Olebrumm's knitting and thingies

New Year 2012

2012-01-09T15:39:00.000+02:00

Happy New Year 2012 everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's break.

We had a quiet New Year's celebration with Mr. Here's first a couple of photos of the black Aura-river.

And then a couple of pictures of the light show that ended the Cultural Capital year for Turku.

Add some electronic music to this and you have the ambience of the show. The project's name is called Unveil and it marked an end to some kind of European Youth Culture workshop-thingy. Check more information here. Here's the whole show on Youtube.

Unfortunately the cold (+-0 degrees) took out my camera batteries far too soon, so no pictures of fireworks. Just imagine a bunch of light-thingies in the sky and you have it.

In the knitting and spinning world I will try to do a new year-stash dive and see if I can add my whole stash to Ravelry and I'll try remember (and dare) to take a bunch of pictures for you guys to see how much its grown since last year.

Winter is coming...

2011-12-02T18:54:00.001+02:00

More sewing

2011-11-08T20:10:00.001+02:00

I needed something new to wear. And I was on strike from work so I had time. Decided to make a skirt out of some Amy Butler fabric I bought in New York a couple of years ago. (Or is it three years?)

I started with a model, but ended up doing this my own way. Basically it is just straight pieces with a zipper in the back. Just need to do some modifications before I'm 100% happy.

The pictures are taken in the midst of our renovation project. So please ignore the stuff in the background.

Autumn hometown

2011-11-03T10:00:00.000+02:00

Some photos of how my hometown looks in the autumn/fall.

The dome and the river:

Colourful trees and their mirroring in the river:

More river views:

Our backyard:

Ni(e)ce knitting and sewing

2011-11-02T09:58:00.000+02:00

Mom called upset a couple of weeks ago that my niece needed mittens! Her hands, my mom's only grandchild's hands were cold! Said and done:

I modified the known Finnish Train Socks and made mittens out of them. Basically just forgot the heel... They are loooong, but then again i hope they will stay on her better that way. And if she needs more woollen layers they can just fold the cuff down.

And just because she is sooooo cute (and makes my ovaries twist and breakdance):

During the summer I purchased a new sewing machine and made a sweater for her. It was a bit big, but when babysitting her last week I decided to try the sweater on her. Think it looks ok. I really have to make some room in my schedule for sewing before Christmas. She needs desperately some dresses. :)

Paradise? - Paratiisi? - Paradis?

2011-11-01T12:19:00.000+02:00

There's a new shop in town. Not my town though, but in my niece's town. Villavyyhti - Woolhank. Been there twice. Once with my niece. She had hickups half of the time we were there and slept the other half. Not even a pink bling-bling yarn woke her interest up! O.o And she's already 14 weeks old!

Helsingissä on uusi lanka-kehruu-ihkukauppa, Villavyyhti. Veljentyttären naapurissa! Tänään heidän verkkokauppansa avasi, menkää katsomaan! Olen ollut siellä jo kahdesti. Siis siellä kaupassa. Kerran veljentytär tuli mukaan eikä hän edes innostunut vaikka törkkäsin sille pinkkiä blingbling lankaa nenän eteen. Hän nukahti...

Det har öppnats en ny garn-spinn-affär i Helsingfors. Villavyyhti, eller ullhärvan på svenska. De har en nätbutik, men endast på finska. (Om någon helsvensk vill beställa därifrån så går det att e-posta dem. Servicen är superb, fast e-posten kan lite hicka hos dem ännu och sätta mail i spam-lådan har jag hört.)

Advertisment break - Mainoskatko - Reklam paus

2011-10-22T10:00:00.000+03:00

Due to the fact that I had two large events in September I wanted to look my best. Here's what I wore.

Koska halusin näyttää parhaat puoleni syyskuun kahdessa tärkeimmissä tapahtumissa niin pidetään vähän esitystä mitä minulla oli päällä.

På grund av de två stora festena i september måste jag fixa fram något snyggt och fint. Här är vad jag hade på mig.

The jewlery are from Hopeasäie. Custom made for me and I love ♥ them! Check also out Pirre's yarn...

Korut olivat Hopeasäikeeltä. Minulle tehdyt. ♥ Pirren langat ovat myös aivan mahtavia.

Smyckena hade Pirre från Hopeasäie gjort åt mig. ♥ Kolla även hennes garn. De är fantastiska.

And the dress is made by Adelheid.

Ja hame on Adelheid-designia.

Och klänningen har Adelheid gjort åt mig.

Busy busy

2011-10-21T14:54:00.002+03:00

ETA: I'm giving a go on blogger's new dynamic template. Click on the post and it will open with all pictures and text. And let me know what you think.

No, I haven't forgotten this blog. Have just been too busy. A short recap of what's happened.

Been on a scoutcamp. Naturally.
Been on holiday in Frankfurt. Naturally. This is becoming a yearly event for us.

My baby brother got married.

And the most important thing of all. I've become an auntie! My older brother's wife gave birth to a cuuuuute and adoooorable baby girl. Here's a picture from the christening where the whole family of the girl can be seen in the background.

I can tell you that she is not very keen or enthusiastic about yarnshops yet. Not even when swinging pink (!) glitter (!) yarn in front of her. *hmpf* Need to do some more work with her. :)

Random cultural photos - Erinnäisiä kulttuurillisa kuvia

2011-07-16T12:00:00.000+03:00

Just a few photos I've taken during our walks. Since Turku is the European cultural capital of the year you can really see some great things along your walks.

Erinnäisiä kuvia mitä olen ottanut kävelyillämme. Koska Turku on Euroopan kulttuuripääkaupunki niin kävelyillä voi nähdä yhtä sun toista hauskaa.

First of a funny parkingmeter hood.

Ensin hauska parkkimittarihuppu.

Cartoons on the ferry. (For those not familiar with Finnish and/or Turku. A quick translation. Fingerpori (a fictional town) did not win the cultural capital contest so they've decided to disquise the town to Turku. They decide to start with the bridges and put up a sign saying "Mill Bridge". Mill Bridge had some structural failure and started to give up in March 2010. So they demolished the bridge.)

Sarjakuvia. M.m. Förillä.

More to follow.

Lisää varmasti tulossa vuoden mittaan.

Medieval market - Keskiaikaiset markkinat

2011-07-15T12:00:00.001+03:00

Each summer there is a medieval market here in Turku. This year it unfortunately was at the same time I was working at the Farmari fair. Still we decided with BF (ETA: Friday brain wanted to call him hubby, but no, nothing interesting has hapened with us.) to go for a quick stroll, eventhough I came home from England late in the night.

Joka kesä Turussa järjestetään keskiaikaset markkinat. Tänä vuonna valitettavasti ne oli samaan aikaan kun Farmari messut jossa olin töissä. Ehdittiin kuitenkin miehen kanssa mennä nopealle kävelylle sinne, vaikka olinkin yöllä tullut kotia Englannista.

The only thing we really did was to eat lunch there. YUMMY!

Ainut asia mitä oikeasti siellä tehtiin oli syödä lounasta. NAM!

Hide and seek game - Piiloleikki

2011-07-13T11:56:00.000+03:00

As Turku is one of the European Cultural Capitals this year they have done a lot of different events and things around the city. One of them is called "Piiloleikki" or "Hide and seek game". An artist have had kids doing some small bronze statues which they then have hidden along Aura river. There are 30 statues totally. To find these statues you get a clue both written and spoken (as mp3s) AND you get GPS coordinates. So it's a bit like geocaching.

Koska Turku on yksi Euroopan kulttuuripääkaupungeista tänä vuonna ovat he keksineet yhtä sun toista viihdyttääkseen ihmisiä. Yksi näistä jutuista on "Piiloleikki" joka on nimensä veroinen. Eli eräs taiteiljia on lasten kanssa tehnyt 30 pronssipatsasta ja nämä ovat sitten piiloitettu pitkin Aurajoen rantaa. Jotta näitä patsaita löytäisi niin noilta sivuilta löytyy sekä kirjoitettu että puhuttu (mp3sena) vihj JA gps koordinaatit niin tämä on myös vähän niinkun geocachingiä.

Luckily I had the chance to borrow my cousin's kids for a day. So we went out searching for them.

Onneksi minulla oli mahdollisuus lainata serkun lapset päiväksi. Niin me mentiin näitä etsimään.

Superman.

Big sister is helping little sister with the gps thingy. Think that was the most fun part. Playing with the thingy.

Isosisko auttaa pikkosiskoa gps-laitteen kanssa. Se taisi olla kivoin juttu. Leikkiä tuon laitteen kanssa siis.

"Big" people watching "little" people and wondering what they are up to.

"Isot" ihmiset katsoo että mitä ihmettä "pikku" ihmiset nyt ovat keksineet.

Off to find more hidden statues.

Juoksujalkaa seuraavalle piilopaikalle.

More playing with the thingy.

Enemmän leikkimistä lelulla.

Good spot to hide things.

Hyvä piilopaikka.

When 15 of 30 was found I promised some ice-cream.

Kun puolet oli löydetty oli jätskin aika.

Soon after our icecream it started raining. We found a few more, but decided to go home instead to have some hot choco and dress up in dry clothes.

Pian jätskin jälkeen alkoi satamaan. Vielä jaksettiin etsiä pari piilopaikkaa lisää, mutta sitten päätettiin mennä kotiin juomaan lämmintä kaakaota ja laittaa kuivia vaatteita päälle.

Not forgotten - Ei unohdettu

2011-07-04T13:57:00.000+03:00

Eventough this blog has been really quiet it has not been forgotten. I have travelled, shopped and handicrafted as ever before and I hope to have time to tell you about my adventures the coming weeks.

Vaikka tämä blogi onkin ollut aika hiljainen viimeaikoina niin se ei ole unohdettu. Olen matkustelly, shoppaillut ja tehnyt käsitöitä enemmän kun aikoihin ja toivon että seuraavien viikkojen aikana minulla on aikaa kertoa teille seikkailuistani.

11th and 12th of June was Knit in Public Day. (KIP Day) I partcipated in two events and here's a few pictures from those.

11. ja 12. kesäkuuta oli Knit in Public päivät. Osallistuin kahteen tapahtumaan ja tässä vähän kuvia niistä.

After that I went for a week long holiday to England, which I will tell more about later. But as a teaser I will put this photo I took with my iPad (finally figured how to update photos to my picasa albums with my iPad). Due to restricted amount of paper this Stitchcraft magazine had to reduce its size significantly under a short period.

Sitten kävin viikon lomalla Englannissa, josta kerron enemmän myöhemmin. Mutta ensivilkaisuna esittelen teille tämän kuvan jonka otin iPadillani (keksin vihdoin miten päivitän kuvia picasa albumeihin). Toisen maailmansodan aikana paperia oli vaikea saada ja siksi tämä Stitchcraft lehti piti pienentää kokoaan usein hyvin lyhyellä aikavälillä.

Mother's - Äidit

2011-06-15T10:45:00.000+03:00

I'm a very happy "owner" of a mother. And my mister has one good too. These flowers were planted by my mother since she apparently knew that I won't have time to do any flower arrangement outside our door for some time. Lucky me. ♥ And mister's mother has some years ago painted those stones and they are also now outside decorating our doorstep.

Olen onnekas äidin-"omistaja". Ja miehellä on hyvä äiti myös. Nämä kukat äiti istutti ruukkuun ja antoi minulle koska näköjään hän tiesi etten saa itse tällaista tehtyä. ♥ Ja herran äiti on joitakin vuosia sitten maalannut nuo kivet ja nyt ne yhdessä koristavat meidän rappuamme.

Summer nights are crazy - Kesäyöt ovat hulluja

2011-06-11T14:22:00.001+03:00

My summernight craziness has started quite well. Though I am a bit behind due to a trip up north to my parents (work-thingy). This is how my knitting sofa is looking now.

Kesäyön hullutus on alkanut aika hyvin. Tosin olen vähän perässä koska piti lähteä pohjoiseenpäin vanhempien luokse (työjuttu). Tällaiselta neulenurkkaukseni/-sohvani näyttää tällä hetkellä.

All in some kind of order. Note that also the iPad is there. A very important part of this whole knitting thingy. I'm storing all knitting pdfs and webpages in it.

Kaikki jotenkin järjestyksessä. Huomatkaa että myös iPadini pääsi kuvaan. Olen huomannut sen olevan kelpo kaveri tässä neulejutussa. Tallennan kaikki neuleohjeet siihen.

So far I've started the following projects. Take a look at my project list in Ravelry for links etc.
Socks:

Tiger socks for mr M
Supersocks for superbaby x2
Show-Off stranded Socks out of Puffa yarn
Bones socks of PINK CASHMERE sockyarn yummy

Other things:

Baby slipover - Milo
Lego door stopper
Dishrags x4
Damson shawl

Tähän asti olen aloittanut seuraavat projektit. Katsokaa Räveltämön projektilistaani lähemmistä tiedoista.

Sukka lista

Tiikeri sukat miehelle
Supersocks for superbaby x2
Puffa langasta Show-off stranded socks
Bones sukat

Tavallinen lista

Lapsen liivi - Milo
Lego ovistoppari
Tiskirättejä x4
Damson huivi

The baby's supersocks I'm knitting two pairs at the same time. Just to save some needles for the other projects. And the tiger socks are "my normal socks", i.e. toe-up on magic-loop.

Supervauvan supersukat neulon kaksi paria sukkaa samalla pyöröllä että puikot riittää muillekin projekteille. Ja tiikerisukat on mun normaali sukat. Eli varpaista aloitettu magic-looppaamalla.

ETA: Now I will go KIP:ing. And more about the lego doorstopper in another post. This is a joint project with mr M.

Edith lisää: Nyt meen kippailemaan. Ja lisää tuosta lego ovistopparista tulee toisessa postauksessa. Se on meidän yhteinen projekti herra M:n kanssa.

More knitting to come - Kesäyön hullutusta

2011-05-24T08:00:00.000+03:00

People who know me knows I'm quite nuts. And here's a proof if you didn't beleive it yet. There is a Finnish KAL-thingy called KYH-KesäYön Hullutus, roughly translated to Summer Nights Craziness. I think I talked about it last year here in my blog. (Yeah, I mentioned it, but that was it. No reporting done though.)

Minua tuntevat ihmiset tietävät että olen vähän yllytyshullu. Ja tässä olisi todiste jos ette vielä tietäneet. Osallistun KesäYön Hullutukseen, eli KYHiin. Tänne saa mennä katsomaan ilmoittautumisohjeet jos kiinnostaa.

Plum trees blooming - Luumu puut kukinnassa

The idea is to cast on a new project every day from 1st of June to Midsummer's day. This year Midsummer's day is 25th of June, which makes 25 projects. These should be cast off by end of July... To make things extra crazy, there are two categories. The normal one where you can start any project you want and the sock version. AND to make things more crazy you can enter both if you want, which makes 50 project to be started and finished during two months. Guess what I signed up for. Yepp, both! I'm planning on crocheing a bunch of small flowers and leaves, and knitting baby socks for my brother's kid popping out sometime around July-August. And Mister desperately needs new socks.

Ideana on aloittaa uusi projekti joka päivä 1. päivä kesäkuuta alkaen aina juhannuspäivään asti, eli 25 projektia. Näitten pitäisi olla valmiina heinäkuun loppuun mennessä. KYHiä löytyy kaksi sorttista. Tavallinen, missä saa aloittaa ihan minkä projektin tahansa, ja Sukka-KYHin jossa aloitetaan sukkaPARI joka päivä. Ja tottakai saa osallistua molempiin. Noh, minä tietty osallistuin molmepiin! Veljeni saa lapsen heinäkuun lopussa/elokuun alussa ja lapsi tarvitsee tietty sukkia. Ja ajattelin virkata kasan kukkia ja lehtiä jämälangoista. Ja Miäs tarvitsee myös uudet sukat. 50 projektia aloitettu ja lopetettu kahden kuukauden aikana. Kylkyl...

Apple trees as well - Omenapuut samaten

And, to top it off, I'm planning on participating in Tour de Fleece as well during July. (+The renovation of the appartment.) Hopelessly Overcommited? Yes, that's my middle name. Luckily I don't stress about the sizes of the projects or if I'm going to have a lot of WIP's in the beginning of August. And the TdF will be just spinning minimum of 15 minutes a day.

Ja jos ei tämä olisi tarpeeksi niin tietysti osallistun Tour de Fleeceen heinäkuussa tänä vuonna taas. (+ Remppa asunnossamme kestää varmaan vähintään syksyyn asti.) Yli-innokas harrastelija? Kyllä, täältä löytyy sellainen. Onneksi en stressaa siitä että onko paljon projekteja kesken tai saanko edes kaikki 50 projektia valmiiksi kesän aikana. TdF:ssä ajattelin vain kehrätä 15 min päivässä, niin se pitäisi onnistua helposti.

My cousin's dog expecting some puppy looooove - Serkkuni pötkö vaatii rapsutuksia

Spring in my hometown - Kevättä kotona

2011-05-22T10:00:00.002+03:00

Spring is definitely here. We've been doing a few walks by the river and here's a photo splash. And as a bonus. There is finished knitting in the end! (Yepp, this is still a knitting blog, though you wouldn't always beleive it.

Kevät on ehdottomasti täällä ja on jo aika pitkälle. Olemme miehen kanssa tehneet joitakin kävelyitä pitkin joenrantaa ja tässä olisi vähän kuvia. Ja lopussa olisi yllätys. Olen neulonut ja kuva siitä löytyy lopussa! (Jo, kyllä tämä neuleblogi vielä on vaikka sitä ei aina uskoisi.)

Green.

Vihreää.

The birds are of so many and lovely colours:

Lintuja löytyy niin monenmoista ihanaa väriä.

We bought our first "outdoor" icecream.

Ostimme vuoden ensimmäiset irtojätskit.

There's a cow in our backyard!

Takapihallamme on lehmä!

Quite idyllic this town at times.

Aika idyllinen kaupunki aina välillä.

One of the best parts. The marketsquare and aaaall the flowers you can get.

Yksi tämän kaupungin parhaista jutuista. Tori ja kaikki sen kukat.

Sun reflections.

Valoheijastuksia.

Grandma's and grandpa's roses.

Isoäidin ja isoisän ruusuja.

Just loooove the graffiti by the sewer.

Aivan ihana graffitia viemärin ympärillä.

Kite flying.

Leijailua.

More idyllic scenes.

Vielä enemmän idyllisyyttä.

Odd tree trunk.

Hassu tukki.

Mr is crazy about cats. He sees them all the time. I just hear "kisskisskiss" and wonder where did he now find one.

Mies on hulluna kissoihin. Se näkee ne ennen kun minä näen. Kuulen vain "kisskisskiss" ja ihmettelen mistä se nyt kissan löysi.

Yepp, I apparently find idyllic places. I could move somewhere close to this.

Näköjään löydän idyllisiä paikkoja täältä. Johonkin tänne naapuriin voisin ajatella muuttavani.

If you missed, Finland won the ice hockey world championship a week ago. Since not everybody could go to Helsinki to greet the champs they drove a truck with a huge screen to the marketsquare instead.

MM-kultajuhlaa Turussa.

Knit graffiti.

See! I've knitted! A pair of socks for myself!

Katsokaa! Olen neulonut itselleni sukat!

Over and out.

Testing the iPad again - iPadin testausta taas

2011-05-17T22:52:00.000+03:00

Testing another app in my iPad. Blogsy. Let's see how this works...

Testailen toista ohjelmaa iPadissani nimeltään Blogsy. Katsotaan miten tämä toimii...

First a birthday cake and a birthday gift. Photos were taken with my iPad, so the quality can be a bit weak.

Ensin kuvia synttärikakusta ja yhdesstä synttärilahjasta. Kuvat otin iPadillani, niin laatu voi olla vähän heikko.

Spring pictures.

Sitten kevätkuvia.

iPad

2011-05-03T19:29:00.002+03:00

Just testing to blog with my new iPad. And my first funny picture taken with the iPad's camera...

Edit. Apparently the picture didn't follow... Need to explore this further.

Happy eastern! - Hauskaa pääsiäistä!

2011-04-24T19:43:00.000+03:00

I'm spending the eastern in our summerplace. Here's a few picture from here.

Vietän pääsiäistä mökin rauhassa. Tässä olisi vähän kuvia.

And there is things growing in the nature.

Ja luonnossa kasvaa ja kukoistaa...

And the pigs are stalking the wagtail birds.

Ja possut vaanii västäräkkejä.

Springythingy - Kevättöitä

2011-04-19T10:56:00.000+03:00

It's spring and I'm thinking about garden work. I have no garden where I now live. And no balcony. Which means that I will have to live with a pot-garden of some sort. There is plenty of room though at my BF's summerplace to roam around, but if we're going to spend time renovating the appartment we won't have that much time to spend at the summerplace. Maybe next year I can do more garden work?

On kevät ja ajattelen puutarhatöitä. Harmi on että nykyisessä paikassa missä elän ei ole puutarhaa, eikä parveketta. Taitaa olla niin että täytyy tehdä pieni ruukkupuutarha itselleni. Edes vähän yrttejä ja salaattia. Poikaystäväni mökillä on kyllä tilaa vaikka kuinka paljon, mutta jos aiomme rempata kämppää tänä keväänä/kesänä niin eihän siellä ehdi paljon olla hoitamassa sitä puutarhaa.

So that this isn't just a pictureless posting and random thoughts I'll put a few pictures here.

Jotta tästä ei tulisi ihan kuvaton ja ajatuksellinen postaus, niin laitan vähän kuvia tänne myös.

I've been spinning. For a swap. Ashford merino-silk in colourway Salvia. The link takes you to Wollinchen shop where I bought it from. Short draw, three ply, about 200m on 96g. Loooovely colour.

Olen kehrännyt. Yhteen vaihtoon. Ashfordin merino-silkkiä Salvia värissä. Linkki vie Wollinchenin kauppaan mistä sen ostin. Lyhyt veto, kolmisäikeinen, noin 200m 96 grammassa. Iiihana väri.

Another spring work has been emptying grandmom's and grandpa's appartment. Naturally this lazy kate from 1868 would move in with me.

Yksi kevättyö on ollut tyhjentää isoäidin ja -isän asuntoa. Ja tottakai tämä rullatuoli vuodelta 1868 muutti luokseni.

New home...

2011-04-12T22:32:00.000+03:00

I've been quiet for a while. The reason is that I've moved 330km south. To this street. There is much less snow now though.

I've moved in with my boyfriend and we've started our path together in life. All my yarn and fabric and other stuff moved of course with me and the appartment here is totally filled with boxes and plastic bags. My brother amused the movers with comments like "Here's a box of yarn.", "Look, another box of yarn." and "Hey, two more boxes of yarn.". The other mover asked if I was a seamstress, I told him that I was a boring engineer and that this was my hobby. :) He didn't comment anymore...

Retriitti (kuvarikas postaus) - Knitting retreat (a lot of pics!)

2011-03-30T16:01:00.000+03:00

Viikonloppuna oli suomalaisten neulojien retriitti Päivölässä. Ja kuten arvata ei tämä retriitti noin 50 naisen kesken mikään hiljainen ollut, vaan puhepälpätystä oli vaikka muille jakaa.

This weekend there was a Finnish knitters retreat in the middle of Finland. And you can imagine that about 50 ladies are not that quiet...

Siellä ostettiin lankaa ja villaa. Ja oi mikä väriterapia läjäys!

There was purchase of yarn and wool. What a fantastic splash of colours!

Ja siellä oli ruokaa. Tämä on vain meidän herkkupöytämme.

And there was food. This is only our snack-table.

Ja me kehrättiin.

And we spun.

Kyllä me jotain neulottiinkin, mutta en näköjään onnistunut ottamaan yhtäkään kuvaa neulomisesta. Sen sijaan tässä on kuva pläjäys puffapojusta joka oli ainut retriitin mieshenkilö ja hänkin viihtyi siellä vain pari tuntia.

We did knit as well. A bit. But apparently I didn't manage to take any photos of any knitting. Instead you will get a photo splash of the only man in the house. And he was there only for a couple of hours.

Home studies

2011-03-18T10:55:00.000+02:00

About a month ago we (me and my boyfriend) went to a renovation and home decor fair and I thought I'd share a few photos with you. We (read: he) are renovating his home at the moment. The kitchen is soon done and then we only have three other rooms to fully renovate. Here's a few things I found interesting at the fair.

Smart solutions for filling up a small space in the kitchen.

Or a smart magnet thingy for the yucky dishrag.

Coloursplash. This is actually a watercleaning system.

Another coloursplash. Carpets. Firstly some "liquorice"-style

Then some rags and stones.

Wallpapers

I think I want some dots somewhere. Either as wallpaper as here or handpainted. In the bedroom perhaps?

And for all the technical freaks. A heater. It runs on either wood, pellets or even oil! Multithingy.

Sarah's Finland Tour, part 5

2011-03-12T11:51:00.000+02:00

Day 6 and 7 of Sarah's tour she got to chill out at Barbro's place while I had to work. I went there on Thursday evening for some spinning and chatting. Friday early morning we hit the road for some more yarnfumes.

First we went to Kauhavan kangas-aitta. It looks quite booring from outside.

But just look what you find inside. This is only a tenth that you can see in this photo of all the stuff they have there! I managed to control myself and came out only with one 250g skein of pig-pink for my boyfriends hat (more on that when I've started it) and some KnitPro cables.

I wonder if this house next door is the old Kauhavan kangas-aitta. And now it just shows to go next doors.

Then we had a quick stop in Seinäjoki in their Taito shop called Rustoopuori.

They had a bunch of handmade stuff there and we just immersed ourselves in the creativity of others. Especially this one I like. They've used white paper-yarn and gold or silver thread and a rose-lace (? rose pitsi in Finnish) tool for making this led-light-thingy.

After that it was time for lunch. We had a delicious lunch at Juustoportti (Cheesegate in English) and looked at the cheesemaking process a bit. Oh, and we bought a bunch of their cheese and other goodies. Sarah and Barbro might have pictures from there. I was just so hungry I totally forgot to take any.

Then the highlight of the yarn crawl of Ostrobothina. Tapion kauppa. Here's Sarah with Barbro, totally unaware of what is inside those doors.

If you ever come to Finland, Tapion kauppa is definitely worth a stop. I mean it is huge. The picture below is showing perhaps 50% of the store.

Here's the Novita corner.

Some colourtherapy by Garnstudio Alpaca.

The mandatory picture of the other photographer.

A peek of what is new and fuzzy. Fun yarn. The colours are fun though!

Sarah's stash enhancement. No, I didn't take a photo of my stash enhancement. I promise, it was respectable, but not quite this colourful.

Then we went back to Barbro's place for dinner. Saturday Sarah and I spent packing and buying nice Finnish things. Like caffeinated Mountain Dew and cloth rollers. (I know, Americans can be quite funny at times. ;) )

It was so great to have Sarah here. Next time I'll see her will be in June for Woolfest. Me and Barbro are flying over to England for our yearly English-Scottish fibre and sheep fix. :)

Sarah's Finland Tour, part 4

2011-03-08T18:00:00.003+02:00

Yes, it was a long and eventful week with Sarah. This is only day 5 of 9...

She managed to come while it was reeeeally cold here. All week. You can see it very well from this photo:

We were out sightseeing Finland's longest bridge, the Replot bridge.

At the bridge there is a café/restaurant/burger/bar-place. I really recommend going there for a burger. You can have a look at the Bridge Burger in Sarah's blog.

After that we hit the Ostrobothnian Museum and Terranova. The main point why I wanted to take Sarah there was to see old spinning wheels and other old tools for handicrafting. Especially this wheel is interesting historicalwise:

It is a castle spinning wheel from the 18th century. Found in Ostrobothina. This is a proof that the castle or standing spinning wheel was found in Finland and it is older than the "normal" spinning wheel everybody recognizes. (I'll probably write more about this later when I've done some more research.) Here's a picture of a "normal" spinning wheel from 1854.

Sarah's Finland Tour, part 3

2011-03-06T22:45:00.000+02:00

After visiting Turku we went to Tampere for some yarnshopping! First we hit Lankaidea.

Yummy!

Then we went to Helmimeri for some beads for Sarah's stichmarkers.

More Yummy!

Then we decided to be adventurous and go a bit outside Tampere to Lankamaailma. Here we especially Sarah went a bit crazy and I forgot to take photos from inside. But I promise, it was huge!

We got so lost in the yarnfumes that we missed the train we planned to take back north. So we went for some coffee/tea and dessert.

And this was only the first day of yarnfume inhaling! More to come...

"Advertisment" - "Mainos"

2011-03-02T23:19:00.000+02:00

Found this periodical table via the Knitty blog. It's the periodical table of fibre. Go and have a look while I prepare part 3 and 4 of Sarah's Finland Tour!

Löysin tämän kuidun jaksollisen järjestelmän Knittyn blogin kautta. Mielenkiintoinen!

Sarah's Finland Tour, part 2

2011-03-01T17:00:00.004+02:00

The Botanical Garden of Turku University (in Finnish). I think me and BF had more fun and educational trip there than Sarah had. She was FILLED with information and got really jumpy and energetic to arrive "to her world". I better take her to Botanical Gardens more so that I learn something. :) Since I don't remember much of the names of the plants I'll tell you more why I took the picture instead.

I call this the canarian flower. Though I might mix the name up with something else, but the colours are fenomenal on this flower.

An interesting leaf bud.

Lovely shade of pinkred. Flower buds are so filled with hope and new life...

Angel bell. Right? The whole plant is veeery poisonous. Interesting this mix of beauty and hostility.

This orchid had a really nice pot. Made out of plastic tubes. Might make one some day for something.

Not all flowers are beautiful. But they still are useful for something. I guess.

Just look at this violet!

The spiral form of the leaf caught my eyes.

And this leaf caught me with its spots.

Like this combination of green and white.

The thread aloe or thread something. As made for crafters.

This is my favourite succulent. The stone plant. I owned one once. Managed to drown it.

Interesting roots.

The small plant is trying to take some space with its looong heavy arms.

The mother plant with its babies. This plant will pop babies from its side. Looks little bit like a shallot onion.

The place had a lot of fantastic orchids.

Sarah got mostly interested in the bugs of the place. Here she found something on the palm leaf and said that that was curable with coffee... :) Her knowledge about plants is astounding!

Watch out for the spikes!

This leaf's uncentered midpoint and spirality (is that a word?) was funny.

Rabbit's paws. Fluffy and furry.

We rounded the day off with a stroll in the town and some Valentines day doughnuts.

Next day we went to Tampere. There we got to go to our first yarnshops. More about that in a later post. Think these posts are enough picture heavy as they are now. :)

Sarah's Finland Tour, part 1

2011-02-27T21:39:00.000+02:00

As I mentioned in my last blogpost I had my friend Sarah over to Finland for a week. In my next few posts I will tell you (mostly in pictures) about our adventures in Finland.

We started with a weekend in Turku. Sarah got a nice start on her knitting since we first sat 4h in the car while dad drove. Then she got to sit two mornings in the hospital waitingroom while I visited my granddad. But she got to do some sightseeing after that. We started with some grocery shopping (foreign grocery stores are so much fun!), but then we did some historical sightseeing. The Turku castle:

Yes, we did some knitting in the castle, in the ladies craft room to be exact.

I got a bit "wild" with the lights of the castle.

In the curch they had a statue of Saint George. He's the one that killed the dragon and didn't want the princess and half of the kingdom. He is also the saint of the scouts.

There was a display of Finnish silver craftsmen. This was quite funny:

One part of the castle is a toy museum.

Moomin got last year a really huge thing in Finland (Think they had some kind of anniversary.) and the popularity is growing. You can find all kinds of things with Moomin on them, but here you can see the proper old Moomin. Not the animated ones:

Sarah was fed that day with green stuff directly in the morning. And my boyfriend took good care of feeding us. The story continues later on with a visit to the Botanical Garden...

Friend visiting...

2011-02-17T23:08:00.000+02:00

Sarah is visiting Finland this week, and that's why I haven't been posting last week. I've been planning our Finnish yarn crawl week. :) Sarah and I met through Ravelry. She wanted someone to share a room with in Rhinebeck 2009 and told that she has a car available. I had a spare place in my room and wanted someone with a car. = A match made in heaven. :) If I ever have time to dig through my photos I will post something about that Rhinebeck trip...

And talking about Rhinebeck. From J.Knits sockyarn in colourway "Rhinebeck" I made this scarf for mom as a Christmas present.

And these fingerless mitts were added as a bonus for her birthday.

And now off to bed so that I can drive like a frenzy all day tomorrow.

Competitions, swaps and clubs

2011-02-06T22:17:00.001+02:00

First of all Salma posted a picture of the yarn-price she won in my competition earlier this year. I'm glad my skein of Wollmeise got such a nice new home. :)

Salma postitti kuvan lähettämästäni Wollmeise-palkinnosta taannoisesta kilpailustani. Kiva että lankakeräni joka keräsi vain pölyä sain noin kivan uuden kodin!

In Ravely I have taken part in a Finnish "everyday swap". Got some card, red and white yarn and Tampere coffee.

Räveltämössä olen mukana Suomalaisten ravelryvaihtojen arkivaihdossa. Itse sain jo oman vaihtopakettini. Ennen pakettia sain pari korttia jotka todella piristivät päiviäni kun tulin kotiin ja löysin kortteja eteisen lattialta.

Vasen kortti tuli paketin mukana, oikea kortti tuli ennen sitä ja vielä tuli kolmas kortti jonka olen laittanut jonnekin talteen.

Paketissa oli myös Sandes Smartia pari kerää Marianne-väreissä.

Josta olisi tarkoitus tehdä lammas lapaset (rav linkki).

Herkkuina oli hieman suklaata ja Tampere kahvia pavuina.

Suklaat hävisivät alta aikayksikön, mutta tätä kahvia maistoin vasta tänään, kuten on tarkoitettu, Turussa... (Turkulaiset ja Tamperelaiset tietävät kyllä miksi.)

Tuhannet kiitokset elhk!

A few weeks back I got a card that there are two big packages (i.e. bigger than letters, called maxi-letters) waiting for me at the post office. I racked by brains that what I've been ordering now again! However there were two club packages that I ordered as Christmas present for myself. One was a sockclub from Puffala and the other was a fibreclub from Tuulia.

Pari viikkoa sitten sain postilta ilmoituksen että kaksi maksikirjettä odottaa postissa. Hermoistuin että mitä hemmettiä taas olen tilannut kun en muistanut tilanneeni mitään! Noh, siellähän oli Äiti-Puffan sukkaklubi ja Tuulian kuituklubi lähetykset. Olin tilannut nämä itselleni joululahjaksi ja iloisesti unohatnut koko asian.

Puffala Sukkalanka värissä Banaanisuklaa. Aivan ihanan keltainen sukkalankaväri!

50% Merinoa, 25% Alpakkaa ja 25% silkkiä. Ja juuri minun värit!

Happy Birthdays!

2011-01-30T22:35:00.000+02:00

Past one and a half weeks two very important ladies had their birthdays. First grandmom and then mom. For them a bunch of flowers.

Mom and dad are fenomenal to get orchids blooming. They have probably ten orchids and they all bloom all the time.

So I sometimes move my orchids to their house for "daycare". :)

And I acctually got some flowers that looked nice in the beginning of January...

Mom likes tulips. And I have to admit, I like them a lot too.

I've been scouting a alot the past two weekends. Paperscouting indoors. Luckily work provided me a chance to be outside a half a day which provided me with this wonderful view:

The place is called Kalles Inn. Very popular for business thingies and weddings.

Winterwarmth

2011-01-22T16:16:00.000+02:00

Up here "half way up to Lapland" there is a bit of snow and a bit cold. We've had -30 degrees celcius before Christmas (that we usually get in February) and this week we got 24 cm (the official version) of snow within a night. At some places there was even 40 cm of snow coming down. I thought I had to test my camera what it thinks of snow and a few other functions.

Everything is topped with snow.

The whole landscape is white. Everywhere you look there are piles of snow.

More snow...

After a short walk to the post office and back I was ready for some inner warmth. The purpose of my walk was to get a package of Kaffa Roastery coffee that I ordered last weekend. Some single estate coffee beans moved in with me.

A sample of coffee beans. Yumyum.

The problem is. To drink it black...

...or to drink it with milk?

And in case the coffee is not enought to keep me warm I'm knitting a pair of woollen pants and a cardi for me. The woollen pants are done with Elizabeth Zimmermanns recipy from her book The Knitters Almanac. The cardi is Kim Hargreaves Olive cardy. This one I modified to be knitted from the top down in one piece, instead of in several pieces as the pattern states. I thought I'd tell you more about that in another post.

Woollen pants.

Olive-cardigan in Rowan Felted Tweed yarn in Avocado-colourway.

The competition has ended! - Kilpailu on päättynyt! - Tävlingen har slutat!

2011-01-16T16:46:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday I went and bought six boxes while we were foodshopping with BF. I knew that it wouldn't be enough, but I wasn't sure how much not-enough it would be. (And it was basically all they had.) On Thursday we went again foodshopping in another gorcery store and I bought six more boxes. I got almost everything left in those six new ones, but I had to go on Saturday before the stores closed to buy two more. And I still have my Wollmeise yarn and a small stash in my cellar that isn't in any of these boxes. I would guess that I could fit them in just one more box. So I bought 14 boxes, but I would need 15. However I hope that I will knit and spin so much this spring (Hey, no laughing back there! This is serious business.) that I will manage with these boxes.

My stack of boxes.

When I stack these boxes in in two columns like this the columns are higher than I am. That is, these stacks are about 170cm high.

As the almighty judge I decide that the winner will be one of the ones that guessed 14 or 15. There were five of these answers and according to the online random number generator the number one won. That iiiiiiis Salma! I guess I found who you are on Ravelry so I'll get in touch with you. My guess is that you want something blue... :)

Cup of caffe latte art. In Art Café in Turku...

Kävin kahteen kertaan ostamassa kuusi laatikkoa viikon aikana ja se ei millään riittänyt. Niin kävin vielä lauantaina ennen kun kaupat meni kiinni ostamaan kaksi laatikkoa lisää. En silti saanut ihan kaikkea niihin pakattua, kellarista löytyy yksi pussi ja Wollmeiseilla ja jämälangoilla on omat laatikot. Eli oikea vastaus oli 14 ostettua, mutta 15 tarvitsisin. Ylimpänä tuomarina päätin sitten arpoa palkinnon 14 ja 15 arvonneiden välillä. Random number generator arpoi viiden voittajan välillä numeron 1 joka on Salma! Otan sinuun yhteyttä Räveltämön kautta että saadaan keskustella palkinnostasi, mutta oletan että jotain sinistä lähtee sinnepäin menemään.

Snowbikes?

Jag köpte sex lådor under två shopping varv i veckan som gått. Och ändå fick jag köra iväg sen lördag eftermiddag för att köpa två till, då de tolv tidigare lådorna inte räckte. Så det blev 14 köpta lådor, fast jag skulle nog behöva 15. I denna hög finns inte allt. Härifrån fattas mina restgarner, Wollmeise garner eller en påse som jag har i källaren. Jag inbillar mig att eftersom jag skall sticka och spinna så mycket före flytten att jag klarar mig med 14 lådor. Eftersom jag är högsta domaren i denna tävling så bestämde jag mig för att dra vinnaren utav någon som svarat 14 eller 15. Det fanns fem som svarat rätt och jag använde mig av random number generator på nätet och fick nummer ett som vinnare. Vilket är Salma! Jag kontaktar dig via Ravelry, men jag gissar på att jag får gräva fram något blått. :)

Just a quick note

2011-01-13T13:12:00.000+02:00

The competition is still going on. There are a lot of guesses and they seem to range between 7 and 31 (!) boxes. 31 Boxes is one cubic meter of stuff! I really hope I don't have that much yarn and fibre. I still have no clue myself how many boxes I will need. I bought during the weekend a stack, and I will need at least equally much more. BF has been told to pick me up for box shopping after work... (Nope, he's not surprised about the amount of stuff I have. He's just happy since he can have as much stuff himself.)

And to brighten up your day, a picture of a knitwear shop. Miniature sweaters and sheep. :)

Knitwear shopwindow in Turku

SYTYCK projektin loppukertomus

2011-01-08T11:00:00.001+02:00

SYTYCK-projekti alkoi kivasti. Ilmoittauduin baletin tanssijaksi. Rakastan pitsiä ja huiveja ja toivoisin olevani yhtä sulava kun kansallisoopperan balettitanssija. Tyllihamekaan ei olisi pahitteeksi. :)

Haasteeksi sain pahaa aavistaen Disco tanssin. Toisaalta pidän kyllä "vanhahtavasta" discosta BeeGees tyyliin. Night Fever, Jive talkin', Stayin' alive ja You should be dancing soi taustamusiikkina. Yeeah!

Materiaalit projektiini löysin helposti ja myös harjoitusneuleen. Meni kuitenkin niin kun aina, eihän nyt harjoitella mitään kun on paljon kivempaa mennä heti tanssin pyörteisiin mukaan. Ja aloitinkin sitten langan kehräämisen ja sain kun sainkin sen aika hienosti kehrättyä.

Yksi säie

Ja kertauslankaan sain pujotettua helmet.

Toinen säie helmillä

Ja sain kerrattua.

Valmis lanka

Siis sain kerrattua yhden rullan kahdesta ja sitten loppui aika. Mutta ideoita miltä pussukka näyttäisi on kyllä ollut. Tässä tämän hetkisen idean luonnos.

Luonnos

Koskakohan tämän saisi valmiiksi? Juhlia on tulossa vasta syyskuussa.

My So You Think You Can Knit project didn't exactly go as planned. Timewise at least. The yarn is spun. Half of the yarn is plied with commercial yarn with beads. The draft of what I'll be knitting is drawn. When will this be finished?

The first competition! - Ensimmäinen kilpailu! - Första tävlingen!

2011-01-07T10:29:00.000+02:00

Next week I will buy X number of 31 liter plastic storage boxes for my yarn and my spinning fibre. Since I will be moving in the spring I need to find alternative methods of storing (instead of having it all spread out on the floor) all my fibery goodness (as Megan would say in her podcast Stitch it!). Now I need you to guess how many boxes I will need for all the stuff! The one that guesses right, or closest, will win a fibery price from my stash. The price will depend a bit on the winner, but it will be fiber or yarn. If there are several persons who guesses right I will randomly choose one from all those answers.

This is how you enter this competition. You comment on this post how many boxes (in full numbers and I will not mix yarn and fibre together) I will have to buy. If you have a blog, please link to this competition (the more the merrier). International competitors welcome! Last day for entering this competition will be Saturday 15th of January.

Lace candle

Ensi viikolla tulen ostamaan X määrä 31 litran muovilaatikoita lankoja ja kuitujani varten. Koska olen todennäköisesti muuttamassa kevään aikana minun pitää löytää vaihtoehtoista säilytysjärjestelmää (lattian sijasta siis). Sinun tehtäväsi on arvata kuinka monta 31 litran laatikkoa tarvitsen lankoja ja kuitujani varten. Voittaja on se joka on arvannut oikein tai lähiten oikein. Palkinto riippuu voittajasta onko se lankaa vai kuituja varastostani. Jos oikein arvanneita on useampi arvon heistä yhden voittajan.

Näin osallistut kilpailuun. Kommentoi tämän postaukseen kuinka monta laatikkoa (täysiä numeroita koska en tule ostamaan puolikkaita laatikoita :) tulen tarvitsemaan. En tule laittamaan samaan laatikkoon sekä lankoja että kuituja. Jos sinulla on blogi, ole ystävällinen ja linkitä tähän kilpailuun. Viimeinen päivä osallistua tähän kilpailuun on tammikuun 15. päivä.

Cat in the window

Nästa vecka kommer jag att köpa X antal 31 liters plastlådor för att förvara mina älskade garnhärvor och spinnings fibrer i. Eftersom jag antagligen skall flytta i vår så behöver jag fixa fram alternativ förvaringsmetod (och inte spara allt på golvet). Den som har gissat rätt eller kommit närmast vinner antingen garn eller spinningsfibrer (beror lite på vem som vinner) från mitt förråd. Finns det flera som gissar rätt så lottar jag en vinnare bland dem.

Så här deltar du i tävlingen. Kommentera i denna bloggpost hur många lådor jag behöver. (Hela lådor, svårt att köpa halvor.) Har du en blogg så hoppas jag att du länkar hit till min blogg så blir vi riktigt många! Sista dagen att delta i denna tävling är lördagen den 15e januari.

The Knitting Year 2010

2011-01-04T22:54:00.000+02:00

A photo composition of my Knitting Year 2010:

It's all in all 48 photos! One from each project I have in Ravelry. Two projects are actually missing since I don't have photos of them. Both of them are vests.

My excel says that I've been knitting (or weaving or crocheing) 7kg 226g. Which is quite the same as the year before (7kg 960g). So I haven't slowed down. :)

13 scarfs, shawls or cowls
10 socks or slippers
7 hats or headbands
3 blankets
2 pairs of fingerless mittens
2 shrugs
1 pair of mittens
1 cardigan

and a bunch of other small stuff.

The projects I'm most proud of are:

I finally finished two shawl long-time runners. The brown Springtime Swirl I knitted over 16 months and the green Aura shawl I knitted for an equally long time.

The one I use the most is this:

My brown cashmere Minimalist cardigan. A looooovely cardigan that fits me great and is soft and cozy. 100% cashmere yarn from "Riku" aka Colourmart.

The most interesting project last year was:

Dad's bowler hat I croched out of old video tape. It wasn't fun to crochet, but I think the final product was quite fun.

All in all this recap of 2010 tells me a few things about my future. I need more cardigans, pullovers, mittens and hats. What I have on my needles doesn't tell the same story. Four shawls or scarfs, one pair of woollen longpants, one cardigan and one UFOed summer tank. I need to start more projects!

A new beginning...

2011-01-01T17:33:00.000+02:00

My new year was quiet and nice. Here's a collage of mine and BF's "night out".

Thoughts about my bloggning
I've been thinking a lot of what to post here in my blog. I started blogging as a journal for my finished objects. But that part Ravelry has taken over. It's just so much more convenient to list my FOs there. So there went that idea. Then I thought what kind of blogs I liked. When I'm not in a hurry I often read a some of the text, but if I'm in a hurry I will just look at the pictures. Which is nice since now that I have my new camera I'd like to post more photos. However there are other interesting stuff to take photos of than handicrafts. "Gasp! Really?" I thought of starting a new blog for my photos, but I would definitely not have time to update two blogs.

The other thing I like with other blogs are that they update quite regularly. Like once a week.

And the third thing I was thinking of was which language to use. My mothertongue is Swedish, my other main language is Finnish, so both, either or? But then I have friends who don't speak Swedish or Finnish (eventhough they are getting better at it) so English is a must there.

So this is 2011 in this blog:
I will post an entry once a week, at least. I will have photos (or collages as in this one and the Christmas one) of different things, but the blog will be mostly about different handicrafts. They are a big part of my life! Though some things non-handicraft will of course be shown and told. The main language will be English, but for events/KALs/things related to Finland/Finnish/Swedish I will do the post in that language, but I will always post a short English text with them.

Spotted on the street
Someone has a true Christmas spirit. The sign says "Christmas or death". The blue mailboxes are new for this year. They were already set up last year for Christmas cards, but will be used for slower (or was it faster?) mail starting from February.

Joillakin on oikea joulutunnelma:

Christmas photos

2010-12-25T18:16:00.000+02:00

Merry Christmas!

God Jul!

Hyvää Joulua!

New Camera

2010-12-19T21:59:00.000+02:00

Since my old pocket camera "died" I had to buy a new one. After testing my dad's camera for a while I thought I must have a DSLR. On Saturday I came home with a brand new Nikon D3100 with a 18-55mm lens and 35mm lens. So here's a photo splash of my last two days of photographing:

Lai-la-lai Yarnz (blog is in Finnish) Shakespeare club package number two. The yellow is fanasticly soft Cleopatra Fab Lace, 1200m/100g, 70% alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere and the blue-purple one is Tempest Merino/tencel lace, 800m/100g, 50% merino and 50% tencel.

The Nykarleby star. A MUST when it comes to Christmas. No Nykaabi stjäärno - No Christmas.

Bought two gorgeous Christmas star-flowers from a collegue.

Some spinning.

My camera bag. :) It's pink inside and hold both my camera and the second lens.

Aura shawl that only needs blocking. Some day...

"Glögg" a typical Finnish/Swedish christmas drink. In my Christmas mug. I have 6 of theese. All with different motifs. Hm... Something to set up for a photo?

Christmas present?

Stairs to the appartment I will be moving into at some point. If all goes well...

Since I'm so into photographing (of course, with new toys it's hard not to be excited of photographing) I'm thinking of starting a separate photoblog so not to fill this one with a lot of various photos. I still want to keep this as mainly a knitting blog. (As you can see from my last blogpost about My Ponies. :)

My little ponies

2010-12-13T18:00:00.005+02:00

Completely non craft-related post. My collection of My Little Pony's.

A flood of memories came when I saw these and my Barbies. The ponies are more important though. They had clothes. (The normal sized ones.) And my aunt and godmother Heli made those for me. Just one set was bought. The big one I remember whining to dad that I wanted one as a birthday present. He said of course no. And when my birthday came there it was! I felt so spoiled. Can't remember which birthday this was, but I was in school. The baby pony and the dragon came in a stable-set. The stable we threw away during mom and dad's move since it was quite broken. But the baby and the dragon is stuffed away with the other ponies to wait for a new player...

SYTYCK-projekti etenee

2010-12-12T18:00:00.001+02:00

Juu, kyllä täällä tehdään SYTYCK juttuja vaikka ei kuulu mitään.

Tämä kasa on muuttunut

tällaiseksi:

Ja siihen lisätään vielä nämä

tai ehkä osa noista vain. Katsotaan.

Ja vanhana kilpailujuttuna piti blogata omasta neulenurkastaan. Tosin SYTYCK projektini ei ole edistynyt neule osioon vielä, mutta tässä minä neulon:

Ja edellisessä bloggauksessa olikin kehruu "nurkkani", mutta tässä oli aikaisempi kuva missä näkyy SYTYCK kehruuprojektini:

Shortly in English: My SYTYCK project is half way spun. I will add some odd beads to it while plying. Then a few photos of where I knit and spin.

Silence...

2010-12-11T18:12:00.000+02:00

Just look at this:

No wonder I'm not taking any pictures at the moment. And I haven't gotten anything finished for a looooong time. I have though spun a lot and knitted a lot. I've also bought a bit of yarn and been to Tampere for the Handicraft fair. I'm so happy I managed to get Sarah and Chris over there and to meet them was so much fun. Check out Sarahs blogpost about the trip.

However I borrowed my dad's DSLR which is something like 6 years old. Or read: I saved it from getting smashed during their move. I want one! Here's a few pictures I just taken with it.

My spinning place. The red thingy on the pink chair is a HumanTool. It is actually quite nice to sit on it while spinning. The pink chairs are old 80's chairs from my grandmom that my mom renovated. I just love the pink-black combination and it so does not match the humantool or my appartment (which goes in brown and green).

What I'm spinning. Something purple. Don't ask what it is or where I got from. Probably from someones stash in Ravelry. Thinking of plying this with some other pink yarns.

My Christmas party nails. I got home last night at 2:30. Woke up today 14:00. I sang karaoke the first time in my life. "Fly me to the moon." I'm not sure I'm going to do it again though.

Have a nice weekend and relaxing pre-holiday times! I'm sure I will blog some more now when I got a fun camera borrowed.

Moomin mother is knitting

2010-11-05T11:35:00.002+02:00

Just look. There is evidence.

And I survived my first spinning class yesterday. As a teacher. Think I converted 5 people into spinners. :) 7 totally in my class. I just have to work on the two others a bit more.

And so that this won't be a pictureless post here's some from my Shetland trip in August. More will come in due time.

Mousie

2010-10-18T18:00:00.004+03:00

Hello, My name is Mousie. I'm a bit whimsical.

My ears are not straight up and parallell and neither are my eyes.

But I can stand on my back legs!

I'm filled with scrap yarn and a lovely girl called Maja adopted me immediately when I was done.

"Small" Pumpkin and other Autumn signs

2010-10-16T09:00:00.005+03:00

In September I asked my dad to bring me "not the smallest, but not the biggest pumpkin" they have. This is what I got:

23.2kg! I microwaved it, cut it into pieces and pureed it in the oven. The seeds I roasted. I've eaten pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, pumpkin this and pumpkin that.

My freezer is still filled with pumpkin in different "modes".

Another autumn sign is when you can see the spiderwebs due to the raindrops.

Viimeisiä päiviä vietetään

2010-10-14T20:53:00.000+03:00

Lueskelen muitten SYTYCK-ihmisten blogeja ja huomaan että sunnuntaina pitäisi jo aloittaa! Panic! Öh, mikä se mun haaste oli? Ainiin, Disco. Olinkohan ajatellut siihen jotain? Ehkä tätä?

Juu! Eli pinkkiä sekoitepussia kehrään langaksi hopean angelinan kanssa ja teen siitä laukun. Lisään vielä jotain helmiä ja paljettia jos sitä löydän sopivasti jostain. Ainiin, Hollywood viikojen aikana piti harjoitella jotain. No enhän minä sellaista tehnyt enkä varmaan muutenkaan ehdi, vaikka oli harjoitusmateriaaliakin.

Taidan ottaa tuon mukaan retriittin (Huomenna lähdetään!) ja katson jos siellä saisin tuota aloitettua.

I'm going to spin the pink fibre-bag + silver angelina to something Disco-like yarn for the So You Think You Can Knit-KAL/contest. From the yarn I will knit a bag. I'll probably add some beads and other sparkly stuff if I find any of that stuff at my home. The Jamieson's bag kit was to be a practice-bag. But the competing-part of SYTYCK starts on Sunday!

Hollywood Viikot 27.9.-16.10.2010

2010-09-26T09:46:00.000+03:00

Sain haasteeksi .... Discon! Kääk, iik, what? Näin SYTYCK blogissa lukee:

"Bling, bling! Seurasitko aikoinaan silmä tarkkana Usvasalon neuleita? Jos sen lisäksi muistelet harjanneesi mohairkarvoja pörröön… ja jos edelleen olet erilaisten efektilankojen perään, olet takuuvarmasti disconeuloja! Glitterisäihkeet ja paljetit piristävät minkä tahansa neuleen! Vaikka tänään ulkoisesti oletkin neuloja 2000-luvulta, niin sydämesi sopukoissa kaipaat sitä vaaleanpunaista hattarapörröä 80-luvulta…"

Vaaleanpunainen hattarpörrö on ainut joka kuulostaa hyvälle tässä. Mitäköhän minä keksisin? Jos ostan tampoonilankaa, tms ja neulon siitä serkuille huivin niin se on liian helppoa eikä minkäänlaista haastetta. Tekisi mieli kehrätä jotain blingblingiä ja neuloa siitä jotain pientä. Mutta mitä?

My challenge in "So you think you can knit" is Disco. Blingbling-yarn and 80's style. I have no idea what I will be doing. Buying some blingbling yarn and knit a scarf is too easy. So I thought I would spinn something. To be continued...

SYTYCK - Luuletko että osaat neuloa? - So You Think You Can Knit?

2010-09-17T10:04:00.000+03:00

I'm participating in a KAL-type thingy called So You Think You Can Knit. This is in Finnish so my blogposts concerning that KAL/contest is only going to be in Finnish.

Osallistun SYTYCK:iin joka on KAL/leikkimielinen kilpailu jossa "tanssitaan" neuleidemme kanssa.

Oma lajini on baletti. Pitsiä, huiveja, kaunista, herkkä... Melkein kaikki projektini Ravelryn jonossani ovat jonkinsorttista pitsiä. Huiviprojekteja löytyy varmasti yli sata ja huivilankoja löytyy kotoa joka sorttia. Kyllähän minä neulon muitakin asioita kun pitsiä, mutta pitsi, ja erityisesti pitsihuivi, on sellainen projekti jonka aina löytyy sohvan projekti kasasta ellei jopa käsilaukustani. Huivi on mahtava matkaprojekti ja kun se on valmis se on melkein kun koru. Kaiken tämän lisäksi olen vuoden miettinyt että haluaisin aloittaa aikuisbalettia. Sain äsken kuulla että sellainen löytyy täältä kotikaupungistani, mutta valitettavasti lauantaisin jolloin olen hyvin harvoin kotona. :( Ehkä ensi vuonna?

Shawlette KAL by Lankakomero

2010-09-15T22:42:00.001+03:00

Go and have a look! When 22 persons have finished the previous clue she will post up the next, so it's up to the participants how often the clues will come.

A little peek into my Shetland trip

2010-08-24T22:20:00.000+03:00

Or more like a peek in our humor level.

A shtory by Sharah and Malin. Moshtly created during Shaturday evening on the ship when everybody elshe wash ashleep due to sheashicknessh or tirednessh.

Oh shit, The Shetland sheep shoap shop* is shut. Luckily there is more shetland shoap on the ship's shoap shop for shoap shopper with sheashicknessh. If you need to go to the ship's chief shurgent with shcalpels and shcissors remember to tak shingle malt shcotch wishkey and shetland sheep shoap as a cure for your sheashicknessh and shinglesh. "I'm sho shorry", shaid the sheaman to the ship's cheif shurgent. "We don't have shingle malt shcotch wishkey or shetland sheep shoap in our ship shop for shoppers, but there ish shetland shterling shilver jewllery by the shilver shmith Sheila Fleet, shetland shweets, shilppers, shpiderman shpray shtick, shkincare, shalted chipsh, bathsalt, chardonnay, shiraz and shauvignon blanc wine'sh. You can alsho go to the ship'sh chinema to watch Shex and the Chity or Shrek. Or you can shleep in the ship's cabinsh in niche sheets and take a nice shower." Under the shtairsh you find a shilver shwedish shwiking with a shilver sharp shword.

* is actually only Shetland soap company. I added the sheep because it fitted so well.

Pictures and more stories to be posted later.

My stash

2010-06-10T18:57:00.000+03:00

First of all. MOM! Go away, you don't want to see this. *shew*
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Seriously mom! And dad to if you somehow ended up here...
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My stash is at the moment spread all over the floor. I'm looking for my inspiration. It's gone. I started with this yesterday. Took all the yarn from my closets out on the floor.

I left the good ones on the shelves for now.

But not for long. This is what I have now:

I'm participating in KYH (KesäYön Hullutus, SummerNights Madness) where we start one new project every day from 1st of June until midsommer day, which is 26th of June this year. This means 26 projects will be started between these days. And they should be done by end of July. I will post some day a separate post with all my starts and if I've actually finished something...

Mom, dad. If you read all the way here, remember, I warned you. Don't come nagging to me that I have too much yarn.

Post posts about posts in blogs with nice posts...

2010-05-26T22:46:00.000+03:00

This is soon becoming a blog where I post posts about posts where I'm included. However, in Hillevis blog you can read in Swedish that I was in Stundars (the local outdoor museum) spinning again. Both yesterday and today. Hillevi writes in Swedish, Finnish and/or English, depending on the audience she expects the post to have and/or how she feels that day. She's my spinning idol and one of my travelling partners when I go to the UK in August. :) More about the UK trip later. It's going to be soooooo fantastic, a lot of knitting and spinning and chatting.

Rhinebeck 2009 - proof that I was there

2010-05-23T16:33:00.000+03:00

Haven't posted much anything about my Rhinebeck trip in October 2009, but what better way to show it than thru a video podcast. Here in episode 74 of Let's Knit2gether. In 2:45 and 3:29 in the upper left corner you will see me first having a coffee and then smiling at the cameras.

Yesterday

2010-04-17T17:57:00.000+03:00

I tried to get Sara, 10 months to speak "Wollmeise". Check her out here.

My grandmas and me...

2010-03-31T11:59:00.000+03:00

I've been lucky to have two grandmas that are/were both handicrafty persons. (That's why I usually say my handicraftness-madness is a genetic fault.) This post is about my dad's mother. Elli has been dead for more than two years, but I still feel strongly connected to her. Perhaps emptying their appartment has brought up more memories and new thoughts about her. The eastern will be spent continuing to empty the appartment. Both she and my granddad have lived through and fought a war, seen misery that I cannot even begin to grasp and lived a looong life together. This is probably why they were such "hamsters" and saved everything, I mean everything. About 10 years back when I decided to sleep over at their place they found somewhere a toothbrush for me that I've used as a kid over 10 years before. No need to say what I did with that. Some things isn't perhaps anything to be joyful over (like the toothbrush or old underwear), but some things are just treasures. I managed to escape the whirlwind that my aunties and mother were a couple of weeks ago when cleaning out one (!) of the basements, but I wasn't left without things.

A silver thimble with proper silver stamps. Old books like Eeva Haavisto's "Sata Kansanomaista kuviokudinmallia" without the covers, cross-stitch book, weaving book "kutokaa itse kankaanne" and Baden-Powells "Tie onnellisuuteen" ("Road to happiness"?, Baden-Powell is the founder of scouting, if someone didn't know and I'm almost equally fanatic about scouting that I'm over knitting). An old Arabia cuttingboard. A brown-yellow 60's vase by Riihimäki. My grandfather got this as a present -69 from his employer, luckily his first name is Martti, so the initials on the vase matches mine. :) And I also got a wooden tool for making hardanger (?) or english embroidery, can't remember which.

What I haven't been able to photograph just yet is a crocheted curtain my grandmother made. I will steam it and hang it in my kitchen window, so I will put a separate post on that when it's all done.

Here's a picture of grandma and grandpa. Grandpa, Martti, Taata is now 90,5 years...

More treasures expected after this weekend. And I will make a post over my other grandma as well. She is over 80 years and is still weaving and knitting a lot.

Knitting weekend

2010-03-28T23:44:00.000+03:00

Some girls arranged for the second time a Finnish Knitters retreat in Päivölä. And there I was, for the second time. It was a fantastic weekend with long days, much laughter and talking. And little sleep. The change to summer time took one hour away from the weekend. :( But we didn't allow it to spoil our moods. :)

The first thing that was handed to me was an amazing exchange package.

Just look at these things! Chicken run needle pillow, eco-coffee, whitechocolatedrink, Wollmeise (!) and one bigger and one smaller pouches. Totally amazing! Thank you! Who ever you are. I'm really bad at guessing...

I didn't take that many pictures, but here's a few. I mostly spun some lovely green fiber. Perhaps merino/bamboo blend. I have no idea. But it spun up lovely and the green-yellow shade is amazing! I was so amazed over my Ladybug that I've had for a year now that I even sat almost 30 min just threadling my wheel. :)

Other people spun as well. Notice the fantastic Mario wheel behind the fanastic Majacraft Rose wheel.

Here's another picture of it.

And there were "some" yarn as well present.

My face is a big smile and I'm happy to go to sleep in my own bed. :) Good night!

Yarn jewlery.

2010-03-13T21:43:00.000+02:00

Getting ready for a knitting weekend. The weekend isn't before the end of this month. :)

Packages...

2010-03-12T16:57:00.000+02:00

When the systems at work break down, the car does it's yearly break down (every year something breaks, last year it was the breaks, this year it seems to be the cooler) and all things seems to fall apart, packages in the post office is definitely a must. Yesterday I went to pick up three mails from our central post office. One was a coffee package for dad. It was delicious Kaffa Roastery coffee. (Pages only in Swedish and Finnish, sorry.) It is two Swedishfinnish guys that have started their own roastery in Helsinki. They select the estates, bean mix and roasting grade themselves. Their coffee is delicous and you can even get a coffeeletter that gets you their coffee mailed to you once a month. Via Crema.fi. (Just as a side note. Not a paid commercial. ;) )

The other packages were mine! All mine! :) First of I won for the first time in a blog competition. This was in Eevus blog Siistiä ja tarkkaa. I got some fantastic Wollmeise Hortensie. In this collage I also have included the two Wollmeise WD packages I received a week (or two?) ago. Eevus skein is the one furthes in the top left picture and the one in the right middle one. The other ones are Kurbis, Maus Alt, Stella Polaris and something I don't remember right now.

Then I received some dishcloth yarn from the UK/US from my friend Sarah: Horti Honey’s Blog of Yarn, Plants, and Life

And some stitchmarks for a KAL we are participating in togehter, the Evenstar Mystery Shawl. These should be enough! :) I just have to make the swatch and then cast on. It seems to be a really beautiful shawl. (Ravlink) I have some Natural Dye Studios Angel-yarn reserved for it in lovely pale purple/lilac. Baby alpaca, cashmere and silk. Yummy-yum!

Blog pause ended?

2010-03-06T21:50:00.004+02:00

I've now had a longer pause in my bloggning since I have been thinking of what to blog about and for whom. Today when posting in Ravelry I found the need to link to a few blogposts and I realised that this blog is more or less my handicraft diary and I'm bloggning mainly for myself. If someone else likes to read and look at the pictures, the happier I am.

I've been knitting and spinning a lot, during the last months. But I'm not going to post all of it here. I have a few projects though that I want to share.

My last summers big project that I was crocheing mainly at our summerhouse. This picture is taken back home though, since I had to finish it at home after the summer had almost gone and the season for beeing at the summerhouse was over.

Then I knitted my first something of my own handspun.

A cowl. A bit funny size, but I probably will use it now in the spring and take better pictures then.

I've also started a Wollmeise stash. This is not my whole stash. Only my Nth package. ;)

And spun some laceyarn that I gifted in a swap. Merino/silk 80/20 that was 33om if I remember correctly. 2 ply, worsted draw. Colourway cinnamon? I have two tops of this wool in blues and reds and my fingers are now itching to start them. What a perfect summerknitting it would be to make a shawl out of them.

For the Ravelympics I knitted this shawl to my mothers friend:

I won't post any details here. Those I will keep in Ravelry. However, if you are wondering about something, just comment and I will answer.

Speaking of shawls. I have 469 patterns (16 pages) that I've queued in Ravelry. 5 pages (about 150 patterns) are shawls, scarfs, cowls and such. And I need desperatly more mittens, socks and hats. :) A funny equation. The winter has been cold here in Finland...

Tour de Fleece

2009-08-24T12:15:00.000+03:00

I participated in Tour de Fleece this year. For the tour I bought two new spindles, from Rina. I've been mostly practicing my long and short draws, navajo plying and did a test on some "art yarn".

What I've learnt during the tour:

I'm scared at getting too much twist. More twist is not bad!
Art yarn should be made of colourful fiber.
Spindles are actually quite great working with.

In the picture collage the fleece is Blue Faced Leicester in natural colours. And my Lady bug of course and the new spindles.

I noticed that I haven't shown at all here what I've been spinning. So here are three of my yarns so far:

The white is Finn sheep (or Affe?) wool that I've partly spun on a spindle, partly on the old spinning wheel and partly on the Ladybug. 2 ply, 200g?, very "artsy" with thick and thin structure. :) The green-yellow is BFL that is dyed by Ilu. I have two skeins of this. 2 ply, 200g, not so artsy as the white one. And last but not least is the pink-beige that is also dyed by Ilu, alpaca, 100g, 3 ply. And that one almost looks like even yarn. :)

Open air museum Stundars

2009-07-15T17:08:00.004+03:00

Today I and my cousines, Lisa and Emma were in an open air museum called Stundars. I had promised to go there and spin a little when they had "time travel" hours and the girls wanted to come along.

We got to choose clothes to look like they did "in the old age".

And the girls were really cute.

They did some carding, and spinning.

While I was completely consumed spinning with my new white oak Bosworth.

The girls baked some bread as well.

And some butter knives, but I don't have a picture of that. The girls "went to school" when they heard the schoolbell ringing where they had gymnastics, math and mother tongue. Tomorrow I guess they will do some old fashioned laundry, while I continue to spin. :)

New address!

2009-07-13T14:16:00.005+03:00

I have a "new" address:

Balcony, the sofa...

Yep, the spinning wheel, knitting and computer has also moved there. I don't sleep there. Yet... And I think my colour this year is pink. :)

Ravelry Finnish Swap and KnitPicks purchase

2009-06-16T18:47:00.007+03:00

In Ravelry the Finns have a summer/colour swap ongoing and I got a post code yesterday from my swap partner. Today at work I followed the whole day if it's going to arrive to my post office today, and certainly it did! Just look at this:

The scarf is handspun and hand knitted! And the slouch is just perfect colour and shape. The yarn is Mirasol Sulka 60% Merino 20% Alpaca and 20% Silk, made in Peru. Really soft. Matching mittens and cowl to the slouch? And then some Olive Green Corriedale to spin. Yay! And not to mention the book. This was a 40€ swap yes, but 200g yarn, wool to spin, a slouch, a scarf, a book, candy and a pedant is a lot for that amount! :D I think I have a good guess who my partner is, but I will check it first. Kiitos todella paljon tästä ihanan vihreästä paketista!

And while I'm writing this post (and becoming fanatic about Picasa 3:s collage feature) I'd like to post these pictures from my purchase from USA. First off some yarn from KnitPicks. My first ones:

My brother and his girlfriend acted as delivery agents (as thanks to borrowing my suitcase and for my birthday). I also ordered two books from Schoolhousepress while I was on a shopping spree.

Next time I will be my own delivery agent, since I bought tickets to New York. The plan is to go to Rhinebeck to their Sheep and Wool festival. :D

Shawls done

2009-03-15T20:35:00.006+02:00

I think I'm more into lace knitting than sock or cardigan knitting. I enjoy the beauty of lace and what happens during blocking (and that there's no right or wrong size of them).

During the spring I've finished two shawls. The first is the KAL Lankakomero held, Vernal Equinox Shawl.

Pattern: Vernal Equinox Shawl
Yarn: Evilla 260g
Needle size: 4.0 mm Addi Turbo

The other one is one I started last September. Took me "only" a half a year to finish this.

Pattern: Laminaria in Knitty
Yarn: Fyberspates Fairy Wool
Needle Size: 3.0 mm Addi Turbos

And on my needles I have now the Springtime Swirl KAL. My first round shawl. In brown MerinoSilk from Grignasco. And Kide in an olive green mohair I've bought a long time ago. Still it itches in my fingers to start a new one. The problem is that now when it's summertime I want to knit bright things...

Spin away

2009-03-15T20:21:00.006+02:00

The last week and a half I've been spinning a lot, like over 100g (that's a lot for beeing me!).

First of all last Friday and Saturday there was a spinning class nearby in which I and Anna took part in.

Here's our fantastic spinning wheels next to eachother. My Bug and Annas Joy.

We started with this on Friday evening:

Carded and spinned it:

Into this by Saturday morning:

Then I switched to some roving from Ilu.

And today we visited a considerable more skilled spinner. My god the things I have to learn in the skill of spinning!

She was so nice that we could try her carding maschine and we carded some of Anna's cat's hair into some lovely batts:

Here's the three of us with our wheels.

I think my head is spinning from all this fiber and spinning. :D

Bitten by a bug

2009-02-25T15:04:00.004+02:00

Today, just as I was walking out of the door to work, the UPS guy called and let me know that THE package will arrive this morning. About an hour later this box appeared in my door.

Which contained this:

A Schacht Ladybug spinning wheel! I bought this one weeks ago, waited eagerly for it to arrive to Germany (Wollinchen) and then to me. I've been clicking my UPS link several times every day and yesterday I was really disappointed since it said that it will be delivered 4th of March (first delivery date was 24th of February). That's why I was so happy that the UPS guy called and said it would arrive today!

I let it warm up a bit (it's quite cold outside, so I wanted the wooden parts to warm up a bit before putting them under strain) and assembled it during my "lunch hour". (I'm working from home today. Can't you see?)

Here's a picture of the bug next to my old spinning wheel. This was the main reason why I wanted a new one. This one is so much smaller and compact!

And then a closeup of the ladybug. Its just behind the wheel on the right side.

I test spinned just a little (waiting for the work day to end) to see how the scotch tension works. And it was just soooo smooth and nice. I just love the double threadle and the red wheel. In my package arrived also 500g of indigo corridale wool (Edit: Apparently I was a good customer so I have 600g of corridale fibre!), 500g white and brown BFL and 300 g of other nice fibres. :D

One last picture since it's just so cute!

Now I have to make some day a small bag or two to store spinning things in one and to put "wool trash" in the other... But guess what I'm doing this evening!?!?

Australian fires - how to help and to win yarn!

2009-02-11T22:23:00.003+02:00

Just a quickie. Bumped into All Tangled Ups' post about winning yarn and helping out the people "down under". Check for the yarns and details on serendipity's blog. Basically you donate cash (min 10 AUD which is about 5€, i.e. not much!) to the Australian Red Cross (securely online with your creditcard), forward your receipt to the email that is listed on serendipity's blog and you have a chance to win some of the fantastic yarn. *drool* And you can of course donate some yarn or patterns for the fund raising lottery as well.

And yes. I'm knitting and I will blog about it someday...

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T22:56:00.006+02:00

I'm back home after being homehome at my parents for the day. I've got about 200g of fantastic beige lace weight alpaca from Canada from my brother. I found this shop on the internet and demanded that he would go there and buy me some yarn from there. He told me that they were suprised that I had found their shop on the internet. Knitmap.com is a fantastic place! I will take some pictures later and add them here.

I also got a domestic appliance from my parents so that I can make my own dough for bread, buns and such. We have to see if I have to add a food section to this blog as well. ;) (However, I'm not that keen on making food, but I'm eager to test to bake some bread...)

Have a peaceful Christmas and enjoy the relaxing days ahead!

Fanatic!

2008-10-17T20:24:00.006+03:00

I think I will have to be admitted to a handicrafts-fanatic-hospital. I've tried so many new techniques these last weeks and bought so many new books and tools...

Remember my spindle I bought over a month ago? Well, I've extended my "tools" for spinning with a spinningwheel. This one is my great grandmother's old spinningwheel that my grandmother told me is still in good shape.

I've been spinning with this now for a couple of times and it's great fun! My spinning is getting more and more even and I'm learning the tricks of a spinningwheel...

But I still wanted a new spindle. For trips, etc. So I've been looking at Butterflygirls spindles for a while now. From all the loooovely spindles she has I choose this one:

Isn't it lovely? Just look at the craftmanship of the shaft?

I just finished test spinning this and let me tell you, I'm in spinner's heaven!

And I'm starting to grow a fiber stash too. This rowing is from Ilun Handu Duunaa. 100% Alpaca in a colourway I can't remember what it was called.

I'm thinking of spinning this with my butterflygirl flower spindle. Two lovely things together cannot be anything else that really lovely!

Then I've stuck with tatting. I bought 4 magazines, 1 book and 5 shuttles the last weeks. The books have arrived, but not the shuttles.

Three weeks ago I attended a tatting class here in town that a norwegian guy called Gunnar Fon had. He had som really great ideas, like tatting with normal yarn or with rope. The first photo is a flower "ribbon" that he had made and then there is my pink flowers in alpaca yarn.

This is my test on tatting with rope and it's quite fantastic to be honest. But really hard on your shoulders.

And inspired of the class I made some alpaca-reflector tatting brooches.

My grandmother was exited that I started tatting (because that was apparently something she and my great grandmother also have been doing), so when she spotted in a second hand shop crochet yarns she immediately bought them for me:

And as this wouldn't be enough I've been knitting like a maniac. Here are some of the projects that I have finished this last month:

So please, can you point me in the direction of the psychic ward for fanatic handicrafters?

Not convinced yet? I've also bought two knitting books: Inspired to knit and Knit so fine. And this came in the mail today:

Yarn from Titityy sockclub by Ilu. 70% wool, 25% bambu and 5% mohair.

Treasures from the cellar

2008-09-17T14:49:00.003+03:00

I received this Rowan knit kit by Kaffe Fasset from my grandmother a couple of years ago. I managed to hide it in my cellar and forget it and found it again during my really active weekend...

I'm not sure if she wants me to knit this specific model or just wants me to use the yarns. The model is just sooo 80's and so not me. And if I were to start it I would never finish it. It's just too complicated.

However the colours are just fantastic, but of some of them there is only a couple skeins each. There are kid silk in 11 different colours

and some tweed yarn in one colour

And some Kaffe Fassets design yarn in 6 different colours.

However I feel obliged to do something similar of at least part of the stash. Perhaps a slipover with the same motif? Could be a nice fist intartsia/fair isle/steeking project. (That will take forever to finish. I'm sure.) The pattern is one size only, but the little that my grandmother had knitted on it seems to be a good fit for me. But I'm such a loose knitter... Or a nice blanket with colour combination ideas from the pattern?

However I know I have to make something of this. These yarns are just too nice to be laying around waiting for me to hand it over to my granddaughter...

No so active weekend

2008-09-15T19:52:00.003+03:00

This weekend I wasn't so active. Mostly due to a cold that hit me on Saturday. So the balance in activity for the past two weekend are quite stable.

However I tried some tatting and this is what I made:

The one on the left is from Yarnplayer's Tatting: Butterfly bookmarks and the one on the right is from Butterflies and Caterpillars. I did however learn something during these two butterflies and I've made a couple of small mistakes on the butterfly on the left. But as long as we live we learn. Right? :D

I also did some test tatting before the butterflies. A small lace that I just made up from my old tatting I showed in the last post.

Then I finished my first skein of yarn.

Strategial measurements are 28.5m/23g.

I managed to make the spinning quite tight at some places, but for beeing my first skein I'm proud of it.

I also started on my Laminaria from yarn I received a couple of weeks ago from a scarfyarn club.

Super active weekend

2008-09-07T21:16:00.006+03:00

Friday. Normally of course to work, but when I came home I saw that I had a package waiting for me at the post office. Quickly out to the car and drive to pick up the packet and tore it up at mom's and dad's. This is what it included:

From Villa Laurila. Before I had time to start spinning I had dinner with mom and dad and went to buy some food (and a shelf to my storage room). When I came home I immediately started spinning. What a joy, and definitely some novelty yarn coming up. This was my fist days result. It is just sooo much fun to spin.

When I was at home dining, my mom digged up my old tatting shuttle that I have gotten from my great grandmother many years ago. There was still some tatting attached to it that I've been doing back then, maaany years ago. I'm starting tatting by taking a weekend course in three weeks.

Apparently I wasn't really good at this back then. My great grandmother on the other hand was really good. If I ever find the cross she made me I will post it here.

On Saturday I woke up quite early and went to town. Shopping. :D Chanterelles for Sunday dinner, shoes...

A watch that came with a handbag...

Some clothes...

After shopping I knitted a little bit on my new red cardigan from Garnstudio. This is my second project in Slike Alpaca and it's just a really, really lovely yarn. However I wish they'd make it in 100g balls. One ball of 60cm/50g knits just up so fast.

I also reorganized my storage room and surprise! I found yarn there which I've actively have tried to forget. Rowan yarn to be exact. Now it is too dark to take photos of the package with yarn, but to give some details it contains a lot of yarn (1kg) in different colours, meant to be a Kaffe Fasset cardigan. I'm thinking of not making this into a cardigan, but perhaps I'll take the idea and make a slipover. I don't know. We'll see. ;)

Oh, and mom came over with another tatting shuttle that she got from her aunt when visiting her on Saturday. It's the same model as the blue, but this one is white. So now I already have two of them. I just have to start tatting...

Today, Sunday, I started the day with a bit of spinning. And this is what I've been spinning up so far.

I also washed some sheets, ate dinner with mom, dad, aunt and aunt's boyfriend. I've also talked with a friend, planted some autumn flowers on my balcony, went to the gym and now I'm just trying to get myself to pack for my trip to Tallinn tomorrow. I'm spending three days in Tallinn on a business trip and I've located at least three nice yarnshops close by our hotel. :D

Yarn p0rn

2008-08-20T21:44:00.003+03:00

One weeks stash growing...

Shopping from Tapio. Yarnoholic?

But! I've started two project already from these yarns!

Yarn that "I" bought from I Knit London. Looooovely colours of Indie Dyed yarn. 150g.

These will be some kind of scarf some day I believe. Something like this [ravelry link]?

And some Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 in colourway Moss from Titityys sockclub. No pictures, too lacy...

Travelling agony

2008-08-08T23:42:00.004+03:00

As many of us knitters already know, the biggest problem when it comes to travelling is how many and what kind of knitting we should take with us. The project should be small enought to take along, but big enought to last the entire knit. Socks are preferred by many, but I like shawls best. I thought about starting a new shawl, which would have been fun, but the yarn would have taken so much space that I decided I had to leave it at home. I'm packing at the moment for a wedding in southern Finland and I cannot decide what knitting to take. Now I have packed a shrug that I will finish during the train trip down (6h) that will be a present and I want to give it to the lucky person tomorrow when I see her and the other project is the second sock for a friend. The sock is booooring, but I want to finish it so that I can start something new. And notice, I'm just one night away from home, but I have 6h of train and 5-6h of car ride that makes this journey challenging...

However I've finished something for the lucky couple getting married tomorrow. A pair of lovers mittens (a mitten with two cuffs that you can hold eachothers hands in) and a long enough scarf that they can wear together.

I think it is time for bed now. 5h until I have to wake up.

Edit: And not to mention all the other gadgets I'm taking along; Nintendo DS with 30+ games, iPod Touch with loads of podcasts and a pocketbook. This time however, I'm leaving my computer at home. Think I will survive? ;-) Less than 5h until morning...

Slow blogging

2008-06-17T21:48:00.003+03:00

I haven't quitted knitting. Not by far. Go and check my latest things on Ravelry or on Flickr. I've actually been knitting far larger projects this spring.

How about this Revontuli (FIN) shawl made in Jitterbug?

Or this Aleita Shell from Interweave Knits, Spring 2008, in King Cole Anti-Tickle in two different blues.

I've also been active on WWKIP-day and a local handicraft day at Stundars (Links to my friend's blog. I was too lazy to take photos.)

One of the techniques I've tested quite much the last week is to get joggless stripes. TECHknitting™: Jogless stripes--a new way To make striped mittens and socks. Pictures will come eventually.

I'm still thinking of what to write about in this blog since Ravelry takes care of the project details. Still I hope I will update it a bit more frequently than I have so far and perhaps share links of great things I find on the internet. You see, I've found this super add-on to my Firefox called ScribeFire that makes blogging easier. :D

Lots done, nothing posted...

2008-01-05T21:49:00.000+02:00

I haven't been all quiet and still before Christmas, just had to give the presents before showing them (and a lot of time has been spent in Ravelry as well).

I finished a couple of hats before Christmas. One Koolhaas from Interweave Knits, Holiday 2007 for my brother and one basic hat in Colinette Point 5 for his wife.

As I'm a process knitter (i.e. I can knit something just to have something to knit) I always have some knitting with me. The last project was a Ruska Shawl (pattern only available for Ulla-members) in Garnstudio Alpaca yarn. Orange is not really my colour, but my mothers friend is one and she got this as a new years present from my mom.

And last but not least I finised a vest in Noro Kureyon yarn. I'm quite pleased with this work and I'm definitely going to wear it for work on Monday. The Noro yarn was a little bit too rough to knit, but wearing it will not be a problem.

Just look at the fantastic colours!

I tested a couple of simple techniques in this one, top down without raglan and short rows shaping over the bust. I started the vest from the top down and it's knitted straight, except fore the short row shaping. And my four skeins of Noro was just enough. :)

Perhaps I'm ready now for some bigger knitting project? My sweater projects usually end UFOing due to lack of self dicipline, but perhaps I have it now? Or then I'll just do a couple of more vests before entering the world of sweaters. :)

My excel shows me that I used 5.8 kg of yarn last year (March to December though only) and I have almost 24 kg yarn in my stash. That would make about 4 years of work before I've finished it all. But since I'm on a quite good speed with knitting now I could do better this year. I've been over a month now without buying yarn, and if I don't fall over something really nice treasure on my trip to the Czech Republic, I'm going to be without yarn to the end of this month. (Although Novita Teddy yarn is on sale now and their forest green colour is really nice and it will probably dissapear before spring...)

Secret Knitting Pal - last package

2007-12-13T12:30:00.001+02:00

Just got my last package from my secret pal in a swap arranged by pyssel.net. Just look how lovely wool-silk yarns I got!

Anna sent me this package, and she was also my secret pal this time. Check out her blog to see what I gave her.

Ravelry

2007-11-30T22:50:00.000+02:00

Yepp, I fell for it and queued for Ravelry and the invitation arrived last night. You'll find me there under the nickname Olebrumm, of course. ;-)

I've actually finished something

2007-11-29T19:49:00.000+02:00

In Pyssel.net there's ongoing a swap which I'm part of. Every package has a theme and this third package is something you have done yourself that you should send. Since my swap partner is pregnant I decided to do something for the kid.

Pattern: Bluebell in Ulla by Pia (FIN)
Yarn: Off-white Novita Tennessee 40g and green Baumwolle Classic Color by Schewe 12 g
Needle: 2.5mm dpns

The pattern was easy enough and I had the yarn in my stash, so it was easy to begin. Since the kid hasn't seen the daylight yet the hat will hopefully be just to wear right next summer.

I also wanted to do something to warm the little kids feets and rememberd I had some Cashmere Merino Silk Aran by Sublime left and made these:

Pattern: Booties from Moda 01/2007
Yarn: Cashmere Merino Silk Aran by Sublime (probably something like 20g, max)
Needle: 4mm dpns

The pattern was quite tricky. You had to follow it promtly to make sens of it. But the booties became really cute and I just wish I had more kids to knit to.

From my swap partner I got these lovely fingerless gloves.

They are lovely warm, but I don't know what they are knitted of. On top is a felt heart appliqued. These I'll defenitely wear!

This weeks Tuesday I went with my mom and my grandmom to a Christmas craft evening. We could choose between four different things to do; pearl stars, Christmas balls, bee wax candles and pearl angels. I chose to do a candle and an angel. It was really fun to do some craft togheter with mom and grandmom. :)

I've also almost finished one Christmas present and one scarf, but more about those later. Have a nice little-Christmas weekend!

All busy, but nothing to show

2007-11-20T19:51:00.000+02:00

Since Christmas is coming up there's a lot of hush-hush projects going on. However, I have bought some new yarn and tools. :) I went with my friend to a handicraft fair in Tampere last weekend. This is what I brought home with me.

Of course I had to buy some new tools. Addi needles, Clover helpers and bamboo dpns.

I manage to find lovely reindeer buttons too.

First out are two 500g cones of Merino Blend by King Cole. Project: secret.

Then I reordered my Moda knitting magazine order and got a lovely skein of Elfin by Schoeller Stahl. Project: No idea. Scarf?

I also bumped into Angorina (FIN blog). She makes lovely yarn out of angora, dog wool and lambs wool. This is a skein of angora and wool... Project: Definitely a triangular scarf of some sort.

And last, but not least. My first four skeins of Kureyon by Noro. Project: A slipover perhaps?

All in all a very nice day, eventough due to the busdriver (the only man in the bus, and of course he's to blame) we sat 10 hours in the bus instead of 7. And only 3 hours was spent at the fair, instead of 5. But I'm very happy I went there and definitely I'll be going there next year too.

Now off to my hush-hush projects so that I have something to show after Christmas.

First posting in new blog.

2007-11-19T22:32:00.000+02:00

Since my old blog seems to have gotten some hickups, let's try Blogger instead...