Hunting for old books again, textile art

For many years already, Mr. K and I have made a Summer trip to Sastamala to the Old Literature Fair where sellers and buyers of old books are gathered for two days. The place is a school, and many sellers have their tables and shelves in a big tent in the school yard.

Mr K. found several interesting books on fishing, and my treasure is located on a river as well:

This is the first edition of the children's classic Wind in the Willows in Finnish. No pictures inside, but the cover pleases my eye.

After seeing all the books we drove to visit my mother and made lunch at her place. It was good to see her in reasonably good health and in a very good mood. Our next stop was in central Finland where our DD Kaija lives. We stayed in a new hotel.

The bed was the best after our own bed at home, but the bathroom could have had a rail on the wall to help anyone stiffer and older than we are.

As you can see the weather was nice all day, not too hot. This is a view from our window.

On Saturday we met with Kaija and wanted to visit the Finnish Handicraft Museum which was closed on the Monday when I visited Kaija before Christmas. This time we had better luck, although the permanent exhibition was closed due to moisture damage to the building. We saw Anu Tuominen's exhibition Fingerprints. She is known for her work with recycled textiles she has bought at flea markets, like these potholders:

or the soap dishes, arranged by colour to create her piece of art:

The name of the work adds a new dimension to her art, here is Compostor:

Carrots

Pancakes with Strawberry Jam, Milk 2012, from 2002 onwards, second-hand panholders, buttons, jam container and spoon, mugs and crocheting:

From the left: Worsted (combed yarn), 2007, combs, knitting
Three-colour knitting, 2012, brushes, knitting
Casting on for a striped scarf, 2007, knitting needles, yarn
Sweater for Mr Moebius, 2012, knitting. Unfortunately I missed the other half of this one, but you can imagine how it is when you think of the Möbius strip. Click to enlarge all the pictures!

If you want to see more of her work, here is a link to pictures on the internet.

After the exhibition we did some shopping, had lunch with Kaija and V, went to see their new home and came back to our own.

Midsummer flowers and unfinished business with my Grandmother

Today is Midsummer Day here, as most public holidays have been moved to weekend. The old Midsummer Day was June 25th. We didn't celebrate much, but we have fresh potatoes with butter and dill, herring and warm smoked ham for lunch. It is something you need to taste up here to understand why it is delicious and special. It is our favourite summer meal for the next month or so!

My irises are in bloom:

And the lupins by the road:

Ranunculus by the steps in the garden:

Phox subulata in pink and white:

And the early peonies:



We had our windows replaced this week and hope to get the builders back next week to finish the inside and weatherboards. I was hoping to get clean windows when I get new windows, but it looks like I have to clean these after all. Anyway, it will only be four surfaces instead of the six I had in the old ones. The new windowsills will be smaller than the old ones. We need to find a way to keep my pot plants happy with sufficient light.

On Wednesday I met with a friend from my student times. She lives in Germany but her family is from this area and we have met a couple of times while she is here. I made her an eye glass/phone pocket in a bright Marimekko fabric with Winnie the Pooh design.

Kaite has challenged me to use my tiny ends of wool yarn to make a blanket over a long period of time, and here is what I'm going to start with:

While I was digging in my bags and boxes for those yarns, I found these two unfinished mittens:

They are both from my Grandmother, who used to keep all her grandchildren well stashed with socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and even dresses she knitted. I have kept these two so I can copy her pattern and use it. I know I have used the pattern on the right for some mittens for my own children but never wrote it down. The one on the left is knitted on regular needles up to the end of the pattern. I will let you know if I can figure out how she made it.

Knitting and ranting

Almost two weeks have passed and I don't have much craftiness to show. I have been knitting these tiny preemie baby beanies in the evenings. This is my last ball of baby yarn, and I think it will make four little hats as there is over 240 m yarn in the 50 g ball. I almost fainted when I heard the price: 6.75 €, but then I remembered that I had entered Mrs. Greedy's shop again, against my earlier decision. (Back in 2009 she charged me in € the old FIM price of all the old knitting needles I bought from her for charity, which makes it 6 times the correct price, and made me pay for more thimbles than I actually got.) Don't ever go to her shop, and if you do, don't buy anything.

We are approaching the shortest night of the year. Last Thursday night when I had to go in the middle of the night, I saw a funny sight through the round window in our hall. The full moon was shining from a very light blue sky at three in the morning (so it was actually Friday already). For some reason the moon looked a lot bigger than in the picture.

I have made plans for a couple of new quilts waiting in my PIPS box. I found the outer border leftovers from the big Grandmother's Garden quilt, and some sand colour fabric. It is my old safari suit trousers from the time I was young. They will complete the blocks in process.

The second plan includes a chambray all-in-one suit from the early 80's, and some Egyptian scarf halves from Melanie.

These two great black woodpeckers spent a long time on this aspen in our garden. They were playing hide and seek or learning to find food, or then something else. They looked rather small to us so we think they were young ones. It was fun to watch the one on the right shake his head from side to side. Both made quiet noises, maybe they were whispering something about me and my camera. Just when I took a few steps closer to get a better picture of the one on the left, they decided to fly back to the forest where we often hear their calls.

SC 5 and some PIPS finishes

Today is the day which meant end of school and the beginning of three whole months of Summer holidays when I went to school. My first Summer holiday started with my first wristwatch and measles.

Wagtails have returned from the South, marching busily on our lawn and catching insects.

I set myself a goal to finish the Scandinavian Christmas top by the end of May, and so I did. The hearts for the outer border were easy to applique.

The top grew so much bigger with the borders! I will use the greyish brown linen of the inner border for the binding too.

Yesterday I visited my big sister P, and now I can show you what I have been making for her new cabin. First, a tea cosy with the same fabric as in the old big tea cosy from our childhood summer place. I have the original one, and mother had given me the leftover square to make a potholder or something. It was not very big, so I used black cotton for the other side. I hope my sister will remember all the lovely summer outdoors afternoon coffees from back home when she uses this.

Her new basic apron used to be her own kitchen curtain. I made one apron to be a "staff uniform" for the Villa Cooper shop earlier this year using this same fabric,

and here is another of her fabrics I used for an apron then. P asked for covers for guest pillows used on a sofa when not needed for sleeping. Both have a hidden zipper at the back.

That was about everything from the sewing front.  All these have been waiting in my PIPS box for my mood to change so I can get them done. It feels good to see the project bags disappear from the box! I have been knitting baby things for the hospital in the evenings but there is not much to show yet.

Our apple trees are in full bloom now. This was a few days ago, now the petals are falling from the tree in front, but the bigger tree is still getting whiter. I could use the apples again, as last year there were hardly any apples. The weather is not warm now, but I have seen bees around the trees so let's hope for a good harvest. A moderate harvest, please.

The Bag Ladies strike again

Every girl wants a new bag in the Spring. Mine is All About Anna, an easy to follow pattern by Stephanie of Loft Creations. This generous lady gifted her European friends in the Bag Club (very, very unofficial!) with this pattern, and now we finally found time to make our versions. Be sure to check what  Melanie and Simone have made with it.

It took me a long time to pick the perfect fabrics for this bag. These are the fabrics I bought recently at a Handicraft Fair, with the bag in mind.

Here is a picture from four years ago, showing my loot from another Craft Fair. I have only been touching and folding the middle four fabrics, but decided to cut them for the new bag. Just a little nib at the edge, 1½" wide!

I took Melanie's challenge before she even wrote about it here (way at the end of the long post). Your loveliest fabrics are worth a life away from the cupboard! Give them a chance! See here, I needed just tiny bits of the pretty fabrics, and still have lots left for the really, absolutely perfect project for them. I just happened to have the perfect vintage button for the bag too.

Inside pocket.

And finally the back. The main fabric is coffee brown linen.

Thank you Stephanie for this nice pattern, and thank you Bag Ladies for the deadline and for making the bag with me. This time we didn't need each others' help for solving problems, as there weren't any. The bag is perfect size for me, it will hold everything I carry around plus a magazine, a water bottle or even my camera. I can carry it on my shoulder and have both hands free.

In the evenings I have been knitting tiny beanies for preemie babies. I still have some yellow baby wool and I want to try another pattern too. The preemie blanket is knitted using a 100 g ball of baby yarn. I started in one corner and added in the middle of the row so the blanket would be square whenever I ran out of yarn.

Finally a picture of the guy who lost the battle and his tail feathers. He didn't want to show his face, which is quite understandable. The other guy has tail feathers almost 20 inches long, and four ladies. But I like happy ends, and so do you, so we can all be happy that Mr. No Tail has a big, good looking lady of his own. And he will have a perfect tail by the end of the summer.

Secrets revealed and wonders of the nature

It has been a long time since my last post, due to Internet problems. Things are getting better now and I hope to catch up my blog reading soon.
This is what I have been working on in secret:

In February I heard through Simone about the Stained Quilt Along hosted by Sarah at Narcoleptic in a Cupboard. After seeing Simone's blue and grey fabrics I thought my son's shirts would make a lovely stained glass quilt to match the Business Class quilt I made for his birthday.

His long-time girlfriend has her birthday this week and I had a chance to give this to her yesterday

They had invited us and her parents for a very delicious Mother's Day lunch at their home. The quilting is in the ditch as I didn't want to disturb the "glass".  -  I couldn't resist borrowing DD's stained glass angel for the last picture. There is no border in this quilt, just a narrow binding in the same grey as the sashings. Sarah's pattern was for a crib size quilt and I wanted to make a lap size, so I added a row at the bottom and to one size. I forgot to measure the finished quilt but it should be around 55.5" x 66.5".

Marimekko has taken old prints into production again. This one is "Helsinki - Helsingfors" by Per-Olof Nyström from 1952, the year of the Helsinki Olympics. I don't remember this print from my childhood, but my mother used to have summer dresses and skirts in this style. I found this piece of fabric in the local Marimekko shop and used it for a shopping bag for my sister Maija in Germany.

And now some spring feelings. Wood Anemone is one of the first wild spring flowers, usually popping up for Mother's Day.

My daffodils like their new place and are blooming right now. This is their second spring in this spot.

The green finches were courting over lunch. He on the right is showing his nice yellow wing feathers.

Mr. Pheasant has four lovely ladies, here he is watching over two of them having lunch. He is wearing his spring feathers, with brighter colours and much red in the face.

 

I almost forgot to update my Scandinavian Christmas. Here is Block 4 all finished:

And here it is added to the other three. I'm slowly starting work on the border of hearts and snowflakes. If you want to see a finished Scandinavian Christmas, pop over to Melanie. She is being a star pupil!

This is all for today, I hope to come back soon with new finishes.