New finish

I have seen some great studios in the blogs I read, tidy, large rooms with lots of light and organized stash. Some sewing corners have been cosy and comfortable. Some people show what they have "on my desk", and it usually is something very interesting. My "studio" is a terrible mess in the cellar of our house, my stash is midway between the old cardboard boxes and the new plastic ones, and there is no room for my new (bought in July) sewing machine. Our two older children have their own homes now, but it seems they have not moved away from our house yet: I arranged me another sewing table in our daughter's old room, but there are several cardboard boxes of her things on the floor. So this is not yet a great, organized studio corner, but I have a perfect low table for the sewing machine, and another, high table for cutting fabrics and drawing patterns. The high table is about as high as the kitchen worktop.

Because my other sewing machine and all the materials are in the cellar and this workspace is upstairs, I needed another (well, a fifth) pair of scissors to be kept by the new machine. Because I have not been able to take my walks as regularly as I planned, I decided to support the Pink Ribbon campaign by choosing this cute set (10 % of the price goes for the campaign):

The smaller pair is nail scissors but they will do fine for cutting threads. I spent some time today at the machine and finally finished this Stitchers' Angel project designed by May Britt from Norway. There are lots of pictures of the bag from other Stitching Angels. I made this one for me, as I already have sent the three other projects to my secret partner. This one is in my colours.

I added handles like many others had done, and I also made the bag bigger than the original pattern. The swap was great fun. There were 7 free patterns by different designers, and I'm planning to make some of them as Christmas presents or for myself when I have more time. I enjoyed the hand stitching, something I had not done before this year in this form. I have done some cross stitching when I was younger, but after becoming a mother I concentrated more on sewing clothes for my children. Now it seems to be time to do other things again.

Vintage Thingies Thursday 3

It's Thursday again and time to show some thingies with the Apron Queen Lisa. In her blog you find links to other blogs showing their goodies. Click the photo to get to her blog.






Exciting things can happen when you blog, and lurking readers may come to the daylight with some unexpected news. Remember this brush I showed two weeks ago in my first Vintage Thingies Thursday post:

My sister P, who lives near here, had read my post and came to visit me last Thursday after I had already written my post, so this had to wait until this week. She had something for me:

Our mother had given her the copper dustpan years ago, when I was still going to school but she was living on her own already. Mother had told her that there should be a brush to go with the dustpan, but she didn't know where it was. Well, it was somewhere, because she gave it to me all those years later. Now dear P gave me the dustpan, and the pair can live happily ever after. If I had not posted about the lonely brush neither of us would have known that we shared the set. Next week I must remember to show the copper porridge kettle I have; I received it from my mother without the lid. Just this week my brother with his wife came for a short visit to get some apples from our trees. We talked about the copper cake moulds in my kitchen and they told me that they have several copper lids on their kitchen wall. I just might get lucky again!

Back to my sister P, who is the eldest of us. She was always "a big girl" already, when I was little; we have nearly 9 years between us. When she was in the upper grades of school, they got to try painting china in the art class. I was a little girl who just learned to read, and I loved the Moomin books. She painted this Moomin plate for me, from the lovely hole book I showed earlier in my Vintage Children's Illustrations post.

The plate is Arabia, the blue stripe was on the original plate and I think the milk can is therefore blue. P told me the blue spots were just to make Moomin look a little more colourful. As a child I always thought he had caught measles on his long and dangerous way trying to find Little My. I had measles at the beginning of my very first summer holiday from school.

I ironed an old tablecloth for the background of the plate, and as it is an old one, I'll show a closer look of it as well. This is a linen cloth for a small table or a really big tray. There is the border area for cross stitch decoration. I have seen tray cloths with very decorative cross stitch monograms in this border. You can click the photos to get a closer look.

That is all for this week from the vintage department. I hope to post something about our sewing group's textile art project tomorrow.

October sunshine

Today we have a glorious sunshine and the kind of weather I like most. I had a careful try to use my knee again when I walked to have my massage in the morning. I told you this was a good day! The walk went well (and so did the massage), and I managed to get some photos of the disappearing beauty of autumn.

You can click the pictures to get a closer look. This is a waxwing in a treetop. There were a whole flock of them, eating the last rowan berries and these black berries:

I'm not sure what the tree is; they have been planted in the narrow green strip between the road and the sidewalk. Melanie, my learned friend, could this be sloan?

This is a rose bush hiding our trash can. I have made jam of these hips a couple of times, but it is an awful lot of work and the taste is not so great after all.

This very small aspen was the only one with red leaves, all our big ones have yellow or brownish leaves. When the sun shines through them, they look almost like gold coins ;)

These are the last flowers by the roadside, masses of Matricária inodóra. They are like chamomile, but like the Latin name says, without the smell.

I have sheets and towels drying outdoors on my washline, they will be so soft and fresh when they can dry in the sunshine and the wind. I like to fold them direct from the line to my mangle before they are quite dry; I think the freshness remains in the fabric that way.

My sewing projects are not proceeding, but I have been digging in my stash and choosing fabrics for a new project we are planning to start on Thursday in the sewing group. It will be my first step in the direction of textile art. We will be working on the basis of pictures from books or our own photos. It sounds very exiting!

Dyeing with mushrooms and plants

Every Thursday for many years now I have been taking some time of my own and gone to a sewing group at the local school. In this group we have a teacher and 5 to 8 members only. We can sew our own projects, and the teacher gives individual help whenever there is a tricky problem. One of the faithful members of the group is Hanna. I knew her also through the school of our children, her two daughters were classmates of my elder son and my daughter Kaija. Hanna told us in the group that she had experimented with dyeing, and I asked for an interview so she could share her knowledge with my readers. This is my first ever interview, so I kept it really simple. Here it goes:


Q: Tell us something about you and your crafty hobbies.


A: I'm a middle-aged kindergarten teacher and I have done handicrafts and all kinds of art and creative work with my hands more or less all my life. I have tried aquarelle painting, painting silk, painting china, worked with twigs and brushwood, woven baskets with willow, tried metal wire works and small decorations of plywood, to mention some. I'm a keen knitter and I like crocheting. I also sew patchwork quilts, clothes and small fabric animals and dolls. I learned to crochet from my paternal grandmother when I was five years old; and after that I have always had some handicraft projects going. At the moment I have several unfinished projects going on. Sometimes I feel that my work is a hindrance to my hobbies. ;)


This is a photo I took last spring at the exhibition of the sewing group. The green and yellow baby quilt is made by Hanna.





She also attended another group and made these three sweet softie mice.

Q: You told me that you have dyed yarn with mushrooms. Where did you get that idea?

A: I had read in crafty blogs that you can get beautiful shades of colour to yarns with plants. My sister, who is an artist and art teacher, wanted to try dyeing paper with plants, and I became inspired to try myself. We have already agreed on a new dyeing bee for next summer at our cottage.

Q: Did you find instructions on the internet or in a book, or have you taken a course for dyeing?

A: I borrowed a couple of books from the library and searched in the nature for dyeing plants and mushrooms mentioned in them. I have not taken a dyeing course but e.g. the Dyer's Guild (Värjärikilta) in Finland organizes courses during summer time.

Q: How did you choose and find your dyestuff? Did you use a special yarn?

A: I wanted to try the plants and mushrooms which are rich in colour. It was easy to find dyeing mushrooms in autumn. I tried all kinds of suitabe dyestuff I could find. The corky fungus growths and mosses will have to wait until next year. I used the machine washable 7 veljestä yarn by Novita (75% wool, 25% polyamide). It withstands (according to other dyers) felting better than 100 % wool yarns, as the temperature reaches 80 to even 90 degrees C during the process. I used white, natural white and grey yarns.

Q: Can you mention some examples of the mushrooms and plants you used?

A: I used veriseitikki (cortinarius/dermocybe sanguinea) and verihelttaseitikki (cortinarius/dermocybe semisanguinea), which both give red tones; and nummitatti (suillus bovinus) which gives a bright yellow colour. I also used spruce cones to get a brown colour. Then I cooked my aalmost withered tagetes from the garden into a dyeing broth. They gave a really strong green and the broth smelled like berry juice. The dyeing is best done outdoors, as some of the dyestuffs are poisonous and the whole process is also very messy.

These green and yellow yarns are dyed with suillus bovinus mushsrooms, and tagetes. Photo by Hanna.

Q: Will you tell us how it all happens?

A: First I cooked the mushrooms or plants in water. Then I let it cool down. I first dipped the yarn in hand warm water and laid it then in the dye with the same temperature. Next I heated it slowly up to 60 degrees C, picked the yarn from the pot for a moment and added alum as a mordant. Then I heated the dye with the yarn up to 80 to 90 degrees C, and kept it at that temperature for about an hour. I let the dye pot with the yarn cool down to hand temperature again, and took the yarn to be washed in handwarm water. I added some vinegar in the first water, and rinsed the yarn until the water remained clear. Finally I admired the beautiful colours and waited impatiently for the yarn to dry.

The red and brownish colours are from cortinarius mushrooms and from spruce cones. Photo by Hanna.

Q: Will the colours fade in the sun or when washed?

A: I don't think the colours are as fast as in the industrially dyed yarns, but they are good enough for me. All the yarns I could use mordant for are colourfast. I also tried dyeing without mordant (as I run out of alum!), and even those yarns kept the colour when washed. However, I recommend the use of some mordant.

Q: Is it possible to dye other natural fibres, like cotton or silk fabric or paper?

A: I have only experimented with wool. I hear cotton requires more dyestuff, and I don't know about silk. My sister dip-dyed some papers, but the colour was paler than in the yarns. I don't know how permanent the colour would be.

Q: Can you give any hints for those who got inspired to try?

A: Mushrooms give the most dyestuff easily. I'm a beginner myself, so I recommend trying all kinds of material available from the nature. You must naturally not use any endangered or rare plants. Many weeds from the garden can well be used and of course the summer plants of your own garden when their season is over, like I did with the tagetes. You just need a big old pot. I bought mine at the flea market.

Thank you Hanna for sharing this with us!

Vintage Thingies Thursday

It is Thursday again and time to show some vintage thingies. The Apron Queen Lisa has links to other blogs showing vintage today.


I will stay in the kitchen for a little longer. Here are my old kitchen knives my mother gave me in the early 70's when I started my independent life and needed all kinds of kitchen stuff. These knives have long ago been replaced by others, but I keep them there to remind me of old times.



The wooden handles feel smooth and nice to the hand. You can see how the blade of the lower knife has narrowed down when it has been sharpened hundreds of times.

In this other picture the second knife from the right used to belong to my maternal grandmother. The Zwilling stamp has been in the middle of the blade, so it used to be a lot wider as well. My mother has a similar knife from that same time, and it has become almost an inch shorther than mine, and a lot narrower. My father used to sharpen all knives very efficiently. The last one on the right is a cheese knife, not a sharp one. The little spikes on the other edge are for picking up the slice just cut. The handle is of horn.

This is all for today from my vintage department. Today is a very rainy day, so I needed to cheer me up with this picture of a recent sunny, frosty morning. It is a view from my yard to the forest, with yellow birches and a red rowan tree and a high pine tree. When I took the picture, I heard the cry of a great black woodpecker flying somewhere near.

Taking it easy

Last Friday I had to admit that I am more like a cow than a goat when it comes to walking on steep rock paths like the ones I took last Tuesday and posted under Morning dew. I had to go and see a doctor and show him my aching, swollen, hurting knee. He gave me some pills which seem to help a little, and told me to take it easy for a week. "Only the obligatory walking, and ice packs 4 times a day on the knee." So there will be no walks this week. Yesterday, when I was in town, I didn't walk to the fabric shop, not even to look at fabrics. Instead, I enjoyed the florist's shop in the shopping centre where I have my latte or tea. When I sit in the cafe, I can see all this:


And this:




It was easy to spend an hour there, with my notebook and tea and a piece of cake. Yes, you see, when I can not get Brownie points for my walking badge this week, I can at least see to it that I have earned my tea drinking badge and cake eating badge. Every cloud can have a silver lining!


Last night we had frost again. It has been windy and the leaves are falling from the trees. After a frost it only takes a little breeze and the leaves start falling on the ground. This is a picture I took this morning in our yard. I tried to catch a titmouse in the picture, but even without it I like the pattern of the branches.



The Bergenia leaves are turning red. They roll up like this when it is cold and open again when the air is warmer. The grass looks grey because of the frost.

I have been able to finish two of my Stitchers' Angel Swap projects, and I'm going to send them to my partner tomorrow. This is the mini tote Blue Wren's Nest designed by Natalie from Cinderberry Stitches.

And this very big pincushion is designed by Karen of Cotton Spice Blog.

There will be space for all kinds on pins and needles!

I am still working on the stitching of May Britt's angel stitchery for my own bag. The Stitchers' Angels patterns are all free to be downloaded for your own use, even if you are not participating in the swap. I have enjoyed this new kind of handicraft and I think I will keep making stitcheries even after the swap. But at the moment I'm feeling the need to start a new quilt, even a little one. And I really ought to start working on my Unicef dolls if I am going to get them ready for the auction in November.

Vintage Copper Thingies

For several weeks now I have been admiring the vintage thingies Eileen has been showing in her blog on Thursdays. The hostess is Lisa and her blog is Confessions of an Apron Queen. This week I decided to join the fun for at least some weeks.



Today I want to show you my vintage copper. The first thingie is a little brush for sweeping the crumbs from a table cloth. The brush originally came with a matching dustpan, but unfortunately it has been misplaced before I got the brush from my mother. This is almost antique, from the early years of the 20th century.

The next picture shows two cake moulds and a water scoop. They are hanging on my kitchen wall and not used any longer, because the tin layer inside is not intact. I think the wedding cake of at least one of my elder sisters was baked with these and another, bigger mould.

Here I tried to show the stamp, blogger insists on showing the picture turned this way. The year 1607 is not when the mould was made but when the company was established!

This last picture is of my biggest copper thingie, an oval tub where I keep my dry flowers. I'm not sure wheter this tub was used for washing the dishes or clothes. I like the shape very much.

If you click the picture with the apron lady, you will find other blogs showing vintage thingies.