TdF day 8 - still knitting

Yesterday on TV there was the F1 race going on at Silverstone at the same time as the Tour de France climbed mountains in Switzerland. At times I concentrated on closing my ears and keeping my eyes on the knitting, and when the cycling was on, I just enjoyed the combination of Eurosport and knitting. I tiny hickup happened with the pattern but this time I decided it can be left as it is.

The first tiny tomatoes are there. If you look carefully, you can see there is one against the stem on the left.

Autumn feelings

The weather has changed to colder nights, misty mornings and shorter days. Two weeks ago we had our first New Jersey Moreton tomatoes finally ready to eat. Delicious! The seeds came as Christmas present from Candace and Mr. Squash.

Yesterday I had to pick the whole harvest as there is a chance of night frost any night soon. On the left are the Ramapo mid season tomatoes, and on the right the early season variety Moreton. Obviously our season is too short! And "everything's big in America", some of these are as big as my fist.

Here are the almost done ones. The small ones are our last domestic plum tomatoes.

These we had this morning at breakfast.

We also have some cherry tomatoes. Almost lingonberry tomatoes!

I have been knitting again. When I was digging through some boxes I found lots of yarn I didn't remember I had, and so I knitted the pink sweater using some of the darker red for stripes. All three sweaters have the same amount of stitches, and the same 3.5 mm needles, and the yellow and dark red even have the same yarn, but all three are different sizes. Luckily, so are babies! These are going to be my PIF gift for a charity. My PIF ladies, be patient, I will send your gifts soon too!

Yesterday I was picking our last apples for apple sauce and found a tired little hedgehog asleep under the apple tree. I didn't make a picture because I didn't want to wake him or her up. The hedgehog looked almost like dead but it was breathing steadily so I think it was fine, just enjoying the sun's warmth. There were many of these toadstools on our lawn , maybe here is a guest room for the Houseelf?

When I was hanging up my washing on the line, I heard the cranes. They are a sign of Autumn coming too, gathering together for their migration to North Africa and the Nile. There is a video on this link showing the cranes in the spring when they return here for nesting.

As the birds leave us, the nature gets more quiet. The cheerful singing belongs to spring when the males try to impress their mates. Come Autumn, the birds only chirp quietly and they will share in a peaceful manner the seeds we offer. In a few weeks the last little migrating birds are getting on their way and we will start feeding the ones which are meant to stay here for the winter: tits, bullfinches, greenfinches, yellow-breasted buntings, siskins, woodpeckers, blackbirds. I miss seeing them already, as they have disappeared in the forest for all summer. After the first hard night frost they will return and see if the sunflower seeds are in the usual place again. They will be!

Autumn colours and harvest time, knitting

On Friday we had a very warm weather and I had a long walk in the forest. It is harvest time. Combine machines have threshed the corn, berries have been picked in the gardens. There are still wild berries in the forest, like arctic bilberries

and lingonberries

Hawthorn berries in a tree in the park of the library:

Lovely red of the poisonous toadstool amanita

Many edible mushrooms are brown

These yellow ones may be edible, or not. I always check twice and ask Mr. K before using any mushrooms for food.

All plants are making their seeds ready to fly with the wind or to fall on the ground or to be eaten and spread by the birds. This is willowherb.

My own harvest in the vegetable patch is showing no signs of real progress:



My Jersey tomatoes have grown big and lovely, but there is still no sign of red in them. We have had a handful of the smaller domestic tomatoes to taste.

I have not been sewing anything I can show just yet, as they will be my PIF gifts. Because no new names were signed on my list, I have decided to make a baby sweater project in Ethiopia my third PIF recipient. A Finnish midwife has started a project in Ethiopia in order to get the women to hospital to give birth to their baby. If they do, the baby will get a knitted sweater like this to go home with. Also, this way the baby will be registered and get a birth certificate.

This is my first sweater for them, just knitted and not yet sewn together. In September there will be information about how to send them to Africa. The deliveries are on hold now, as there has been a new customs fee to be paid for the sweaters, and  the hospital people are negotiating about this and hoping to avoid the extra cost.

Tour de Hexagon & Pay It Forward

In my last post I promised my new Grandmother's Garden quilt would not take another 17 years to make, as I had one flower block as a leftover from the big project. I had the remaining fabrics still left in a basket, and a handful of basted hexagons. It took me some time on the Pyrenees (with Le Tour de France, on TV, naturally) to make these:

As the cyclists are torturing their muscles on the Alps, I'm stitching. That was quick, wasn't it? I must admit this quilt is not a very large one.

A while ago Melanie announced the PIF challenge she took, and I was one of her lucky three who promised to carry on and pay it forward to another three persons. Do you know what this is all about? The original idea is from a film, and it is living its own life in the blog world. The rules are simple: I promise to send a handmade (by me) gift to the first three people who are willing to join in. I don't know yet what the gift will be, but I will send it within a year from now, probably much sooner. What you need to do to get that gift, is write about the PIF on your blog and make the same promise. I have played along once before, when I had just started my blog, and back then I only had two answers. Therefore I promise a gift to the fourth person as well, to keep my original promise from 2008. Now I'm just waiting for my PIF gift from Melanie to arrive before the end of the year, but meanwhile I would love to start planning nice gifts for you, my dear readers. To give you an idea of the kind of gifts we are talking about, check here (scroll down past the interesting Egypt tour if you just want to see her gift) what Melanie got from Anne Marie, or what I got from a Swedish Ulla.

The weather has been too hot again. Our tomatoes five weeks ago were like this:

And now they are as tall as I am, almost at least. There are some tomatoes too, all green and small but they seem to grow fast. Like they say in the song in West Side Story "everything's big in America".  The tall plants are from the seeds we had from Candace and Mr. Squash. In the lower right corner you can see our Finnish tomato plant in a pot, about 30 cm high so they have hardly grown since the first picture was taken.

I hope you can enjoy the summer, remember to drink enough water if the weather  is hot. Who wants to sign in for the PIF? Be sure I can contact you when you leave a comment.

Crumble block quilt top, and tomato news

The big peonies are opening their flowers in our garden, just for Midsummer.

This week I took my pile of crumble blocks and added white sashings with black cornerstones (from stash, naturally) to make the quilt look less wild. This will go to Australia for Oz Comfort Quilts. Jan is working all the time to make quilts from donated tops or QAYG blocks and sending the finished quilts to places where they are most needed: flood victims in Queensland, earthquake survivors in Christchurch, New Zealand, abused kids or homeless people. Read this post on her blog Oz Comfort Quilts.

These pillowcases - fabrics I couldn't resist for 70 % off the price in the fabric shop now closed down forever - will find their way to kids through Jan as well. Can you imagine, she has sent 396 quilts this year alone! Naturally, she has "sub-contractors" all over the world, but joining the QAYG blocks or making quilts from donated quilt tops is a huge effort. In her spare time (!!) she knits scarves and beanies to keep those people warm as it is winter now down there. If you feel like you could join in and help, you find more information on Jan's blog. If you don't feel like sewing or knitting but still think you want to help her with the postage fees, there is now a donate button on her blog, and on the other blog as well: Sew Many Quilts, Too Little Time.

The beginning of the summer here has not been as warm as the end of spring in May. However, our tomatoes are doing fine, they have grown higher and there are first signs of tiny buds to be seen. How are your tomatoes, Candace? On Sunday I sowed radishes in front of the tomatoes, and this morning there was a green row to be seen already! Melanie, these were left over from last year.

On my way home the other day I saw the first wild strawberries by the roadside. The ones in our yard are not quite ready yet, but I think we can celebrate Midsummer with a handful of them.

Raggedy Friends Quilt, and Spring news

The Darling Buds of May - I have been watching a re-run of the life of the Larkin family based on the stories of H. E. Bates. It is a very nice series, no wicked persons who get away without consequenses, just a story of a large and loud family. Our newest buds of the month are these lilies of the valley, and with the temperatures around +10 C they will remain buds for a long time. While spending time with the Larkin family, I have also been hand sewing...

... finally the binding on the Raggedy and Friends quilt, and Andy posed for the block 11:

Here are the last three blocks, this one is 11:

And Annie is on block 10:

Both dolls are shown in the final block.

Here is the finished quilt, picture was taken in today's cloudy weather after the rain had stopped.

Thank you Kaaren, this was a fun project and I managed to finish it using only fabrics from my stash, many of them recycled. It was sometimes difficult to choose "my colours" for the ones given by Kaaren, but I think I can be pleased with the result. There are 5 ninepatches included, so I think this will qualify for Anne Marie's 9-patch challenge as my third finish as well.

For the first time in my life I have been growing tomatoes from seeds. These were sent to us by Candace and Mr. Squash as a Christmas present. Now I heard from experts that I should have started growing them indoors in March already instead of the beginning of April, but I hope that my little greenhouse cupboard will keep them warm and they will grow big and strong and happy and make lovely tomatoes.

Today I made sure we will get at least some tomatoes from our own garden: I'm making an exchange with a greenhouse-owner friend and get one of her plants agains two of my tiny ones. We will not have space for all these when they need bigger pots, so we will be giving some away to other friends as well. I couldn't imagine there would be a plant from every single seed I put in the pots! Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Squash! Mr. K. is wearing his Jersey Tomato t-shirt when he is gardening. It was a perfect fit, which is very unusual.