Knitted graffiti and some bird news

The International Knit in Public Day was celebrated in Järvenpää on June 8th with an event organised by Lentävä Lapanen - The Flying Mitten. This rail at the end of the pedestrian area was decorated with Granny Squares and knitted bits.

 

I couldn't make it then, but I participated in the Knit in Public event at Villa Cooper on last Sunday, working on a pair of mittens. There were six of us by the time I had to leave before the rain.

 

On Monday I took my two knitted minestrone squares and added them to the rail in Järvenpää. It was fun, and I even had an audience of three watching how I crocheted the sides of the squares together around the rails. When I was taking the photos, an old gray-haired lady with a walking aid came to me and asked about the project. Her main question was, if anyone was allowed to add something there. She had such a sparkle in her eyes that I can imagine her taking out her yarns and needles, and knitting her bit for the rail. Today I'm going to check if there is anything new there!

The knitted graffiti is not the only unusual decoration by the street. This fence is in the next street corner:

 

A local flower shop has collected about 300 old rubber boots and donated summer flowers for them. Volunteers planted them and fastened the boots in the fence. Shop owners in the area take turns to water them during the summer.

 

A week ago we participated in a Birdhouse Watch organised by BirdLife Finland. Our own garden housing census showed 11 bird houses with 5 pied flycatcher families, 3 blue tit families, one great titmouse family and a tree sparrow family in the pipe of a distribution transformer in the back corner of our yard. Soon after the counting, baby birds came out and tried their wings.

 

The parents don't suffer from an empty nest syndrome: they are building new nests - or renovating - and planning to have new babies before the Summer is over. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the Swan family came back in the Spring and has shown their six babies in the village already. Mr. K. saw them walking towards the library the other day. I know from experience that there is a good selection of bedtime stories.

 

 

This vase just called for the dark irises.

 

Summer flowers

 

Mr. K has made me a new flowerbed. We plan to move the irises and day lilies from the old bed in the background, and add more colour and plants that will bloom later in the Summer. I tested how tulips would look here.

 

This was the last row for my Bee in My Bonnet row-along, and today I arranged all the rows and stitched them together. Beginning from the top with spring tulips, then comes summer and butterflies. Stars shine above the houses when autumn comes with geese flying to the South, with apples, and falling leaves.

 

Then it is time to take out the sewing basket and spools of thread, and have a mug of hot tea, when the winter has arrived and you need your warm mittens again.

Next week I try to get the borders added, but I have not yet decided what fabrics I will use. For the blocks I have used small scraps, and the borders require yardage.

My first peonies were lying flat on the ground so I brought the buds in, and after a few days they opened!

Some spools and sewing baskets

This week I have made a row of spools and a row of baskets for my Bee in my Bonnet Row-along quilt. Both rows were fun and ended up pretty straight.

 

My mug row is the most curved one, so next week when I have finished the row of flowers which is the very last one, I must be careful when I sew the rows together. There will be an inner border and a wider outer border to make after that.

 

The Spring came late this year, but it was very short. We have such an abundance of flowers everywhere. The lilacs are in full bloom too, and I brought these home when I was pruning dry branches in my FIL's garden and accidentally cut some fresh ones too.

 

The temperatures have been up to 25C (77F) and more during the last week, and today my first peony opened!

Still Rowing Strong

My computer connects me again normally, and I have sewn my two rows of The Bee in my Bonnet Row-along I'm making at my own pace. The new rows are Winter Stars and Houses.

 

 

This red one looks a little like our house. Just a little!

 

With the help of friends, Nina Lise and Melanie, I got the patterns for last week's rows before my computer was co-operating. You have seen the Autumn Leaves already, here together with the new Mittens:

 

Ten down, three to go, and of course borders, backing and label.

 

It is time for the first harvest already! The rhubarb is growing fast, and I made us a dessert

 

with some raspberries from the freezer. Strawberries would have been better, but I only had raspberries and bilberries. This desert is typical for our corner of the world, maybe a bit old fashioned nowadays, but just wonderfully refreshing on a hot day. It is like a thick berry soup, served cold with sugar and maybe whipped cream or ice cream.

 

The lilies of the valley are blooming! When I was very very young, I had a deodorant spray that smelled of these flowers and the text on the bottle was Muguet, so fine in French. Another popular scent was Apple Blossom, for some reason in English.

 

 

I picked a bunch, and they smell so lovely every time I walk by.

What is your favourite flower scent?

Edit: naturally the rhubarb is a dessert with double s., like my observant daughter kindly helped me notice.

Happy Scrappy May and some Autumn leaves

This week has been fun and busy. We visited our daughter Kaija on Monday and Tuesday and enjoyed the first really warm, no-coat-on-in-town days. DD has been binding some amazing books lately, and she has her own study too, finally. I have been working on two quilts again, and finished the May stitcheries for Happy Scrappy Spring BOM designed by Kaaren at The Painted Quilt. You can click the pictures to get a better look.

 

I still need to make the sashing to go between the two first rows.

 It has not been just fun: I can't open The Bee in my Bonnet blog to get the mitten block instructions! I had only written down the measurements for the leaf blocks of row 7 when I lost the connection. Well, I have some measurements for the mitten blocks too, so I can start cutting, but that's it. I hope the problem will go away so I can get the remaining instructions for five more rows. I think I can manage borders and backing on my own. This has been such a fun quilt, so I really would like to finish it the way it was designed.

Nest building time has brought unusual visitors to the remains of last winter's bird seeds. Birds that are very common here but just not here at the edge of the village, like jackdaws and crows. I took this picture for you, Melanie, because you had not seen hooded crows very often before you saw them here. The map in the link shows that they are in fact rare in Western Europe and England, just like their all black cousin, Carrion Crow is rare here.

It has been so warm that we have been having our afternoon coffee on the veranda, equipped with binoculars (Mr. K), camera (me) and two bird books at least. On Thursday we spotted this little fellow, only because there are not yet leaves in the apple tree. After having consulted the books we decided this is the Lesser Whitethroat, Sylvia Curruca. I took several pictures, catching sometimes just the tail, or part of the wing through the twigs, but putting all the details together we could identify him. It is really hard to see the colour of a bird's legs, or to say there are or are not shades of a certain colour on the back or wings. Luckily the camera catches every detail.

 

Wish me luck with the missing rows for the Bee in my Bonnet. Hvae better luck with your projects!

Rows of the week and some spring pictures

This week I have been making mugs and Flying Geese. My geese are flying North now in Spring. We have seen some migrating cranes and geese. It is always something special when you see such big birds. My fabric geese are tiny and a bit blurry because I didn't think too much when choosing the fabrics.

 

 

I had to make some left-handed mugs as well. This quilt in progress is last year's row-along by Bee in my Bonnet, and I'm using mostly recycled fabrics and leftover scraps from dressmaking. Here are my six first rows. Next week I'll be raking leaves and knitting mittens!

 

Within the last few days our birches have dressed in light green lace. It looks so lovely after the long, long winter. Even the wind sounds softer now.

 

 

Wild white anemones cover the forest ground. The perfect pretty flowers to pick for Mother's Day tomorrow. When I was little, we used to pick the blue ones, liverwort, if they were out, because that's what was growing in our nick of the country.

 

I planted some Anemone Hepatica from my childhood home last summer in our yard, and I hope they will thrive here. Now the flowers are very pale, but if you look close enough and click for a bigger photo, you can just see a few of them. 

 

Mr. Pied Flycatcher is guarding his new home. It looks like many of our birdhouses have nest builders at work. Mrs. Flycatcher chose Silver Birch wallpapers for this house.

 

 

Our first daffodils are out! The little ones are Tete-à-Tete daffodils from my hanging flowerpot from last year of the year before. I buy them for Easter already in bloom, and when the snow is gone I plant them in the garden.

 

 

This week's rows and other finishes

This week I picked some apples and went zig-zag with my scrappy quilt. I managed to finish two more rows for the Bee in My Bonnet Row-along I'm making at my own pace.

 

My first four rows look like this, and next week I'm making some mugs and flying geese.

 

My blog remote control (DD) helped me find what was suddenly wrong with my pictures: The camera has settings for white balance, and somehow I had managed to change them. It made the pictures all blue, and I only thought it was the spring light, and tried to edit the worst of them. With her help I found the settings and at least the top photo looks OK now. The wind was blowing so much that I couldn't get the four rows lay still but had to take them in for a group photo shoot.

 

I made a little baby quilt for a friend who is going to have a baby next month.

The fabrics are all leftovers from the preemie quilts I have made earlier.

 

In the evenings I have been knitting dishcloths from some lovely cottons and bamboo cotton  blends.

Then I had to try this new to me traditional potholder pattern. I should have used heavier yarn, because the holes are so big you can burn your fingers if you use this for something really hot. This potholder is double-sided, the reverse is black. Can you find the missing stitch? I only noticed it now from the picture. I will go and add it, no problem. This will be my first entry for the Craft Olympics 2013 Special category.