Little holiday away from the snow

Last weekend Mr. K and I visited the 8th International Experience the World of Fly Fishing at the Event Forum Fürstenfeld near Munich, like last year (but it was the 7th, naturally). Mr. K's sister lives quite near this place, so we had a chance to stay with her, visit the fair, and see Munich. DH is a fly fisherman, and I'm a keen fan. The casting demonstrations at the outdoor pool were the most interesting part. Again, Antti Guttorm from Finland was showing his skills and emphasising the importance of the left hand.

 

 

A man from the North Lapland, he was not afraid of getting his feet wet in the cold weather.

 

 

I have about 50 more pictures of the casting demos and the fly rods, but I believe you prefer the strawberry panna cotta we had with coffee on the exhibition grounds.

 

 

This is the church of the old monastery of Fürstenfeldbruck. The buildings have served as hospital, accommodation for school children, police training school etc.

 

Spring was late in Germany as well as it is in Finland. Pulmonaria is one of the early wild flowers.

I have never seen such dark blue violas at home.

Travel report will continue in my next blog post and I take you to Munich for a walk.

After the trip I finished the carrot on the last block for my first row of Happy Scrappy Spring by Kaaren of the Painted Quilt.

 

Here is the row finished except for some applique that I will do later.

 

Cabin holiday

This week Mr. K took me and our friends to North Carelia to our annual fishing holiday. We have stayed at this cabin every August for many years already, just for three days and nights. The men fish, the women run the household, read and knit, everyone is happy. This Summer has been very rainy in Eastern Finland, and the rapids were wide and full of water.

 

 

This was the same spot last year with normal water level:

 

We had a welcoming committee on the landing stage: a merganser family was resting after their diving exercise.

 

 

Mother Merganser, or maybe one of the young ones swimming alone.

 

 

This is the outdoors kitchen/dining room we used for all meals except for the late evening when it was too dark and cold to sit there after the sauna. Coffee water boiling over the open fire.

 

 

 

Rafters on wooden boats and rubber rafts kept us company a couple of times a day. The boats usually turned and came back half way up for a second run.

 

 

Mr. K had a hard time wading knee deep where he usually can walk on dry stones. The fishes were hiding from him mid stream where he could not reach them. With hard work he caught some.

 

 

 

The old sauna on the left and the new big sauna on the right. The wooden pathways have been replaced with gravel.

 

 

Friday morning Mr. K was packing freshly smoked fish to take home.

 



We had a great time, reasonably good weather with just a little rain, temperatures around 12 C/55F but warm clothes kept us comfortable, and delicious meals. If you would like to see more pictures of this place, you can go here and here and here. And my friend Dick's story is here.

At the Antique Market

On Saturday we went to see the local Antique Market here in our village. Last year was our first visit; this new location near the shops was nicer. I noticed two little teddy bears sitting on a chair.

A sweet little sewing machine with original packing. Too bad I don't collect sewing machines, not even small ones.

Forks and knives and kitchen stuff.

Cups and saucers and glasses, really rather vintage than antique. Many people collect coffee cups, especially Finnish cups.

There were old copper coffee pots, at a reasonable price.

An embroidered towel rack curtain, to hide the kitchen towels from view.

This one is for you, Simone: half a stall filled with jugendstil embroideries. I think most of them were recently made after original patterns from the beginning of last century.

Another popular collectible, blue and white butter jars from last century, manufactured by Arabia, the  best known Finnish ceramics factory.

I found one pretty little jug, but the price was about six times the sum I was ready to pay. Luckily Mr. K. found a fly fishing rod at a bargain price.

Nothing handmade by me this time? Yes, there is. Yesterday Mr. K and I picked a small bucket full of sour cherries from a tree planted by birds, and I cooked 25 small jars of cherry jam. Yum, yum!

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!