Squares

This is the beginning of my Rona cardigan with the Rowan yarns I showed a while ago. I have been testing all colour combinations and the three different square patterns that make the biggest part of the cardigan.

 

 

These are all my favourite colours.

I still need to practice on this square to get it the same size as the others. I love the 3D flower!

This is a new project, to support the New Children's Hospital 2017 charity. Villa Cooper will have a closet full of bird theme items donated by the members of our club. The proceeds will go 100 % to the fundraising, just like the price of my Happy Scrappy Spring quilt.

 

I decided to make a low price product, a mug rug. Little birds appliquéd on linen with a heat and bond type material, and just machine stitched a couple of times around the edges with straight stitch.

 

I kept the shapes simple but noticed how easy it was to change the look by changing the wing angle

 

or playing a little with the legs to give a busy look.

 

Luckily I had an almost full reel of 20 mm bias binding to finish the edges. I made some careful measuring and sewed the bindings in loops before attaching to the square. Easy!

 

Look, there is a hint of green in the young birches!

 

Happy Scrappy Spring finished

Last Spring I started the Happy Scrappy Spring quilt Kaaren of The Painted Quilt designed and offered as a free BOM. Actually it was the whole Row of the Month, with pieced blocks and some stitcheries. I made the stitcheries in red, and used, as usual, mostly recycled fabrics for the blocks.

For the wool appliqué I had to buy some wonderful wool felt, and that kept me from finishing this quilt right the way.

I really enjoyed the new(ish) for me experience of wool appliqué. It feels great when you notice you can easily make it look good!

 

The third row was the most work, five stitcheries including this big one for the centre.

 

Spring is also Easter, so the quilt has lots of bunnies, eggs and egg baskets.

 

 

Wool felt appliqué flowers, carrots and birds.

 

 

The little bunny with a kite is one of my favourites.

So is this little chick in her wellies and umbrella. Notice the tiny Easter eggs on the left.

I left out a dozen or so leaping bunnies on the checkerboard rows between the stitched blocks. In February I finally sandwiched the quilt, in March I machine quilted it and just this last week hand sewed the binding and a hanging sleeve.

 

Here the finished quilt is hanging in Villa Cooper, waiting for buyers. With Kaaren's  kind consent, my Happy Scrappy Spring quilt will be (hopefully) sold to raise money for the New Children's Hospital 2017 project.

 

 

It says so on the label here too:

 

 

In the Summer the Villa Cooper people will have an exhibition with the theme "Birds", also for the New Children's Hospital 2017 project. Our members are invited to make their own projects under the theme, using their favourite technique, and to donate the products to be sold at Villa Cooper. 100 % of the money raised will go to the hospital project.

 

TdF day 16 - knittings out of the house

I promise this is the last you will see of my baby hats. I took the lot to the local maternity ward yesterday. 31 in all, if you want to know. And even if you don't. Wool, cotton and bamboo yarns, and a set of 4 in baby acrylic.

Four knitted blankets, these are all in baby acrylic.

Five tiny preemie quilts from earlier this year, one of my PIPs.

And finally the Angel Pods.

The nurses were pleased to receive all this. More than 1,000 babies come to the world there every year. They are getting hats from other knitters too.

The Tour was too exciting yesterday , I had to watch it from the beginning to the end. The Col du Tourmalet is the first thing I remember about this Tour from many many years back. All I can do without constantly looking at my hands is knitting, so here is the result:

I had about half of the blue square knitted on the rest day, and finished last night when the red square was ready. I have several balls of both yarns so this will be a red and blue blanket.

Our apple trees are full of promises of apples. Last year there was hardly anything, so this year my cellar will be filled with apple sauce jars again.

So many ways to help others

This week I spent four days at the Children's Hospital of the University of Helsinki. There are many patients, whose parents are at work and the nurses are always busy, so I try to help out sometimes. There is so much you can do to help without a nurse's training to make the patients feel a little less lonely: reading books, helping them eat or just sitting by the bedside when they come back to the ward from their operation.


The hospital building is built during and after the WWII. This picture of a mother and a child must be from that time.




The original benches in the entrance lobby are very uncomfortable, but the modern pillows are a great help:

These elephants and flamingoes are are donated by Marimekko.

This is the part I love, being a child from the fifties and growing up waiting for new Moomin books to be written. Tove Jansson painted this picture for the stairwell of another chlidren's hospital in Helsinki. That hospital was later changed to take adult patients only. The paintings were copied by art students and painted again in 1998 in this hospital, with the blessing of Tove Jansson.

I love the way the characters are running up the stairs, smiling happily. In the next picture is the framed story about the history of this mural, and in the lower part of the paper a copy of Tove's handwritten letter expressing her joy for the continued life of her characters, to cheer up new generations of child patients.

These stairs come from the entrance floor to the next one.

Isn't the horse just lovely?

This spinster auntie is hurrying with her nieces to bring gifts and flowers to someone.

The operation ward greets the little patients with teddy bears in green. I get this far with the patients, the mothers of young kids are only allowed to the elevator doors, to avoid any separation drama up here.

I love this owl door. It leads to the recovery room, reminding everyone on this side that there are people asleep even when it is daytime. On the inside of the door is another painting, with sunshine and a little bird singing.

There are some professional visitors on the wards, too. Every Tuesday two hospital clowns come to meet the patients who are well enough to have a laugh. You can see pictures of them here. The idea is brought from New York, where the first clown had her training at the Clown Care Unit . Today the Finnish clowns operate in three major children's hospitals for free.

I finished some hand sewing there while my patient slept, but the project still needs some machine sewing before it is ready for photographing. My mind is full of ideas for projects for the Australian bush fire victims. Pip from Meet me at Mikes has done a wonderful job organizing ways to donate, and her sidebar shows numerous links for those who want to help.