and the tontut do exist. This was a kit from a hobby shop, I just painted it with my half dried out crafting paints. The wreath is crocheted on a seal ring from a juice jar.

December was a busy knitting month. Bright red stripes to cheer up basic men's socks.

I hardly ever knit patterns with one yarn going behind the stitches, but in this one the loops are only one stitch long. This lot has been knitted after Christmas, when so many films were on TV.

One of my favorite combinations, pale pink with grey.

The remaining grey was enough to make basic stripes for this pair.

I'm not one of those people who make new year's resolutions and keep them or not, but I have started a project in my so called sewing room. I'm trying to make it more organized and while doing so, trying to let go of many of the things I really don't need/like/use any more. Nothing drastic, just something I could have done years ago. Today I tried to get something organized again, and after a while I found myself at the sewing machine busily working on a project I had intended to finish for Christmas. Maybe I ought to go back and take the next step in that project. It will also help to get some order there!

Winter sports

Today is a sunny, snowy day, perfect for the traditional school winter break which started this weekend in Southern Finland. When I was a schoolgirl, it was called ski holiday, and the main purpose was to get the children spend lots of  time outdoors in the snow, skiing or ice skating with  their sisters and brothers and friends and getting rosy cheeks and good appetite. Now it seems that many families book a holiday in some distant sunny place instead. I was asked to knit new ski socks and mittens for the growing grandnieces who are coming to Finland for their Easter break. They will fly to Lapland where the ski season is at its best then.

Young Miss Purple's set is finished.

The hat is one of the chemo caps I have knitted, 50/50 cotton and wool, and here just completing the picture.

My niece will also get a pair of socks, just a basic pair.

Here is the other chemo cap, in a smocked butterfly pattern.

Miss Yellow's socks are finished and I'm knitting her mittens now.

Skiing is no longer my thing, sliding downhill on a piece of plastic would end in a disaster, but a little walk in the fresh air with the sun in my face feels great. I can still enjoy watching younger people having ski holiday fun, and I could even drink a cup of hot chocolate after my walk. Others can do the sporty bits!

New knitting finishes and a new way to make a pompom

I had some leftover yarns from knitting mittens and socks for two little girls, so I wanted to knit matching hats for them. I bought some pink yarn to make the purple hat prettier, and naturally little girls' hats will be lovelier if they have a pompom. I tested a new (to me anyway) way to make a big pompom. I have always cut two circles of cardboard and used a needle to wind the yarn through the centre hole and around the circle. For the newest pompom before this I used a plastic pompom maker that works just like the old cardboard version but is reusable and comes in three sizes. This time I needed a big pompom, and the new trick promised just that. First, you need an empty kitchen roll core cut in half or two toilet roll cores. No needle needed, just start winding your yarn around both rolls like this. It goes really fast!

 

When you think there is enough yarn for the pompom, cut your yarn. Take a longish piece of strong yarn and tie it between the roll cores around the pompom yarn. I made a slip knot.

Take your good big scissors and cut at opposite sides of the roll core pair through all layers of yarn.

 

Tighten the slip knot really tight and tie the ends of that yarn twice around the centre of the pompom and make a knot or two. Hold these long tails  and trim the pompom. Use the tails to fasten the pompom where you want it.

Here are the hats finished. The yellow hat has "my grandmother's mitten pattern", and for the purple hat I used a star pattern my mother once used for my hat. It was pink with white stars, and a wonderful white pompom that wasn't so heavy that it would pull your head back.

My mother was the little girls' great grandmother, and I hope these hats will bring the knitted love tradition of our family to the newest generation. My mother used to call her knitting "time bent to curves", referring to the form the yarn takes, but I'd like to add love to the time.

Rows of the week and some spring pictures

This week I have been making mugs and Flying Geese. My geese are flying North now in Spring. We have seen some migrating cranes and geese. It is always something special when you see such big birds. My fabric geese are tiny and a bit blurry because I didn't think too much when choosing the fabrics.

 

 

I had to make some left-handed mugs as well. This quilt in progress is last year's row-along by Bee in my Bonnet, and I'm using mostly recycled fabrics and leftover scraps from dressmaking. Here are my six first rows. Next week I'll be raking leaves and knitting mittens!

 

Within the last few days our birches have dressed in light green lace. It looks so lovely after the long, long winter. Even the wind sounds softer now.

 

 

Wild white anemones cover the forest ground. The perfect pretty flowers to pick for Mother's Day tomorrow. When I was little, we used to pick the blue ones, liverwort, if they were out, because that's what was growing in our nick of the country.

 

I planted some Anemone Hepatica from my childhood home last summer in our yard, and I hope they will thrive here. Now the flowers are very pale, but if you look close enough and click for a bigger photo, you can just see a few of them. 

 

Mr. Pied Flycatcher is guarding his new home. It looks like many of our birdhouses have nest builders at work. Mrs. Flycatcher chose Silver Birch wallpapers for this house.

 

 

Our first daffodils are out! The little ones are Tete-à-Tete daffodils from my hanging flowerpot from last year of the year before. I buy them for Easter already in bloom, and when the snow is gone I plant them in the garden.

 

 

Birds, puzzles and boxes

There must be some kind of lazy bug in the air as I don't get my sewing  going. I have ideas and plans, but all I can manage is some knitting in the evenings. The birdwatching nearly two weeks ago went fine, we saw 8 species but no big numbers of individual birds. The Common Redpoll was this year's most frequently seen bird. We have one male who has already started to change colour and grow red feathers on his chest.

 

 

The Great Spotted Woodpecker has also found our bird restaurant and enjoys the peanuts and the fat, but he also looks for insects in the trees.

 

With no inspiration for sewing, I have been playing with jigsaw puzzles from my childhood. Actually they are from my mother's childhood and youth in the 1920's and 30's, all hand sawn. We used to assemble them on rainy days in the summer. The original boxes are folded of heavy brown paper, many of them crushed and torn, some mended with masking tape.

 

 

I wanted to try if I can make new boxes to replace the worst ones. I took one box apart, made some measurements and started. Some of you know that my dear daughter is a master bookbinder; I think I have inherited some of her skills because this went really well for a beginner.

 

 

One width from the paper roll gave me three squares so I needed cut another strip to make a lid for the odd bottom I made with the third square. And so on...

 

 

First box completed. I added a picture of the finished puzzle in the box because some of these puzzles are really difficult.

 

Here you see this one: look how the pieces are cut on the colour lines on the minarets.

I made nine boxes in slightly different sizes, copied the original logos from the boxes and glued the copies on the new boxes.

 

 

I think I must go through every jigsaw puzzle, put it together, measure it, count the pieces, take a photo, and add it to to box with the pieces. Some puzzles have a note about missing pieces, but I also have a box with some spare pieces. It would be fun to find the right picture for all of them.

 

 

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.

Don't tell my mother

We are having a cold period, at the end of last week the temperature dropped to -27C/-16.6F as you can see here. Today has been just -10C/+14F, but the wind makes even that little frost bite into my cheeks.

It has been nice to sit by the fire and stitch. Even the tulips look like little flames.

My mother has taught me many things about handwork, certain rules how things are done for the best results. And naturally the basic idea "If it is worth doing, it is worth being done well". I made my first cross stitches around age 10, for my other Grandmother. It was a cushion with roses, something like this:

The pattern  was painted on the aida, so I knew where to make the stitches, all in the same direction. Wool yarns, big needle, not too difficult for a child. Mother told me that the reverse side was important too. I should not jump with my needle to the next place of that colour, and the stitches on the reverse should all be in one direction too. Very clear rules, and I tried to obey them. The result was good, and I enjoyed making something "for real". I think I have done OK here too with the top stitches, at age 19:

And look at the back:

I'm still proud of my work.

Several years later, I'm working on the Scandinavian Christmas. This is how my work looks now on the hidden side. Don't tell my mother! The border is cross stitch, and the long jumps are from the other embroideries in the picture. The pellon makes this mess invisible from the right side, and it will be hidden in the quilt finally, but I can't help feeling a little ashamed of what I'm doing.

On the quilt front, I'm busy making Maverick Stars for the outer border of my Crumble quilt, to fill the gaps between the words.

What did your mother teach you about handwork?

Happy Valentine's day to all!