More awards and lovely gifts

Here are three new awards I received yesterday from my blogging friend Suzie, the Little Busy Bee:

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers. When you pass the award along please include these guidelines. You are to choose eight friends to share this with.

It makes me feel warm inside to see that two of my friends in the virtual world have given me these awards within a few days. Thank you Suzie! Because I already gave further the Christmas Spirit award from Melanie in my previous post, I will not name any recipients this time. If your blog is in my right sidebar (it is a long one!) and you consider yourself a Christmas enthusiast, you can grab the awards and spread them to your friends in the blog world. The rules of the Christmas Spirit Award are here.

Suzie did not only give me the awards. Today I received a box full of gifts from her:

Chocolates, wine gum, and a star decoration with a touching poem in German. A sweet little teddybear softie came to sight. Opening the wrappings showed Lebkuchen gingerbread and other biscuits. Goodbye waistline! I was reading an Elle magazine in a waiting room on Monday, and they had good advice how to hide any problems with your figure, and what to do to make the problems disappear. Non-existing waistline was one of the problems one might have. I had to laugh, because I had every single one of the problems, and I could give up sewing, blogging, cleaning and cooking in order to have time for the suggested programs. The magazine was clearly not for my age group!!! I can solve the figure problems in no time by choosing long trousers with elastic waistband and a loose sweater. And I can have the chocolates! (And keep on sewing, blogging, cleaning and cooking.)

There was also this perfectly sewn, beautiful star. It is now hanging above a door where everybody can see it.

Suzie had also sewn me this lovely notebook cover, with a to do-list printed on the fabric! There is a standard size notebook inside, and when I have filled it with my notes I can buy a new one and use the cover again. Thank you dear Suzie for these inspiring gifts!

Finally I want to show you that I have not started a figure improvement program but spent my time in a useful way. Remember the little paper-pieced quilts from the other day? They ended up looking like this:

I'm so proud of my bindings nowadays! I found this tutorial by Stephanie through Eileen's blog, and ever since I have been sewing bindings easily without a problem, with nice corners and no bulk where the ends meet. It's worth trying!

Christmas Spirit

I was having a nice Christmas spirit earlier this week, when we had snow:


Now it is almost gone again (the snow, not the spirit!), but I still hope we will have a white Christmas, like we ought to have. Being busy belongs to this time of the year, and to ensure this, I have joined in this:





Pip from Meet me at Mikes has drawn a Christmas stocking stitching pattern and I'm also stitching a-l-o-n-g .

My friend Melanie has given me this beautiful award:

And here are the rules:

You must be a true Christmas lover to receive this award.

The person to whom you give the award must also be in love with Christmas.

You must link back to the person who gave you the award.

You must list 5 things that you love about Christmas.

If you can't limit it to 5 things, then keep going till you run out of space!

Pass the award along to as many people as you like. That can be 1 or 45; it's up to you. But, you must pass it on to at least one person in order to keep the Christmas cheer going!

Let your recipients know that you have tagged them by leaving them a comment.

Well, here are my 5 things I love about Christmas:

1. Making presents for as many people as I can

2. All the smells of baking and cooking

3. Decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve

4. Candles

5. Family

I will give this award to my friend Eileen. She has also received it from Melanie at the same time as I did, but I think I have the right to agree with Melanie here! The award also goes to the other side of the globe to Pip, whose blog has been showing lovely vintage Christmas pictures.

Vintage Christmas Thingies (11)

The time flies in December. Thursday again and time to show our vintage thingies with Coloradolady Suzanne. There are many others participating this week, go and find the links to all blogs here. I have been showing my oldest things here and many of them are rather antique than vintage. Then I noticed that I'm old enought to have made some vintage things myself. Take these crocheted hearts for example: they are from the seventies. Last century. I crocheted these for my very first own Christmas tree in 1973, together with some white snowflakes.

These birds called Karjalan käki, cuckoo of Carelia, are not that old, but the pattern is traditional. My parents made one of these to each of their children and grandchildren in 1990. They are all a little different, but my mother has written the names on all the birds so these three belong to the three of us still living here. I'm making a box for both of my elder children who now have their own homes, and in these boxes I will put their own Christmas ornaments they have been given since they were babies.

This is one of them, an angel my daughter Kaija got from my mother when she was 6. My mother had it from a school friend in the 20's. It used to be on the Christmas tree in our family when I was young. The angel is about 15 cm or 6 inches high.

This last item is a true treasure. I have been taking care of it for 24 years now, an it is time to hand it over to Kaija, who will be celebrating Christmas at her own home for the first time. She received this glass bulb from my mother at her first Christmas in 1984. It came in this box, padded with two lace-edged handkerchiefs from my great-aunt S, and a letter telling little Baby Kaija that the bulb is one of the original bulbs from my mother's childhood Christmas trees. It means the bulb is at least 92 years old this Christmas. It has always been my priviledge and duty to hang the cherished ornament in the tree; with shaky hands and careful not to break the fragile glass.

Charlie is back!

Remember the story of our three orphan squirrels? Finally, a couple of days ago I succeeded taking a (blurry) picture of Charlie the Survivor. This is taken through my kitchen window, the only way not to frighten him off. He is sitting under the bird feed box eating the seeds I dropped on the ground when I filled the box. The birds have not yet found the seeds, maybe because it is not very cold yet and they can find their food in the nature as long as there is no snow.





I have been a good girl these days, sewing all kinds of Christmas things, some for the shop in Villa Cooper and some for gifts. Little trees with cinnamon stick trunks and some spice for a good smell:



Today's sewings, paper-piecing patterns I drew this morning, waiting to be sandwiched, quilted and bound. Santa needs some makeup!


A new set of magic cubes. This time I made a mistake and had to rip off two long pieces before it was OK. I used to sew these by machine but it was difficult with all the turning in small scale.

I don't like cats but the cat fabric goes well with the little girl's cat.

Today it snowed a little, making the world a lighter place to live in. Our day is about six hours long now from sunrise to sunset, and still getting shorter. No wonder candles belong to this season, bringing light and warmth to our life.

The postman is busy

Yesterday I opened the first box of Christmas decorations. These three little angels came to stand on the fireplace edge. I don't know if this can be called a mantelpiece, as there is no wooden shelf (like I dream of having). I made the angels many years ago.




Last night was also the last sewing group meeting. We gave our teacher an Amaryllis, and I made this gift bag for it using Suzie's tutorial:


The buds will be open before Christmas!

I did some opening before Christmas, too. Yesterday I reaceived a heavy parcel from Melanie. She is such a sweet friend and seems to have endless energy. Inspired by my vintage copper things she had found this set of three small copper pans for me.

Have a closer look at the little basket filled with sweets:

Three Santas with the lovely gifts and Christmas trees with stars on top like we have up here. Thank you so much, Melanie!

Today my good luck continued. I had mail from USA, my Secret Stitching Angel Swap partner Marie sent me the swap gift together with a giveaway gift I won at her blog:

A quilting magazine, thimble brooch, snowman and snowflake buttons, dark chocolate (yumm...), embroidered towels ...

and the swap pincushion big enough to hold long quilting pins safely. Thank you, Marie!

This is a wonderful time of the year! We remember our friends near and far, and even if we don't keep contact all the time, at Christmas we send cards and updates and letters ... and even gifts to people who are important for us. I really like making and sending cards and little presents, and receiving them is at least as much fun. OK, I admit, it is even more fun, and many times also fattening. Which is often the same thing.

Vintage Thingies Thursday 10

This is how dark our mornings are at the time ordinary people go to work. The days will still get shorter for two more weeks. Click the picture and you may see the shape of our house. The candle heart is in our living room window.

It is time to participate in VTT again, hosted by Coloradolady here . There are links to other blogs participating in this, showing lovely vintage Christmas items.

I have not yet taken out my real Christmas decoration - we decorate for Christmas Eve - but here are some things I always use at Christmas.

The candleholder is made of pewter and I have had it for ages, from my mother or my grandmother.

In this lovely jar I serve chocolates or other candy wrapped in paper. When you turn the handle down, the lid opens. This is also from my parents, made in the early years of last century.

This is all for this week. Go and see what the other blogs are showing!

Friends make me happy

Today I received my first Christmas mail. I was so excitedand in a hurry I couldn't take pictures of opening it(we had just finished eating and I was going to drive into village with DH to mail my Christmas mail). It was from my dear friend Eileen from across the ocean. There was a sound to be heard from the envelope! A jingle!


This cute little bag was in the envelope, and a familiar piece of feedsack she had told about on her blog. In the bag were three cute owls she had been teasing us with, showing the bits on her blog, and I thought she was making some flowers!

There were also two lovebirds made of feedsack fabric, and some scented tea and a cinnamon stick to mix it with. I feel so lucky to have a friend like her! Now I need to clear a corner of the house and hang the owls there. The lovebirds are already hanging from the lamp above our dining table, jingling their silver feet.

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Elma Countryside Fair in Helsinki and poseted about it. I forgot to show something I bought there, a real bargain for 7 € only:

I have so much plaid in my stash and some more easily available from DH's closet that I thought I could use some patterns for the next plaid quilts I'm going to make in future.

At the fair there was also a woman who made decorations of straw. I posted the pictures, because I had sent some straw and some links to my friend Melanie in England, thinking she might be willing to give it a try. And there it is, in her blog, today, a genuine Finnish Christmas decoration made by her. Go and have a look, she always has such wonderful pictures. And if you want to know more about the himmeli decoration, click the link and you can see a Finnish page with a video of the basic idea.