TdF day 4 - binding experiences

My Tour de Fibre post has been rescheduled for the next morning because we watch the Tour de France in the evening after work. Preparing for the 4th day I sewed the binding on my SC and thought it looked a little odd.

This was not the first binding I made ever, but someone might think otherwise. Anyway, after unpicking it I had a perfect , endless binding to attach to the right side of my quilt. During the cycling I managed to hand sew it almost all way round, just the corner for the label is waiting for tonight. I remembered to add a sleeve too, as you can see in the top right corner below. The other edge of it needs hand sewing too.

Our pink peonies are in full bloom now, and their scent reminds me of baking.

I have been working on the Helping Hands scarves from Melanie as well. The squares need to be cut to same size now. The scarves had slightly different widths and lengths too.

I have this book by Kaffe Fassett, and my quilt is inspired by the cover of the book.

TdF day 3 - SC, knitting and new taste experiences

This day had exciting events on the screen and unfortunately some cyclists had to give up their Tour de France already. Our Tour de Fibre is safer for the participants, and by switching from knitting to quilting I try to avoid one-sided stress on my hands. Today the hand quilting on SC was completed, just some snowflakes on the blocks.

For the mountain part I continued knitting on the preemie hat with an easy lacy pattern.

In the morning I received a surprise from Melanie, a UK themed supper:

My first experience of Marmite could be expressed with the words "interesting" and "exotic", and I will give it a second try. Anyway, the special edition jar must be a collector's item in a few years, with or without contents. The biscuits and the crisps will be opened tomorrow.

Hanne is hosting this Tour and a list of links to other blogs is on her sidebar.

TdF day 2 - a minor setback

Day two of Tour de Fibre didn't bring much progress as you can see:

A pink preemie hat among my pink peonies, close to being finished. And here ten minutes later:

I had dropped a stitch way back and couldn't make it good again, and the hat was more suitable for a one-year old than a preemie, so I will use a pattern that will not be so loose.

I decided to add some stitches to my Scandinavian Christmas instead:

If you want to watch the Tour de Fibre, there are links to many participating blogs on Hanne's sidebar.

Tour de Fibre day 1

I have joined Hanne in her Tour de Fibre, trying to get some handwork done during the Tour de France. My main project will be the Scandinavian Christmas quilting and binding.

Today I finished the stitchery on the label, and tomorrow I hope to get some quilting started. As I can't sew for long times without a break, I have some knitting projects at hand too. I hope to blog every day about my progress - today was an exception with two blog posts!

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.