Lovely Wool

Last week I had a chance to go to a class at Lentävä Lapanen, The Flying Mitten knitting café. The class was about knitting in multiple colours, and we all learned many tricks about tension and avoiding holes. Tangling yarns is just something we have to learn to live with, I think, and naturally it is good to have a pause and untangle one's yarns after a few rows. The sales representative of Rowan yarns was there all day before the class, and their yarns were 20 % off the normal price.

 

I knew I had seen a cardigan pattern I wanted for myself, but we just couldn't find it, not at home and not in the knitting café. The staff kindly promised me the yarns at the reduced price later, when I knew what I needed. At home I found the pattern: it had been hiding in plain sight in the shop, on the previous page in a magazine displayed for our class! On Monday I went to the Flying Mitten with my wish list.

 

Here is the pattern and my colours on a little stone wall in our back yard. Three kinds of granny squares in different colour combinations. The yarn is Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

 

Close-up of the colours. I changed some of the blue for green and a pink for the fox red. The cardigan is mostly granny squares, and my preliminary plan is to knit the parts that are in plain crochet in the original pattern. This is a huge project for me and it may take years to finish. I look at it like years of fun. Also, as the main body of the cardigan is made with granny squares, I can always add a row of them on each side if I happen to be bigger by the time it is getting finished.

 

March is the perfect time to clean the birdhouses for new takers. Last year we put up some new houses so there were 11 units to clean. We knew only 10 were used last Summer, but found that one of them had been used twice as there was a new nest on top of the first one. Only one birdhouse was from a shop, and it was the only one no birds had wanted. Naturally we thought that Mr K.'s houses were more beautiful, with roofing felt and protective plate around the door opening.

 

 

It turned out that there was a simple reason why no bird wanted that factory made house: it came with a "nesting contraceptive copper device":

 

 

 

There was this piece of plastic coated copper wire inside the house, meant to be used to hang it in a tree without nails. Mr K. used his own wire and didn't think of looking inside the house when installing it last year. (Explanation  why we thought about contraception immediately when we saw what was in the birdhouse: All IUD are called "spirals" in Finnish, and this was obviously a copper spiral, and a very large one too.)  Now the house is made clean and safe for a new couple, and we wish them a large family and happy nesting!

Tulips, mittens and socks again

Our internet line was cut off from the beginning of the month until today. It was strange not to be able to look up facts, or pay the bills, and most of all to read all the blogs.

 

 

Instead of sitting by the computer for hours on end, I had time to knit

 

and to knit some more, to fill the bucket at the Flying Mitten as you know it, or officially Lentävä Lapanen. In the link you can see a story about their own new yarn they are launching on Valentine's Day. The yarn is from Finnish sheep and the colours are designed by Taina Schildt of the Flying Mitten.

 

These are the last socks and mittens I brought there today, and I was happy to see how the small beginning had grown to at least two dozen pairs of socks and mittens for the Finnish Red Cross.

Best Winter weather, and Mittens Flying again

Our winter is on its best: sunshine, -10C/14F, hardly any wind, frosty trees, a little snow to lighten up the world, and the sun is up for more than 8 hours already.

 

 

The frost has killed most bugs too and I'm feeling at least 90% fine. The rest of the family didn't catch my sneezes.

 

I tried the sewing machine after a long break and made this Pooch Pouch originally designed for Abby by Stephanie. I used old jeans and a heavy felt batting so I had to attach the loop with the ends side by side. DS1's puppy is in Puppy School and her treats go in here.

 

 

When the days were colder and I was just feeling tired, I was knitting to keep at least my hands busy. These socks are from the Two socks at a time book:

and here again, with a basic pair knitted in a self-striping yarn. Both pairs went to the Red Cross sock campaign at the Flying Mitten. And yes, I have made pair of mittens too but I will show them later.

 

I bet you want to look inside with me again. Look at the knitted graffiti on the Lentävä Lapanen's  mailbox first, and on the blue stand.

A peek through the window, advertising the Red Cross campaign for socks and mittens.

 

And inside - there are 12 pairs of sock by the last time I looked, but I hope many more pairs are just being finished at the knitter's homes or in the knitting café.

DIY packages to make the official Järvenpää mittens called Jäpänen (mitten = lapanen, + Järvenpää > Jäpänen).

They also had new DIY packages for other mittens.

They have some great groups, some meeting regularly every two weeks in the evening, one group where you can sit and knit and have your tea or coffee, and listen to live reading from a book, and classes for beginners and for advanced knitters. Isn't this a dream come true?

More socks

A nasty flu has been slowing me down. No fever, just coughing so loud that the squirrels outdoors jump, and now a nose so runny that I must keep a hankie in one hand all the time. Almost, that is. It is so easy to exaggerate! I have been sitting quietly on the sofa and knitting, when I felt better.

 

 

Two new pairs of wool socks for the Red Cross campaign. I love to test new patterns for these. I can follow the pattern not knowing what size my socks will be because my yarn is not the same as in the pattern. I had two 50 g balls of red and one ball of grey yarn. First I knitted the red pair with a surface pattern of knit and purl, from the Two at a time socks book.Then I took the grey yarn and started a basic pair from toe to top from the other book by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. I made red stripes until I imagined there was just enough grey yarn to finish the top. Now I have two tiny balls of the red left, and I think I'll use them for some stripes in a new pair. At the moment I'm half way done with the heels of my next pair, another pattern from those books.

 

Yesterday I took these socks to the Flying Mitten Lentävä Lapanen. Some new pairs had already been added to the tub they provided for the collection for the Red Cross last week. Their own knitting group had a meeting last night so more socks or mittens were expected.

Train Socks and other charity knitting

Some years ago I found a baby sock pattern and read the story about them. This year the pensioners in Järvenpää have a campaign to knit a pair of these socks for every new baby born in the town. The estimate is 400 babies, so a few helping hands are needed. My favourite yarn shop and knitting café  the Flying Mitten or Lentävä Lapanen collects the socks knitted by non-members.

 

 

Are you interested to hear the story? During the Winter War, in January 1940, one of the coldest winters of the century, a young mother with her little baby was travelling by train. The train stopped for a long time because the tracks were damaged. A retired handicraft teacher was sitting opposite to the mother and her baby, and she felt pity because the baby had no booties. She unravelled her hand knitted cardigan and with that yarn she knitted socks like this for the baby while the tracks were repaired. The sister of that baby still has the original pair, and her mother has used the pattern to knit many more socks to keep little toes warm.

 

I knitted the train socks with the rest of the yarn I used for these socks for a certain young lady:

 

I hope the flat lace pattern is not tickly. The colour is right in the top photo.

 

This other pair has white toes - I used all the pink yarn left over from the rose socks and it was not quite enough. They are also for someone special, someone who loves pink.

 

 

A pair of my socks has already ended up at Lentävä Lapanen for another charity project. A big handicrafts magazine has challenged knitters to knit socks and mittens for the Finnish Red Cross in January.  They will send the socks and mittens to cold countries where help is needed. The knitting café will act as a collecting point, and knitters can easily buy new yarns for more socks when they bring their creations to the shop. Knitting is apparently a more natural way for us to help than making quilts: during my quilting years I have only once found a Finnish challenge to make quilts for charity, but there is always a challenge or more to choose from if you are interested in knitting or crocheting.

 

 

The sun doesn't get very high these days, this was taken at 1.15 pm today. The hint of snow we have makes all the difference. The days seem so much brighter with it. While the cold weather lasts, knitting by the fire is the best thing to do.

Once again the Flying Mitten

On Monday I just had to pop in the knitting café Lentävä Lapanen again.

 

The shop is just a little over one year old.

It looks like knitters have found this wonderful place and their great selection of yarns from near and far.

These yarns are from near, from Finnish sheep.

 

I wonder if they could start a day care group for yarn addicts?

 



Mittens

The knitting cafe Lentävä Lapanen / Flying Mitten organised a design contest together with the town of Järvenpää in order to find a Järvenpää mitten they could use as a PR gift. 26 pairs of mittens participated, and they were hanging in the window of the shop for everyone to see and to vote.

 

 

Sorry about the reflections. Many mittens had a musical theme, because Jean Sibelius, the famous Finnish composer, lived here.

 

The coat of arms of the town is shown on the mittens to the right in the next picture.

The winner, Eva Roos-Rautakorpi, left, and the chairwoman of the jury, Anu Harkki, wearing the winner mittens. They are inspired by the name flower of the town, Anemone ranunculoides.

 

My mittens came third, they are the grayish blue ones on the table here, and the only ones knitted in just one colour and with a surface texture rather than play with colours and figures. The winner mittens are next to the hand here, and a better picture is here. The black and white ones on the left came second, and the two other pairs got special nominations.

 

After the winners were announced, we had coffee and mitten cake.

 

 

When I was ready to go home, the sun had set and the tiny lights in the trees by the station were shining. This time a better photo, because I was standing outdoors and not sitting in the car. The tree I was trying to show you earlier is near the lake and much bigger.

Winter lights, knittings and bird watching

There is a big tree with winter lights in Järvenpää which we pass every time we drive to town or back home. Yesterday I tried to take a picture of it when we stopped at the red lights. It wasn't very dark yet - our days get longer by about 6 minutes per day already. The sky really wasn't this black then. Anyway, you can only get the idea of the shape of the tree. There are 28,000 tiny lights on it, and the tree is huge and beautiful. I will try to take a better picture soon.

 

 

I'm still just knitting, but I have changed to Spring colours and a bamboo/cotton blend from my new favourite shop, the knitting café Lentävä Lapanen (the Flying Mitten, if Finnish names are hard for you to remember).

 

These dishcloths are fun and easy to knit, and it takes me two TV nights to finish one.

 

 

This winter the weather has changed more than during the past two winters, when we had no wet days at all. I haven't built snowmen on the warmer days, but we have had our bird feeders full, and after Christmas Mr. K carried our Christmas tree from the front yard to the back garden, and put a sheaf of oats on the top. Yellowhammers soon found their favourite treat, here is a couple of them on the ground under the tree eating. They must have other restaurants too, because I have not seen them again here.

 

The Big Garden Birdwatch event is again this coming weekend. We are going to watch the birds during one hour in our garden, and make a list by species and maximum number of birds seen at a time (so we don't count the same individuals over and over). BirdLife Finland will then make a list on their website with nationwide results.

 

The bullfinch also found delicious seeds on the ground, and the new snow caught on his face feathers.

 

 

 

I hope to see many birds and all our regular visitors on Sunday!

 

 

Craft Olympics - all my thimbles

Finally the secrets are revealed, Christmas gifts opened and I can show what I have been doing to get all those thimbles from Melanie's Craft Olympics. My first thimble was for a secret knitting project, toe to top two at a time socks for my daughter Kaija, and the rest of the yarn was enough to make wrist warmers for her busy hands. The yarn is hand dyed Araucania yarn from Lentävä Lapanen, the Flying Mitten knitting cafe, very lovely to knit. I'm also beginning to learn the idea of the toe to top heel!

 

 

 

The yarn was so lovely I bought another skein and knitted socks and wrist warmers for my daughter-in-law-to-be as well.

Second thimble is for this stitchery, where I learnt some new stitches.

 

My third thimble came with this Granny Square quilt I made for my sister, who is a granny. The grey and pink outer rounds of the blocks are from our Granny's old summer dress.

 

All the fabrics came from my stash as usual, and 90 % of them are recycled garments or bed linen.

My fourth thimble was a change of plans: I had no time to make the wool applique I had planned. Wreath making is crafty too, so this will be within the rules.

 

The fifth and last thimble was for a new skill, needle-turn applique. The pattern is one of Kaaren's freebies on her blog The Painted Quilt. My work is nowhere near perfection but I could give it another try, hoping for better results and rounder circles. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, the days are really very short and dark at this time of the year here.

The applique is on the front of this bag I made for Melanie as a Christmas gift for her knitting projects.

The Craft Olympics has been a fun challenge at the end of the year, not too demanding as we could choose our crafts and change our plans during the Olympics. Go to Melanie - she always puts the kettle on when visitors arrive! - and see who else has been a crafts athlete. Melanie has links to all the finished projects on her sidebar.

Flying Mitten

Last week a knitting cafe opened in Järvenpää, our nearest town. It is called Lentävä Lapanen, the Flying Mitten.

 

 

The opening day was very crowded, so I took my camera for another visit yesterday when there were just a few ladies enjoying the luxury of lovely yarns and cosy atmosphere. Welcome in, pick a seat!

There are pattern books and magazines you can read and discuss with other enthusiasts.

At the other end of the shop there are chairs and tables for drinking coffee or tea.

 

Which rosy cup would you choose?

 

Maybe a traditional Finnish pastry or a sweet slice of cake? Take a seat now, enjoy your snack and have a look around the shop.

Noro yarns in wonderful colours and textures.

Rowan yarns ... I feel like I'm fainting. Look at all the colours!

 

Debbie Bliss - here is a free pattern you could use if you have just one hank of their yarn.

 

 

Debbie Bliss continued. New yarns are still coming in, the shop only just started.

 

These hand painted Araucania yarns come from Chile. I bought a hank to make a pair of socks and I will show them as soon as there is something to show. I'm still learning the Toe-to-Top two at a time method and only have the toe part covered by now.

Look at the candles matching the theme of the true knitting cafe!

This basket holds a knitted graffiti in process; anyone can add a row or two.

 

The shop also keeps a good selection of bamboo knitting needles and crocheting hooks. If the urge hits you, you can buy everything you need and just start knitting! It is definitely a place to go to even with a full stash of yarn at home. You can always have just a coffee and sit with your knitting, surrounded with all those wonderful yarns that inspire you to start a new project.