Why do I feel guilty if I use new fabrics?

In the last couple of days I have found some new interesting blogs. I noticed how often here up in the North old clothing is reused in patchwork instead of buying new coordinated fabrics and cutting them up to pieces just to be sewn together again to a new piece of fabric. It may be our common Lutheran working moral; we mostly have to justify at least to ourselves any frivolous behavior. Earnest working is good, thriftiness is good. Vanity is bad, prodigality is bad. It is better to make it than to waste good money to buy it ready made. This goes for food and clothing and household textiles and cleaning washing and you name it. My generation was raised with these ideas, at least in the background of the thoughts of our parents who went through the war as young adults. Even I have woven some carpets. The first one I made for my little flat when I moved from home to live on my own. I dyed some old bedsheets, tore them to narrow stripes and sewed the ends together to be the weft. I used my mother's loom and her guidance. The next carpet was a very little one to be used by our kitchen door. I still like it, especially the busy stripes of his plaid shirt.

I was heavily pregnant with our first child so I didn't want to start anything time-consuming. I cut 5-6 of my young husbands old shirts to make this doormat, and my mother-in-law helped me with the technical problems. Later I have woven several more carpets, but I still have no idea of how to start the whole process. It has in fact been necessary to save all used clothes for this purpose. The largest pieces of my Grandmother's Garden quilt for Kaija come from my mother's "carpet rags" box, like the light blue background around the flowery blocks.

The hand quilting is still fun, the progress is slow but almost steady. The sewing group will meet four more times, because next week will be Easter holiday. The weekend 19th to 20th April will be the exhibition showing the work of the different groups. I'll do my best to have this quilt ready to be shown there.

P.S. I use new fabrics for the immature babies' quilts and for many things I sew for sale, but if I use recycled material, it is a good sales argument.

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.

Publishing my new book

Yesterday I had once again lovely mail: Karen sent me the pincushion I won in her giveaway. It will be my "public" pincushion I can boast with in the sewing class! Here is a group photo of all my pincushions:

The white pretty one is the one Karen made. The other round one has an elastic band to hold it on my wrist, but I never learnt to use it. My daughter made it for me as a schoolgirl. She later made the brown one with polka dots. It is very good to keep by the sewing machine: it's big and easy to hit even when not looking, and it stays on place because of the heavy filling. It is filled with used, curly wool yarn from not mendable mittens and socks. The last one is a Cathedral Window experiment by me.

This morning I finally finished the tactile book for advanced readers.

This one has a plot, as you can see on the cover.

Soon will be spring with first flowers and migrating birds.

Then comes summer with strawberries and an abundance of flowers and butterflies.

In autumn there will be mushrooms, and the leaves turn yellow, red and brown.

And then comes Christmas and winter with snow. And then you can start from the beginning, because after winter there will be spring.

Sunday lunch recipe

The weekend has gone and I haven't done anything sewing-related. I have been cleaning and washing and cooking instead, and now I feel full of sewing energy again. I even cooked so much for our big family dinner on Sunday that I don't need to make lunch today, just warm up the rest of our yesterday's merimiespihvi. This is one of my favourites, my mother used to make it often for Sundays in winter when we were a big family. It is made of sliced (raw) potatoes, beef (slices fried in a pan), and fried onion rings and a couple of carrots sliced as well, for colour. The incredients are layered in a ceramic pot, starting with potatoes. Top layer is also potato slices. Add some bay leaves and peppers, a little salt on each potato layer. Then add a strong broth, almost reaching the top. Put it in the oven for 2 hours or more, 180 degrees C. Put a lid on the pot when the potatoes start getting brown. Yum! Serve with pickled cucumbers, red beet and lingonberry jam. For 1 kg of beef I would use 10-14 average size potatoes, one carrot and two big onions.


As I was so busy cleaning, I also needed to put something on the table after taking all my tactile book stuff (Yes, it has occupied our big dining table this long. We eat in the kitchen.) and my ironing to the bedroom. I chose this little runner I made a couple of years ago for Easter, which is this year very early, next week.





I'm experiencing serious difficulties with uploading the photos. I'll go and put some new laundry in the washing machine and hang the first load, and try again.

Yes, a break is always good. Five attempts before going to the cellar, and now on first attempt the pictures are here. This Easter flower is made with the paper-piecing method, where the patchwork is sewn with a paper pattern on the reverse, along the lines. This makes it easy to make small details correct and all blocks alike.

Lucky winner

Yesterday I was busy making a bag from my new Japanese book. I made it bigger and in many ways different, but I was inspired by the picture. I also made a stupid mistake but noticed it so late that I decided to ignore it and just try to make it disappear: I sewed the side ends together before a) adding the floral print to the top, b) adding the batting, and c) quilting the whole thing. Pictures will come when I have finished the project. I still need lining with pockets, and the handles.


Today is very windy and snow is falling. My husband is away for the day (usually he comes home for lunch), and so I have to take me by foot to the train. In this weather, and because it is slippery again, it will take about half an hour. Luckily I'm going to have a haircut, which is always nice, so it is not so bad after all. And I had a good start for my own time this morning when I came to the computer. I always check my e-mail first, and there was a message from Karen. I won one of the pincushions on her giveaway! I don't know which one I'll get, but I think they are both lovely.


Because I don't have any new pictures of my recent work, I show something I have made ages ago. This little "everyday angel" has a mouth and rosy cheeks, too, but my pictures are not always perfect. I wish you all a good day and a smile on your face.

My new book and new plans

This is the new book Kaija brought me for by coming birthday:




There is only very little English text in the book, but the pictures are inspiring and beautiful, and there are drawn instructions in the "How to make" part of the book. I already started making one bag, or my version of it. I just had to start, because I bought this at the fair:

"This" means now the floral print at the bottom. I got the book before we went to the fair, and when I saw the print I knew I could use it with some natural coloured linen for my favourite bag from the book.

I know I have not finished the second tactile book I have been working on, and of course there is the hand quilting to do. (Household chores don't count, because I keep doing most of them, and the rest can wait.) Sometimes a girl just needs to do something else instead of the things she should be doing. And so do I, in case I don't count as a girl any more, being a mother of three grown up children. If there is a sewing/crafting person out there who always finishes one project before starting any new ones, please come forward. You must be a very special person!

And, by the way, my pinwheel block was on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog today, in the bottom row of a group of nine blocks.

Report from the Handicraft Fair

Last Saturday I went to this handicraft fair with my daughter Kaija (in the pictures are not any people we know). It wasn't a very big fair, nothing to go crazy about, but we saw many 'quite nice' things there.

There were knitted scarves.

And lovely pieces of quilting fabrics. I kind of wanted to buy the teal bunch, but I didn't.

But from this wall I picked 10 pieces (50 cm x 110 cm), including the light blue for the binding of Kaija's quilt I'm quilting this winter and spring.

Felted clothes and felted almost anything are very popular at the moment. There was also fine merino wool for sale. I only bought a little bag of curly wool in mixed colours for my husband. He said it was OK for his fly-tying. I have learned to choose mainly good colours for him. We share a hobby room, and if I'm not sewing at full speed with my machine, we can listen to music or just enjoy the peace. When he shows me his flies, I often ask and learn something about them as well. This helps me when I choose treasures for him when shopping for yarns or trimmings for my own needs.

And then there was one good and one 'usual' book seller. From the good one I bought a book-binding book for Kaija's birthday, and gave it to her in advance. (She brought me a book for my birthday in advance!) I'll show my book tomorrow.