Farmers' and Crafters' Market, and finally a quilt top

Last Saturday was the first weekend of September, and time for the 20th annual Maa Elää event in Järvenpää. It is a bigger than usual Farmers' and Crafters' market and harvest fair with nearly 200 stalls instead of the under 10 on a normal Saturday. There is often also an exhibition of old tractors or lorries. The first one is a grey Fordson from the very early '50s. See how small it is!

 

 

 

This red beauty is a Valmet, made in Finland.

 

 

The green one is Zetor from Czechoslovakia. The blue one in the background is another Fordson, in case you are interested.

 

 

The scent of the apples was delicious. I must start cooking my apples now too, but our eating apples are almost no longer good. They can't be stored, cooked or baked, just eaten fresh. These stalls were on the market place.

 

 

The rows of stalls reached all the way to the end of the pedestrian area. New harvest: honey and garlic, separately and together.

Autumn's flowers

more of them

Autumn wreaths made of birch twigs or willow, and hand made jewelry.

Hand knitted wool socks in every size and colour. There were stalls with beautiful handicrafts, but the best ones were hidden behind buyers' backs so no pictures of linen dresses, more hand made jewelry or gorgeous knitted scarves and hats.

 The day was chilly but luckily there was no rain.

My craft room has finally something to show. I have added a white border and a multicolour piano key border to my Helping Hands quilt top. Choosing a backing is the next step.

 

 

First Swan report of the year, and some knitting

My regular readers may remember my pictures of whooper swans nesting in our village. For several years already, a whooper swan couple has built their nest by one of the little ponds around the village and brought their young to the village centre for flying lessons. This year made no exception, the couple - together for life - arrived in the spring and walked their babies to the bigger ponds for a first visit in June already. Local bird friends were worried about them and put up a self-made traffic sign:

 

There are two bigger ponds on different sides of the road through the village, and the birds would need to cross it if they wanted to change scenery. The bird looks more like a mute swan with the curved neck, but everyone will understand to look out for swans. After WWII the whooper swan was almost extinct in Finland, but the books by a beloved author, Yrjö Kokko, changed the situation and the estimated number of nesting couples for last year in Finland was already 5,000 to 7,000.

 

In August the school begins, for little swans as well. They have now moved to the big ponds in the village and learn to find their food in deeper water. This year there are seven (7!) babies in the family.

Later when the parents have grown new feathers, flight lessons will begin. They need a long runway to get in the air. There is often already ice on the ponds before the swans are ready to leave for the winter.

Mother or father is keeping watch while the cygnets eat with their heads under water.

On the crafty front I have been very passive lately, just knitted some squares for a new blanket in the evenings while watching TV.

There is a touch of Autumn in the air already, today is the last day of Summer. Enjoy your weekend!

Cabin holiday

This week Mr. K took me and our friends to North Carelia to our annual fishing holiday. We have stayed at this cabin every August for many years already, just for three days and nights. The men fish, the women run the household, read and knit, everyone is happy. This Summer has been very rainy in Eastern Finland, and the rapids were wide and full of water.

 

 

This was the same spot last year with normal water level:

 

We had a welcoming committee on the landing stage: a merganser family was resting after their diving exercise.

 

 

Mother Merganser, or maybe one of the young ones swimming alone.

 

 

This is the outdoors kitchen/dining room we used for all meals except for the late evening when it was too dark and cold to sit there after the sauna. Coffee water boiling over the open fire.

 

 

 

Rafters on wooden boats and rubber rafts kept us company a couple of times a day. The boats usually turned and came back half way up for a second run.

 

 

Mr. K had a hard time wading knee deep where he usually can walk on dry stones. The fishes were hiding from him mid stream where he could not reach them. With hard work he caught some.

 

 

 

The old sauna on the left and the new big sauna on the right. The wooden pathways have been replaced with gravel.

 

 

Friday morning Mr. K was packing freshly smoked fish to take home.

 



We had a great time, reasonably good weather with just a little rain, temperatures around 12 C/55F but warm clothes kept us comfortable, and delicious meals. If you would like to see more pictures of this place, you can go here and here and here. And my friend Dick's story is here.

One finish and lots of gifts

This week the Tour blanket was finished at last. It is bigger than I thought it would be, as my squares refused to be 20 cm as instructed. No sewn seams here, I have picked the stitches for a new square on the side of an existing one, and knitted two squares together at the end of each row of a new square.

This week has been a Very Nice Mail Week. First came the 100th Houseelf blog post giveaway mail from Melanie: a bright tea towel, a rainbow coloured lavender bag, a Kaffe Fasset tissue holder and some special teas and sweets.

Today I received another parcel from her, from her summer trips she has been showing on her blog. Coal tar soap and mustard bath to keep me clean and my toes warm when the winter comes. I'm not old enough to have lived in the war time, not to speak of the time of the Bronte sisters, but Melanie and I have read old books together and she makes the world of the Swallows and Amazons real for me with products that have been there already at their time. Thank you, Melanie!

Today's mail brought me another surprise, a parcel from Simone. I had admired her zakka projects, and she sent me a hand made ribbon:

Beautiful thoughts! The ribbon is hanging by my sewing machine already. She also sent me a cheese cutter for young cheese - we are comparing models, it seems! Thank you, Simone!

There have been very little birds in our yard during the summer, they live in the woods and find their food there. They don't have time for songs either, they are too busy raising their families. Mr. K found something different, a slow-worm, when he was clearing something in the yard. This reptile has been called brass snake because of its beautiful brass or copper colour. It is not a snake, but a lizard.

A break between projects

Today I enjoyed a peaceful moment in the sun. I had a new book, a cup of hot chocolate on my new coaster from Melanie, and some home baked gingerbread in the little basket I made. These were the little gifts we sent together to all the ladies who have been stitching Scandinavian Christmas with us.

A closer look: Melanie chose the little bird from the appliqué for her wool coasters, and I used a churn dash block like the quilt had between the blocks and snowflake stitcheries. I will keep updating the link list on the right when our stitch along ladies post about their achievements.

For my part the Scandinavian Christmas is finished, but I bought a new book by Lynette Anderson. There are some smaller projects in it I think I can manage by myself. The SC was such an amount of cross stitches that I could not have finished it without the others.

My next project for the evenings looks like this:

Kaite from Australia sent me some soft baby acrylics for charity baby blankets. My fingers are already itching for them, but I have two and a half squares to knit on the heavy wool blanket I started during the TdF. Actually, the wool is a bit itchy but the baby yarns feel super soft.

The hostas are in bloom in our garden.

At the Antique Market

On Saturday we went to see the local Antique Market here in our village. Last year was our first visit; this new location near the shops was nicer. I noticed two little teddy bears sitting on a chair.

A sweet little sewing machine with original packing. Too bad I don't collect sewing machines, not even small ones.

Forks and knives and kitchen stuff.

Cups and saucers and glasses, really rather vintage than antique. Many people collect coffee cups, especially Finnish cups.

There were old copper coffee pots, at a reasonable price.

An embroidered towel rack curtain, to hide the kitchen towels from view.

This one is for you, Simone: half a stall filled with jugendstil embroideries. I think most of them were recently made after original patterns from the beginning of last century.

Another popular collectible, blue and white butter jars from last century, manufactured by Arabia, the  best known Finnish ceramics factory.

I found one pretty little jug, but the price was about six times the sum I was ready to pay. Luckily Mr. K. found a fly fishing rod at a bargain price.

Nothing handmade by me this time? Yes, there is. Yesterday Mr. K and I picked a small bucket full of sour cherries from a tree planted by birds, and I cooked 25 small jars of cherry jam. Yum, yum!

Time to smell the flowers

The end of the Tour was exhausting and I was too tired to even report for the final stage. Instead, I took time to smell the flowers, or at least see and notice them. My favourite bellflower the Campanula persicifolia, or "the crane's bellflower" in Finnish. Cats, magpies, deer, elks, goats, foals and even old men have their own bellflowers in Finnish.

Prunella vulgaris (common self-heal) colours our lawn with beautiful purple. Finding the link for you I learnt that this flower is edible. I have not yet tasted!

On a little shopping trip I found these delicious Autumn fabrics 20 % off the price. I tried to explain to Mr. K that 6 fabrics with 20 % off the price would mean a discount of 120 %, but he is so good with numbers that he didn't believe me.

My blanket has grown a little even after the TdF. I pick up the stitches by the side of a knitted square and join the last stitch at the end of the row to the other square's finishing row, so there will be no sewing the squares together.

This was my secret sewing during the Tour, a clothes pin apron for Simone for her birthday.