Sunday with Stephanie

Today I'm having tea at Loft Creations.

 

Her button coffee and thread cakes are delicious, but in this cold climate I prefer a hot cup of Earl Grey!

Have a nice Sunday.

New bag from Melanie's scraps

Last year sweet Melanie made this great Hearts and Flowers bag for me. I use it when I go to class, because it is so big that I can put my cutting mat and ruler in it, and there is enough space for my project and fabrics and scissors and threads and pincushions and shoes and so on. It is a very nice, BIG bag.

If you have a big handbag, you know how easily small items can disappear in its depths. Well, this bag is almost so big that I have to dive in it to search for my thimble. Luckily, Melanie included some leftover fabrics in the birthday present, and later she mailed some more, like 1½" squares, and some of that dark green fabric. For a long time I had various plans, I wanted to make a fabric basket (but got one from Candace),

 and I wanted to make a zipper pouch, but Suzie makes them so much nicer

so I really had no idea what I should do. I kept taking my scissors and pincushions etc there in a plastic bag in the big bag, and felt ashamed (it is, you mustn't forget, a sewing/quilting class). Then I noticed I kept thinking it would be nice to have a matching little bag for the sewing notions. First I joined the 1½" squares to make a ninepatch. I added borders, but  it was still too small to become a bag. It was a nice pocket for a bag!

I took the biggest piece of fabric to make the bag, and added strips of the other blue floral prints to make it wider. I cut 2" squares to make the bag deeper. I added a dark green strip to make it even wider, and used dark green to make the handles too.

Then I used some recycled pillowcase for lining, and added a green top to make the lining less visible. I had some cute buttons to decorate the top at the point where the handles are.

Now I can pack my presser foot and screwdriver and threads and bobbins in Candace's fabric basket, and my cutter and small scissors and measuring tape in Suzie's pouch, and pack them and my big scissors and small fabrics and pincushion in the new bag, and put it in the big bag with the cutting mat, ruler, magazine and big fabrics, and with the shoes in a plastic bag. No more diving!

I didn't use more than half of the scraps Melanie sent, so there will be a matching something some day.

The Sedum on our steps has turned red this week. I will move the concrete box under the steps before there is snow.

Autumn is a busy season

It seems that I don't get to blog posting as often as I would like to. It is the time of the year! I have been busy picking the apples:

and steaming them

and winding them through my faithful almost vintage (1980's) Moulinex:

to make apple sauce:

There are 61 not very small jars in the cellar, and I think I will make two more lots to make it last until next autum. This is why there have been no new finishes to show on the crafty front.

On Monday I was waiting for the train and suddenly heard the trumpets from above. Cranes are migrating to Africa for the winter.

The swans are still staying here, growing strength and feathers. This year the couple had four cygnets, but one of them died in August. The Whooper Swan family is staying in the ponds in the middle of the village, and the young ones are learning takeoff and landing:

All summer flowers are composted now, and the heather has replaced them. The concrete tiles are Mr. K's this summer's project.

This area, where the geothermal heating pipes come to the house, will wait over winter before the tiles cover it.

My rainy week was cheered up by Melanie's mail with all kinds of great things. Thank you, sweet friend!

She had knitted red pirate caps for the Amazons, Unicef dolls still waiting to be born. They will join Melanie's  Dorothea and Dick when the time is right. The Haggis Broth tin and the Wright's traditional tar soap as well as the strong Mints in a cute tin are all related to our two-member book club reading the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. The chocolate bars go with the theme as well; Susan often gave everyone rations of chocolate. The Lynette Anderson bag is from Melanie's trip to the Birmingham quilt show, where she actually met Lynette Anderson! Melanie also included a big piece of fusible pellon for my future stitcheries, as she knew I can't get it locally. The leopard print fleece is meant for a future Unicef doll with African origin. Melanie is obviously encouraging me to reach the limit of 100 dolls now that the 50 dolls are adopted! The toadstool coaster is for me because we both like funghi. These are poisonous:

but these are delicious. Mr. K has walked in the forest and brought home buckets full of nice mushrooms, and I have made warm sandwiches and sauces with them, and many portions are in the freezer for future use.

Next post should show some sewing again. I'm having class tonight again and hope to finish the sun print table runner. There are other projects on the way as well, but nothing to show so far. And finally some good news for the friends of Eileen: I have been e-mailing with her, and now that she has all wedding business happily behind her, she is working on a quilt and taking pictures. A couple of more pushes and she'll start posting on Eileen's Attic again.

Lucky me!

Yesterday was my birthday. The most exciting one since school days, because I had so many gifts waiting to be opened. Melanie had appointed Raggedy Andy as security guard to see everything was safe and sealed until the actual day. She even bribed him and his sister with new hats:

This is what they kept hidden from me:

Can you feel my excitement, and it is not like I was going to be 30 or 40  or 50, something to be celebrated big way? Just a simple birthday, getting one year older. How lucky I am to have so many friends who think of me! My daughter assisted me in opening everything, and the first one she gave me was from Anne Marie from Norway. She had made me a sewing folder with the most fashionable fabrics:

There are two zippered pockets, two big pockets and a place for pins and needles in the middle:

In one of the pockets were sweet buttons I only found later. She also sent me two lovely Christmas fabrics in red and gold:

I must think of a special Christmas project to use these. Thank you very much, Anne Marie!

The next package was from Washington, USA. Candace sent something for the whole family:

The fly-fishing magazine was of course for Mr. Kotkarankki, and there was a box of chocolates from her new home town the younger generation enjoyed with us. Look what Candace had been working at:

A string block table runner - for Stephanie's No Strings Attached challenge, but most of all for my coffee table to bring a feeling of spring in the middle of this snow. Isn't it pretty? She called it "Ulla's Spring Fling". Candace had also been busy with a summer embroidery:

It is on a towel so pretty I could use as a table cloth when sitting on the verandah and having strawberries with whipped cream. Thank you, Candace! I love the gifts.

At this point Kaija said that it seems like we made friends in the blog world so we could sew all the lovely things we love to sew and don't need ourselves (maybe because we already made one for home), or just know the other person would like to have it. At least I enjoy making the gifts I send to my friends. Somehow it is more fun to make it for someone else.

The next envelope was from Stephanie , also from the USA. She had wrapped everything in this beautiful fabric, "novo blossom" from The Alexander Henry Collection, in my colours.

Notice that she tied it with a flannel string! This is what was inside:

The folded brown flannel with sewing theme is a pillowcase for my warm sewing dreams. Two scented pouches for my linen drawer, a crocheted soft washcloth made by her own hands. Stephanie also included a package of snap-on grommets she recently demonstrated on her blog, and two packages of elegant coffee napkins from her days in Japan. Thank you, Stephanie! So sweet of you to send me all this.

Next we return to Europe and open Suzie's box. The Little Busy Bee from Germany had been busy sewing all this:

On the left is a protective cover for books, most useful for me because I carry a paperback in my handbag for train rides and waiting rooms, and not everyone needs to know that I read children's books in English! On top of the book cover is a pouch for paper hankies (the books sometimes make me a little sentimental). The curved thing on the right is a neck support with lightweight filling. I love the romantic fabric! It looked so cute last night on Mr. K's neck when he tried to stay awake in front of the TV, and it worked: his head didn't hang to either side and he looked like he was awake when he wasn't. Midsomer Murders with Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby have replaced Mr. Monk on Saturday evenings. Equally difficult to stay awake, and it is not even late. There can hardly be a group of villages with more violent deaths in England! - Back to Suzie's gifts, in the middle there is a goat's milk soap with lavender, and a bag full with chocolate Easter eggs. The ladybirds are also chocolate. Yum! Thank you Suzie, the gifts are lovely and beautiful!

Here I tested the book cover: It is adjustable for thick or thin books as long as the height is not too much to fit in the cover pocket.

Finally the last box to be opened. It was from England from Melanie, who had been sending me "not the proper gifts" before this, like black and white wool from Oxford along with chocolate, a book about the locations of the Swallows and Amazons books we both are reading, and a print of Rima's Väinämöinen sings a Ship which came together with the caps for Ann and Andy.

This is what I found in the box:

Let's have a closer look. There was a house for Mr. K and me:

 

The roof opens, and I can store sewing notions inside, even a small project. This will absolutely make our coffee table tidier!

Melanie also made a scarf for me:

She included the generous scraps of this fabric in the empty corners of the box (she must think my stash must be almost empty after I finish all the projects I have planned!). It is about time to change the winter scarves for lighter ones, even when the thicker coat is still necessary.

There was a collection of sewing notions from toy eyes to pins and needles, angel wings and perle thread:

 

Samples of pellon (I had never seen before) and Heat and bond  (I use all the time and keep forgetting the name in English). A pattern for a Button Autumn Angel, and fragrant stuffing, a thimble with Oxford escutcheon on it.

There were also pencils and a pen with the text Oxford University on it (how cool is that!), fragrant face wipes, some Body Shop Hemp Hand Protection Cream (my winter favourite), and special tissues for a runny nose - I was having a flu at the time some weeks back when she was putting all this together. Thank you, sweet friend for  all the gifts! I can just imagine Melanie appliqueing the house box and thinking of all the things she could pack in it to make me smile and giggle like her. The two coffee towels you can see in the first picture of this set.

I just love to receive things with a thought of me behind the choice. Every one of my blog world gifts was like that, and I'm happy to have found so many good friends from all over the world. If this net spreads wider, I will end up making gifts all year round!

Because it was a birthday, of course there was a cake. Because Kaija was  staying with us for a couple of days, she offered to bake the cake. Because it was for me, it was a chocolate cake. Raspberry Sacher cake, to be exact, with raspberries from FIL's garden (from our freezer). Because it was in our family, more than half of the cake was gone before I took a picture:

 

Kaija is a gifted baker: there are four layers in the cake. At her age and  for some years more I had to bake as many cakes as I needed layers! The cake was delicious, so crab a cup of coffee or tea and share the remaining bit with me. I wish some day I could do this for real!

This post was all about other people's doings. I still need to wait about a week to show my secret projects, so the next post will be about my cultural trip to Helsinki with Kaija.

How hard can it be, really?

I have been trying to learn a new skill. You may remember the tatting shuttles my eldest and youngest sister gave me recently, both inherited from Great Auntie Saima. As a happy owner of at least two shuttles (I still have not come across the one I believe was given to me years and years ago) I thought I ought to try to learn how to tat.

First thing to do was to buy a book: Learn to Tat by Janette Baker, with a DVD showing how to do it. I also bought a ball of thread to see how it should be. So far easy beasy.

Second step was to start learning the basics. Like instructed, I started with two different colours of thread, orange and red, because they were the same thickness.

Almost even knots, looking all the same. The result of about two hours twisting and turning and bending, and rewinding the shuttle once. Then I noticed that each and every single (double) stitch was wrong. They were red (shuttle thread) instead of orange (ball thread).

New day, turquoise cotton yarn for the ball thread. I played the DVD Lesson 1 over and over, learned to hold the shuttle and the left hand thread properly, but not the shuttle thread. Look at this, it is supposed to be turquoise knots only with no red visible:

For me, it is really hard! I have not given up yet, but I'm no longer thinking I will learn the basics in February. February is such a short month, too.

My stash reducing is not going too well either. I don't even count the fabrics my sister P dumped on me because I didn't ask for them. I just happened to buy some more fabric I felt I absolutely needed: Brown I just must have, always, grey I need for the big wall hanging project and the yellow was too pretty to leave in the shop. They are in fact bed sheets, good quality 100 % cotton at 7.90 € for 2.7 m which makes a little under 3 €/m. If I buy the same fabric by the meter, it will cost at least 5.50 €/m for the 1.5 m width.

On Friday I sent the 10 pillowcases to Jackie, so she can take them to the children's summer camp when the time comes. I hope she will get the 2,000 pillowcases she was planning to deliver this year. Here are the last two I made this month, and I used my Husqvarna Sapphire to write Good Night Sleep Tight on the green accent strip.

  

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! We call it Ystävänpäivä, Friend's Day. I'm glad to call you my friends.

Award, yarn and summer harvest

Last week I received this award from Dolores . I'm honoured, because the text that goes with this award sounds very special:


The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to some bloggers who may choose more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.





Because I'm not very good at choosing just some, and I have just recently rearranged my sidebar, this award goes to every blog listed there. They are all my favourites, and you just might find a very special blog among them. Take a look! If you are listed there, you can take the award from here and give it forward to your Karma Friends.


July is my busy month at home with little time for the important things like quilting and sewing, so I have been mostly knitting and crocheting in the evenings in front of the TV. Tour de France was excellent for more complicated projects, and the favourite shows like Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, or Inspector Lewis (thank you Melanie for the Oxford background information!) work well with easier patterns.

I sent these to cheer Suzie up a little.


This went for AnneMarie, she is on holiday right now.

And this was made for Stephanie, who wanted to learn the Granny Square.

I really love this smocked washcloth pattern.

The summer days are getting shorter now and some of nature's harvest is ready to be used. Mr. K picked the first chanterelles of the summer:

With a small onion and two slices of bacon it was just enough to make two delicious portions on fresh bread:

The dessert was a tiny portion, but tasted like childhood summers:

Wild strawberries. We later found some more, maybe ten all together. Just enough to remember the taste.