Revealed secrets

In March the our local knitting café Lentävä Lapanen, the Flying Mitten, hosted their first secret swap. Of course I participated, and now I can reveal my gifts. This is what I made for my secret friend for her small knitting supplies:

 

The zippered pocket is for stitch markers like the ones here made with old Lego blocks. Under the scissors is another pocket, the knitting needle gauge goes there. As my first gift to her I made her two holders for her double pointed knitting needles, using the same red floral.

 

And this was my main gift, a pair of wool socks in her size and her favourite colour.

 

We all gave some information about ourselves, like favourite colour, yarn and needles, and shoe size (for obvious reasons!).  Having no idea of the friend's age, other hobbies or other details, it was easiest to think about the knitting hobby we all share.

 

I also challenged my secret friend to knit a pair of Train Socks for the new babies in town using the pattern and yarn I sent her, and was very glad to hear she took the challenge and has almost finished her pair.

 

The secret friend who sent me her gifts was not the same lady who received my mail. Here is what I got. First a crocheted flower with some heart chocolates. Yummy! I'm thinking of yarn bombing the town with this flower too. And by the way, it was noon when I left the red flowers shown in my last post, so the boot polish would have made me look very suspicious! Also, the darkness lasts only little over an hour these days, so no hope for real darkness until August. People were not paying any attention, or just smiling, because I look quite harmless even with tiny scissors in my hand.

 

The next month brought me this grass green yarn, hand dyed in Finland, and a bag full of useful stitch markers. The yarn will be used for a pair of socks for someone special.

 

 

The last parcel from her contained some useful kitchen items. The grey dishcloth and scrubber are knitted in linen (at least it feels like it), and the factory made sponge dishcloth has a funny text. The red pouch could be used  for toiletry or for a small work in process. The handmade lime soap with a built-in sponge adds a nice touch of luxury. Thank you, Secret friend!

 

 

Everyone sent photos of their gifts received to the Flying Mitten and they were published on their website without names to keep it all hush hush until the end of May. At the beginning of June the Flying Mitten invited us all to the café to meet each other. Unfortunately I was unable to participate, but I believe the meeting was a great success. The lady who received my gifts even left a gift for me at the meeting in the knitting café, some delicious home-made rhubarb jam and nice hand cream. Kiitos, Karita!

 

The weather has been odd this Summer: yesterday we had +2C/35F, and sleet and hails:

 

 

Today I met with an old friend from the time we were students together, and I gave her a couple of washcloths in my favourite patterns:

 

 

The Raindrop is from here, and the Bee Stitch is from here. I knitted both a little larger than the pattern and used pearl stitch in the borders of the Raindrop. Bamboo yarn is just lovely for these, so soft and it has antibacterial qualities and can be washed in the machine.

 

More from London

If you feel up to it, we have a little more walking to do. This is the Covent Garden Market.

 

This part of London belonged in the 13th century to the Westminster Abbey and was known as "the garden of the abbey and convent".  Henry VIII took it and gave it to the Earls of Bedford, and in the 16th century there were fashionable new houses around an arcaded square, and a small open air fruit and vegetable market. In the 1830's these buildings in neo-classical style by the architect Charles Fowler were built to cover the market area.

 

In 1980 the protected place was reopened as a tourist location with cafes, pubs and shops. The Apple Market is a craft market.

 

A short walk from the market was another interesting part of the city.

The houses were not set around a square for an interesting reason. To maximise the number of houses as rentals were charged per foot of frontage and not per square feet of the interior, the area was laid out in a series of triangles.

 

Seven streets meet at this central point, and the Sundial Pillar was built in 1694, at the same time as the houses. The pillar has six sundial faces, and the column itself is the 7th 'style'.

 

On the way to the hotel we spent some time at the Fowles bookshop, but with my very tired feet (and head) the best they could offer was a comfortable chair.

 

As the next day will be even more walking and even more photos and facts, I'll show you the London part of it already. We started our one-day excursion at the Paddington Station, and guess whom we met there:

 

A very famous bear, waiting patiently to be looked after.

 

We took a morning train, because the 4.50 from Paddington sounded too exciting and because we wanted to see as much as we could at or destination.

 

This day in London was still a warm and almost sunny one, but here in Finland we have had our first frost nights and a sleet shower earlier this week. Räntää, sleet, it feels and looks as unpleasant as the Finnish word for it sounds. The dotted a's are pronounced like the a in the English word 'bad'.

Wintery crafts and migrating birds, or waiting for the Spring

The Spring is taking its time to arrive in our nick of the world. On Saturday we had some new snow again, you may see the white lines of wet snowflakes in this picture. As you can see, there is not very much snow left from the winter between the trees.

This kind of weather suits well for wintery crafts, so I knitted a pair of mittens after a traditional pattern from Northern Finland. I wanted to try this pattern, but in natural wool colours and not in the suggested bright colours you can see on the magazine's picture of their modernised mittens. The yarn is thick so the mittens were knitted in no time on 5 mm needles.

I have also been working on Scandinavian Christmas block 3. The cross stitch frame is finished, and most of the embroidery. The blanket stitching around the appliqué is on my list now. Mr. K said the other night that there is quite a lot of work in that piece of fabric, and I couldn't agree more!

We have had some sunny days too, and the yellow daffodils I bought for Easter can stay out in the night too, as the night temperatures are keeping around freezing point, not too much under. 

 

New birds keep arriving these days. This dove came to taste our sunflower seeds. There seems to be a lot to eat on the ground under the bird feeder, when the bigger birds like jays mess around and look for peanuts on the tray and drop what they don't like!

 

A flock of finches has been there too. They are mainly insect eaters and really need the energy they can get from the seeds, as it is far too cold for almost any insects yet.

 

Every day there is a little less snow, maybe a new green point of a future daffodil to be seen. The snowdrops I showed in my previous post, and at the moment in my header, are still in bloom. Meanwhile the also looked like this

when they came out again after we had some 15 cm or 6 inches of snow at Easter. I could do without the snow by now. Really. Then I could start sewing other than woolly and christmassy projects too.

Spring is here?

This year there has not been a thermic winter in Southern Finland at all. That would require five consecutive days with the maximal temperature of 5 degrees below freezing point. There have been colder temperatures but they never lasted for many days. The picture is from yesterday, taken from my kitchen window and showing our carage. That in the air is räntää or wet snow once again.

I had a busy day starting early with sewing, having a massage after lunch - that is my luxury part of life to keep me going, every three weeks - and in the afternoon and in the evening train trips to town. I finished the tote I started a while ago from the Japanese quilt book:

It turned out all right with a little ironing. The bumps caused by quilting went away. On the other side the buttons are white and there are six of them. In the original there were glass beads. The floral print is from the craft fair, the rest is linen from my stash.

Inside is a zippered pocket and a string with a clasp (?) for the key ring. (I don't know the correct Finnish word so it's difficult to find a translation!) The inside picture didn't show anything but red, so I won't show that.