Munich, a touch of Spring and a happy end

After the weekend in small towns and at the fly fishing event, on Monday morning we took the train to Munich. The weather was warming up and the sky was blue. Here is the Cathedral, Frauenkirche, built in 1468-1488.

 

 

 

We were walking in the city centre, Marienplatz, originally a market place. I zoomed my camera to look at  one of the many gargoyles on the New Town Hall building. New is a relative word, it was built between 1867 and 1907.

 

 

Here is a picture of the building, and you can see how many people have taken their coats off as the day was getting warm.

 

The Glockenspiel was playing, life size figures of people and horses. You can read about the plays in the link.

 

We were not just tourists looking at attractions we had seen already, but we were on a mission: I needed some red (304) DMC embroidery floss. We looked for it in the big department stores, some of which actually had a fabric and hobby department. But all they had was Anchor floss, and no conversion chart like this link I later got from Melanie: http://www.willowfabrics.com/shadeconverter.shtm. We looked into shopping arcades in hope to find a quilt shop, embroidery shop, anything. No luck. Such a big, big, city, and they don't have a quilt shop where one could find it and have some fun, and they don't even sell red floss. And that was almost all I really wanted!

 

 

Then we walked past the Fishing and Hunting Museum, another familiar place we already visited twice.  

 

This time I didn't dare go in, the exhibition was about life with Wolpertinger! You can see how awful they can look. (Yes, they are all different.) They may have a hare's body with antlers, feet like a waterbird and maybe even wings.

 

I have learnt at the museum that they specialised in eating "North German soft sculls", and one can't be sure how well they know their geography. Finland is even more in the North than North Germany! You can imagine how I was scared when I saw this creature through my kitchen window just after arrival:

 

Brown and white hair falling out, and the ears look a little like antlers when you are scared, don't you think? Originally the Wolpertinger were made in the 19th century by taxidermists from parts of actual animals, as a joke to fool tourists in restaurants and inns.

 

After coming back home I went to Hyvinkää just 15 minutes away by car, and bought the floss I needed. For those who should need Anchor floss, the nice lady at the shop had colour charts and conversion tables both ways! I packed my new floss in my new kit Melanie made for my birthday, and it was packed full with a matching project bag, scissors, ribbons, pins and needles.

 

 

Pincushion, needles book and scissor holder.

All holders with stitched names.

Some of the books she brought - I have read one and I'm reading two at the moment. The most gorgeous mug for my tea. I feel all girly!

 

Now I'm prepared for the next row of Kaaren's Happy Scrappy Spring next week. Happy End!

 

 

The snowdrops were in bloom when we came home, and now most of the snow is gone too.

 

 

Little holiday away from the snow

Last weekend Mr. K and I visited the 8th International Experience the World of Fly Fishing at the Event Forum Fürstenfeld near Munich, like last year (but it was the 7th, naturally). Mr. K's sister lives quite near this place, so we had a chance to stay with her, visit the fair, and see Munich. DH is a fly fisherman, and I'm a keen fan. The casting demonstrations at the outdoor pool were the most interesting part. Again, Antti Guttorm from Finland was showing his skills and emphasising the importance of the left hand.

 

 

A man from the North Lapland, he was not afraid of getting his feet wet in the cold weather.

 

 

I have about 50 more pictures of the casting demos and the fly rods, but I believe you prefer the strawberry panna cotta we had with coffee on the exhibition grounds.

 

 

This is the church of the old monastery of Fürstenfeldbruck. The buildings have served as hospital, accommodation for school children, police training school etc.

 

Spring was late in Germany as well as it is in Finland. Pulmonaria is one of the early wild flowers.

I have never seen such dark blue violas at home.

Travel report will continue in my next blog post and I take you to Munich for a walk.

After the trip I finished the carrot on the last block for my first row of Happy Scrappy Spring by Kaaren of the Painted Quilt.

 

Here is the row finished except for some applique that I will do later.

 

A new project and some new houses

Mr. K has been building new houses again, for our little friends. If you click the picture, you can count four in the trees. One came to replace an old one the squirrels had used, and one of the old bird houses was damaged when we had to cut down some birches.

 

 

The morning after the six new houses were put in the trees and four other ones spring cleaned - did you know the birds make their own spring cleaning too? - I saw house hunters at four new houses. Here is a blue tit, he chased some great tits away as he was showing this place to his sweetheart.

 

This is a birch where we never had a birdhouse before, but it was obviously a good place, because there were many young couples interested to see the house. "A modern, compact house in a respected area", I think. An old birch would possibly have natural holes tits use for their nests. The titmouse went in and spent a long time checking the workmanship. I hope there will be happy families in all the birdhouses so we can enjoy watching birds during the non-feeding season too.

 

 

My new  project suitably begins with a birdhouse stitchery:

 

The first row for Kaaren's Happy Scrappy Spring ROM (Row of the Month) is almost done. Tonight I will stitch a juicy big carrot and add that block to the end of the row.

I'm using all kinds of scraps from my stash, recycling plaid shirts and whatever happens to please my eye. The light outdoors is strangely blue in the last picture, where my row is on the snow. Yes, still plenty of that on the ground, and we had some new snow on Sunday and Monday, to brighten up the world. - This quilt should be finished in the Autumn so I think I can find a suitable category for it in the Craft Olympics Sylvia is hosting this year.

Special treats and new challenges

We continue our sightseeing tour in Järvenpää. This is Halosenniemi, the studio and home of Pekka Halonen from 1902. He was one of the artists of the Golden era of Finnish art. Melanie introduced another local artist of that time in her travel report here, Venny Soldan-Brofelt. We visited her 150th birthday exhibition at the art museum of Järvenpää.

 

Because Melanie is such a fan of Villa Cooper, I wanted her to see the "sister villa", Sibelius' Ainola.

The roof of this home museum has been repaired during the winter and the place will open for the public again in May. The timber walls have been boarded over at an early stage, but you can see details like at Villa Cooper.

This is an earlier picture of Villa Cooper, the big dining room windows facing town.

Melanie brought me a suitcase full of girly treats for a birthday tea. I had asked her about scones and clotted cream, so she brought those too, along with strawberry marmalade. We ate the scones ages ago, but I tried the delicious ingredients on biscuits and on toast too. The marmalade goes first:

Yumm! Here you see the wrapping from the container ....

.. and read some history:

 

In exchange, we gave Melanie a chance to try a Finnish specialty, which could also be worth a Protected Designation of Origin, mämmi:

 

 

Mämmi is a traditional Easter or Lent food, made of rye, malt and water slowly baked in the oven. It has a porridge-like consistency and is served with sugar and cream. Melanie is either really well behaved or she just happened to like it, because after the test spoonful she had a normal serving like the one in my picture.

 

Now that the busy season with birthdays, Easter and Melanie's visit is over I have had time to join this year's Craft Olympics, now hosted by Sylvia. If you need deadlines (at the end of this year!), have UFO's (new category) and feel like having company when doing your projects, you can click the button on my sidebar and find the new rules for this year's Craft Athletes. Sylvia hosts both in German and in English. Be a good sport and join in! My other new project is a BOM at Kaaren's blog, The Painted Quilt. Happy Scrappy Spring only started yesterday so there is still time to join in and make a scrappy quilt with some stitcheries and some wool applique. I'm planning to make this quilt entirely from stash, preferably with recycled fabrics. The instructions for the whole first row are waiting! A button on my sidebar will take you to Kaaren's blog.

Visitors

Recently we have had some rare visitors. Two weeks ago a trail of new tracks came from the forest to our yard, something bigger than the usual hares.

 

In the front garden it looked almost like little children had been skiing there, spoiling the virgin snow cover.

Then we had a better look, measured the marks and checked with a book "Tracks on Snow": Not a deer but an elk! We know they live in the forest but this was a first visit so close to the house.

A week later another new visitor came: Melanie came to celebrate our birthdays. I'm five days and some  many years older than she, so Friday was just fine for our birthday cake. It was wonderful to finally meet her in person after five years of blog friendship. I was so happy to notice she was exactly as I imagined her.

On Saturday we took the train to Järvenpää and started our tour with the number one on her wish list, Villa Cooper. As you can see, we had beautiful weather for our walk.

Just some Easter pictures from the inside. Decorated twigs like the ones children would bring you on Palm Sunday with their blessings in exchange for some chocolate eggs.

Lovely white feather wreath.

I think I will leave the rest of my tour pictures until Melanie has shown hers on her blog so I don't spoil her surprise. This is what I knitted her for her birthday, to make sure she will survive our cold March days during her visit. I'm slowly learning the toe to top method of knitting socks, but I'm still having difficulties with determining the distance from toe to beginning of the heel.

 

With these yellow tulips from my sister I wish you all a Happy Easter!

 

Tracks on snow, and finally a finish

It has been so long since I last posted, there just haven't been any new finishes to show. I have been knitting squares for a blanket using leftover yarns and some unexpected finds from my stash, but on cloudy days taking photos is a nightmare. A couple of days ago this leftover piece of the moon was still on the sky when the sun was rising.

 

 

The nights are cold here, around -20C/-4F, when the sky is clear. Cold weather means the birds need nourishing food, so the woodpecker had some fat with seeds to keep warm.

 

 

Yesterday we had a snow shower that covered all the old tracks. Look how many hares, squirrels and birds have been running and jumping in our yard after that:

 

A hare's footprints closer, the smaller prints are from the front legs.

 

 

Here is finally my Helping Hands quilt with binding and label. The striped fabrics are all pieces of Egyptian scarves from Melanie, who made a quilt with her friends' hands in applique almost two years ago. I finished this top last summer but somehow it just became a WIP.

 

I used my scarf pieces to make this quilt. It will end up warming somebody, who needs a helping hand. I remember that Simone used her pieces for a scarf.  - Yes, we have this much snow left, it is still very much winter.

 

One last snow picture from some time ago. Can you guess what has been going on here?

 

 

Two hares (or one, making two rounds) have come running from the left and sliding down the steep slope. I have heard of otters playing like this down the riverbank, but not hares. I hope they had fun!