December 12 - Toys in Villa Cooper

Christmas is a time for giving, and children receive the most gifts. The talented ladies and gentlemen of Villa Cooper have created unique toys for little ones.

One the shelves are many softies for babies.

The hobby horses or stick horses are a huge success among girls at any age. They have races and competitions, and the phenomenon has been internationally noticed as an example of girl power.

Rag dolls as a fundraiser for Unicef, and octopus softies for babies. These are also made for premature babies and donated to the hospitals.

Welcome again tomorrow to the next room.

New Quilt, New Tunic and Old Books and Bears

Have you seen Stephanie's Long Johns quilt? She remembered her grandfather's long johns on the washline, and made the polka dotty pieces like them, up and down. She also made a Christmas version, very pretty. She gave me the pattern for my senior home quilts, and here is what I came up with:

 

Long johns on the line are, in this climate and this family with two men and just one me, a very usual sight even today. (So there you see, Mr. Squash, you don't have to be "a woman of a certain age" to have seen that sight.)  The quilt top is made with what forms another substantial part of my laundry, men's old shirts. Old men's shirts, whatever. That's why I named my quilt Laundry Day. Take a look at Supreme Candace's version here. She too added a border, but I made an extra row too. This way the quilt will be big enough to keep any tall grandpa warm and cosy when he is taking a nap. The backing is checkered flannel like the binding. Tomorrow I'll be taking this and the Bee in my Bonnet Row-Along quilt to the nursing home.

This quilt is also my 4th project in the Special Category of the Craft Olympics hosted by Flickenstichlerin. I have been on a new sewing class, just 6 evenings with the theme tunics. I learnt to alter the pattern to my personal measures, and here is the result:

 

 

I'm really pleased with it, and the jersey's cheerful grey and greenish colours are just me. This is my 4th project in the New Category of the Craft Olympics.

 

Last Friday we went to the Helsinki Book Fair, a perfect place to test use my new tunic (can be classified as one of the "cultural ladies robes", you know the roundish ladies between 40 and 80 who go to concerts, theatres, art exhibitions and interesting lectures, wearing figure flattering long tunics/vests/jackets). We concentrated once again on the older books.

 

This raven has been on every book fair I remember.

This year the teddy bears had a special place at the fair.

I didn't even know there are so many literary teddy bears.

This one I know!

 

And here's for you, Melanie! (She is going to Rupert's cottage next Spring). Bamse is sharing this shelf with Rupert.

 

 

Do you know Rasmus? He comes from Denmark. I have read about him to my children...

... but not as much as about this brave fellow, Uppo-Nalle. He is created in Finland but according to the story he floated here from France.

Some of the teddies were really old.

Some were more famous as toys than from stories in books.

Winnie the Pooh like he originally was and what Walt Disney did to him.

The modern Pooh Corner gang.

 

We spent a lovely day at the fair and I found a used copy of the new Finnish translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illlustrated by Helen Oxenbury . Perhaps I can finally read the whole story!

Have you a favourite literary teddy bear? Was he on this exhibition? I had a toy teddy bear that my best friend made for me when we were maybe 12 years old, and my childhood literary bear friend was Winnie the Pooh like Uncle Shepard drew him.

Harvest time

These past weeks I have been preparing for the winter to come. Autumn is a wonderful time of harvesting, making jams and juices, picking mushrooms for the freezer as well as for making them for lunch or supper. This is how I make apple sauce:






I cut the apples in half, take out the stick and the blossom remains and put the pieces in my juice cooker for about half an hour, until they look like this:



Then I mash the steaming hot apples with my "Mouli-legumes".

After adding sugar I put the thick sauce in these hot glass jars up to the brim and screw the lids tight. The hot sauce will shrink when it cools and there will be a vacuum to keep the apple sauce intact in my cellar. I have been doing this so much that my shoulder is growing big muscles from winding the masher mill.

Melanie was interested in recipes for rowan berry jam. The magazines are full of those right now, so here is one including apples to make the jam less bitter:

1 kg apples

1 kg rowan berries

0.5 l water

800 g sugar

1. Wash and cut the apples in big chunks, remove the cores and stems

2. Strip the rowan berries from their clusters and rinse well

3. Cook the apples and berries in water until they are soft

4. Mash the apples and berries through a sieve or with a masher like the one in my apple pictures

5. Pour the mash back to the kettle, add the sugar and cook for about 20 minutes, until the sauce thickens a little

6. Put the hot sauce/jam in hot glass jars and close them immediately.

The rowan berry jam is usually served with strong meat like venison or reindeer, but can be served like any other jam if you like the "slightly" bitter taste.

I found another recipe, for a rowanberry-carrot marmalade:

1 l rowan berries

½ l roughly crated carrots

300 g sugar

1 cinnamon stick

Strip and rinse the rowan berries. Cook them in a small amount of water until they are soft. Mash the berries with a mixer or any preferred method. Mix the berry mash, carrots, sugar and cinnamon in a kettle and let simmer until the crated carrots are soft and the mixture is thickened. Remove the cinnamon stick. Put in clean, hot glass jars and close the lids immediately.

The taste of rowan berries varies, so if possible, taste the berries of different trees and choose the sweetest for the jam.

I finally finished a project I promised in August to make for my niece. She is my goddaughter and a kindergarten teacher. They have new learning material, and the new book tells also about a bookworm. My niece M asked if I could make a softie bookworm on the basis of the picture in the book, and this is the result of my imagination:

It was a challenging task and I should have made a test softie before my deadline was close. Well, like I have said before, people usually use all the time available for a project, and so did I. No time to make a new improved version. But on the other hand, the children may see this learning companion as a friend with its flaws and personal features.

On a good day the bookworm can stand on his six legs, but sometimes they spread like Bambi's on ice, as you can see in the first picture.

Mystery blocks

Last night I was watching TV and finished this:


I call this toy mystery blocks, because it can be turned around in many ways and different sides of the blocks come visible.



The blocks are all connected like the ones in Rubik's cube, but in a different way. Here you allways get all blocks with the same colour visible at the same time.





The mystery blocks are meant for small children who like to examine their toys and who still will enjoy finding the dogs or the faces again after they have disappeared. It can be very soothing for a bored mother as well!

You'll never guess what this will be

This is what I have been doing this week:

It is not a big project, so I decided to rotary cut the pieces for two while I was at it. I like to have a hand sewing project for the evenings in front of the TV, and the sewing machine projects are reserved for the daytime when I'm alone in the house.

This is this morning's situation: I had to pick up both the long blue seams, because I wasn't thinking right. Happens a lot with this project, especially when I have done it by machine. But the result will be funny, and this time I have really suitable fabrics. The thing I'm making is for children, and I usually have less bright colours. Maybe the sun caused this, but most probably the fabric with the faces I wanted to use. I had to buy bright colours to go with it, and then I found the fabric with cats and dogs as well.