The Flying doll and his cousin

 

Who is that, flying through the air? He looks like SuperM!

And so he is! Hello, M!

- Hi R! Are you coming from the sauna in your bathrobe, standing in the snow? What does you Mum say, or our Auntie?

- I’m not cold, I’m a Finn, and Mum doesn’t know I’m here. Besides, this is no bathrobe. It is my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu uniform, with a black belt now.  But why are you wearing your underpants on top, and what do your Mum and our Auntie say to that?

- They don’t say anything because they know I think this looks cool. And when I wear them and the cape, I can fly like you saw. Your black belt must mean something too?

- Yes, it means I’m cool too and more experienced at my sport than those who have yellow belts, or green or blue.

- Great. Now I must spread my cape and fly home. I have a little party on Sunday. Take care!

- You too and have a nice birthday!

- Likewise, dear cousin!

- J*******a, my pants again!

Happy birthday dear little nephews!

Struggle with socks

The problem with yarn rests is that when you start a project you don't really know if there will be enough yarn. Clever people use the upside down method, more commonly known as toe to top, but I find it very difficult to calculate when to start the heel, so I prefer starting up and knitting towards the toes, the old fashioned way. Careful as I was, I knitted these Harry Potter coloured socks in a rather small size, and ended up having still some yarn left, and so I knitted another pair in a baby size.

Then I started a more demanding project for an elderly birthday boy. Plain grey socks sounded too dull and modest, so I chose a simple cable pattern I had admired for a long time.

The cable is as simple as can be, two stitches crossed, once or twice every other round, but boy was it a struggle for me! I could not keep track on where I was on the pattern, what I had knitted on the previous round or where and when I should start the cable-ing. Finally I remembered the stitch markers and used them to mark the beginning of the pattern. I decided to stick to more simple ways of knitting again, plain stripes or purl and knit variations.

I have also worked on a secret sewing project but it will be revealed in a week or so.

Some dust from Sahara sand storms reached our country. It showed clearly as a yellowish layer on top of the pure white snow. Just for fun we filled a glass jar with the dirty snow to see if there really was sand, but when the snow had melted the water in the jar was coloured, and only very little anything was left in a white coffee filter. Only the lightest particles were carried high up in the air all the way to us. Now the temperatures have gone up from the -20 and the snow is melting when the days are above 0 and nights only some degrees below. The Winter is by no means over yet, we may have new snow in April if we have a cold Spring.

I don't want to end with such an ugly photo so here you have some flowers instead!

 

Grey knitting, sunny days

Knitting in the evenings in front of the TV is my way of relaxing. It feels like I'm not totally wasting my time when I knit. I found this version of basket weave stitches and liked it, as it was very easy to remember and didn't require counting more than five rows.

The father of the little knight from the previous post got these mittens to match his son. The yarns are from a pullover I had started to knit for him when he was still a schoolboy living at home. At that time my arms refused to cooperate with long needles and big pieces of knitting, and I developed a tennis elbow, I who have never even played tennis! The son has grown a lot since I began the knitting, so the wisest thing to do was to unravel the knitted half of a pullover, soak the skeins and wind the dry yarn into balls for new knitting projects.

We have had lots of snow this Winter unlike last year when we had none. Mr. K pushes the snow further away from the drive so there will be space for more snow to come. These old apple trees are in our new garden in afternoon sun.

We are only half way done with Winter by now, there may well be lots of new snow at the end of March and it may snow some as late as end of April and beginning of May. Now we are enjoying some sunny days and clear skies, and having but not so much enjoying temperatures of -20 C.

The hares are making their paths in the snow when we are not watching.

Organizing

New home, old mess. I'm trying to organize my crafty things in some way that makes sense, and the basic idea is to have just one address for each category of hoarded material. Like the quilt backing fabrics in this cupboard:

Embroidery floss kept popping up in different project bags, shoe boxes, and pouches and bags with my mother's unfinished projects. I had no idea how much of that stuff I had, and what colours. Now I'm working my way from this mess

towards something in this direction:

One way to help with the organizing problems is naturally reducing the amount of material to organize. Using up yarn rests is my favourite method.

Still some light grey yarn left, so I started knitting this pair in a smaller size. I ended in a vicious circle and had to buy more light grey...

... and so there was yarn left and therefore I had to knit these mittens to go with the Little Knight  hat for our grandson. The pattern is for a newborn baby, I just used heavier yarn and more stitches.

 

Anyone still there? ...

It has been such a long time, and much has happened since September and my last post here.  We have moved, and this is how my sewing room is now arranged:

Not quite finished yet. No place for every item just yet. But I have been going through my belongings, binned an amazing amount of ancient textiles and saved another amazing amount of textiles. I have found trash, and I have found treasures, like this lonely mitten, 

all felted in snow and sweaty fingers, with a hole showing how much it has been used. Why on earth is this a treasure? Because it was knitted by my Grandmother, and I have saved this years and years back when I was still living with my parents. I knew some day I would want to knit mittens like she did, warm and comfortable. Her patterns were not from magazines, and I have only found one of them on a Finnish knitting blog, written down as a traditional pattern. 

With a sewing room in a chaos like that, I have spent time elsewhere with yarn and needles, and so I tested and tried out stitches and found out how Grandmother had knitted that mitten.

It is a lot like this other pattern she used much, but over two stitches where as the second pattern has a repeat of four stitches.

I decided to knit a sample of that pattern too for my knitting pattern archive.

And then there is Grandmother's third favorite, extravagantly in three  colors. This is the only pattern she knitted in the round, and again the reason must be that she didn't like to purl!

 

Knitting in the round makes my little sample is so narrow, with the same number of stitches as the other samples.

All these patterns look more complicated than they are, because they only use one color at a time, and the slip stitches make the mitten close-knit and warm. Not even tiny fingers will poke through stitches here!

Naturally I needed to test my newly found pattern, and here is the result:

Settling in our new home in an old house is still a learning experience. We get exercise while learning the new places of our pots and pans and plates, or going through the cardboard boxes when looking for something not yet unpacked. I hope to find more time for reading blogs and posting on my own as well. Take care, stay safe.

Autumn is coming

First we had some very rainy days.

Then there was a storm that blew one of our big aspens down. It was one of twins, growing right next to another, and it was all rotten. We must take the other one down as well. No other damage was done, but the tree took a street lamp post along. Mr. K marked the tree with yellow warning tape because the lamp was broken and we could not know if there was still electric current somewhere. The men from the street lightning maintenance came to take care of that problem, the tree is ours.

Right after my last post the Tour de France started, and I did not feel too guilty just sitting down to knit. I had to follow this important sport event on the TV, so taking a break from all chores was not only justified but almost necessary. I finished the top pair of bed socks in no time, and inspired by the soft feel of baby merino wool continued with another brand. Always ready to try new patterns I knitted the next two pairs using patterns I found online. 

Here a closer look. The one on the left is a 3D effect created simply by using knit and purl stitches, a repea that was easy to learn and remember. The other two involve some stitches together and yarns over but it was easy to see where I was going all the time.

After all this fine yarn and small needles I felt I needed some more mindless knitting. Very basic knit one purl one socks with some stripes for old fashioned, traditionally thinking men, in colors that remind me of fir trees and chanterelles or birch leaves in Autumn. 

The yarn rests were suitable for a pair of socks in a child's size but I forgot to take a photo. So, sock stories to be continued!

Still here

Long lazy Summer ... I have just been busy doing nothing special and enjoying the sunny days we have had, and ignoring the rainy days. Reading piles of books, at the moment old paperbacks from my mother's childhood and school years. Charming innocence but also some expressions that don't look too good today.

I have finished the Granny square blanket using a new to me method of joining the squares in one go. It saved so many yarn ends! I was going to use only rest yarns for this, but ended up buying some balls of the light grey and the graphite grey for the joining. 

The blanket measures 4 squares by 6, and each square is about 11".

After this I had a long pause. No long cycling tours on TV this Summer, so I have not had a special "Tour" project. Finally my fingers were itching for some nice knitting, and I found this pretty pattern in a magazine.

My yarn is 100% baby Merino, so it is perfect for a pair of bed socks.

Remember the safety rules, wear your masks where required. I hope you have all been well and safe.