Red and white finds

My visit to the local charity shop last Saturday was a lucky one. I found this old red curtain with primroses (now a piece of it has turned into the bag shown in the picture above), vintage table runners with roses and about two metres of stretchy 70's fabric. All of these I'm planning to use in sewing.


This tunic t-shirt I'm wearing cost me 80 cents. It's really a children's nightdress, I was planning to give it for Elsi, but as I managed to squeeze myself into it, I decided to keep it myself as a t-shirt. This nightie feels so familiar that I must ask my mother whether I had one like this in the 70's.

I'm not completely happy with this bag. It looks OK when stuffed with things, but left empty it folds not so nicely. I wanted to leave the opening large enough for bigger books and this results the folding effect. I'm happy, though, with the applique birds and with the lovely fabric. Using a pattern of some kind could solve a couple of my bag making problems.

Some chocolate to fight the darkness

Yep, that's real butter! Today the dark, grey and rainy weather created a need for real comfort, well not comfort food, but some comfort sweets. These sweets of butter, sugar, oatmeal, cocoa and coffee were the first things I learned to cook when I was about ten years old. Today, though, I used a recipe from the lovely book "Makeita unelmia, pikkuleivistä suklaakakkuihin" by Therese Wikström. The results were yummy, but not were aesthetic in their appearance. I usually roll these 'chocolate balls' in cocos flakes, but didn't have any available today.

If you are trying to stay away from sweets, you'd better stay away from this book.

There's a new kitty in the house

Finally the Weewonderfuls Kitty got its' eyes open. If you want to make one, you'll find the pattern here. It was fairly easy to make, but attaching the head to the body was the hardest part.. I think a special long needle for making stuffed toys might be useful in making this. Now I will have to make an other one, so that both the girls will have a cat of their own or give this cat to a new family.

Because Elsi finds her mum most of the time in front of the computer, sewing machine or a pair of knitting needles, she has moved her drawing studio into my working space, taking my pencils and papers for her better use. The photo below shows one still-life I found on my desk after her, I just think the princess among the pencils looked so nice. The life of little girls is a bit like that; lots of colours and moments of being a princess.

Please don't tell Mama

...because I'm knitting this scarf for her as a Christmas present. I seriously thought before, that I wouldn't be able to knit any type of lace, but as it turned out, I can if I take the effort to try (and the pattern is not too difficult). The yarn is 'Kitten Mohair' from SandnesGarn and I'm using 6mm needles. OK, so now I have four knitting projects at the same time. Well at least this project has a clear dead-line in December.

The near by library is a true goldmine when it comes to finding books about crafts, decoration or almost any other topic near to my heart and interests. Here's the pile of books I have carried home in last two weeks.

The book on the top of the pile is my absolute favourite "Tilda- Satumainen Talvi- ompelua ja askartelua" by Tone Finnanger. The book is filled with instructions and patterns for the most beautiful Christmas decorations i.e. stuffed angels and snowmen among others.

The other books pictured are "Tunnelmallinen joulu" by Charlotta Boucht and Mari Koli, "Do Redo, kuinka villapaita paloitellaan" by Ivarsson, Brieditis and Evans, "Neulo ja huovuta leluja" by Zoë Halstead, "Virkkaajan käsikirja" by Pauline Turner and finally "Huovutuksen uudet ideat" by Vibeke Saetre and Marit Gulbrandsen.

These books work for me like picture books and as a source for inspiration, but I do hope that I get to make myself something out of Tone Finnanger's book. As you may have noticed this post includes already three times the word 'Christmas', but that's more than natural at this point of the year.Quite soon you would be able to hear here Christmas carols, at least when my husband is not around, he'll tolerate them only around the 24th of December.

The Doll's new jacket

On Monday I was inspired by the tender care the girls were giving their dolls. It' s such a treat to watch them play and even better to see them play for a little while together. I'm amazed how an 18months old toddler can already play with a doll. Iisa carries the baby doll in a very careful manner, hushes it, gives it something to eat and puts it to the pram and pushes around the house.
Because dressing the dolls up is still my job, I felt like there was a need for one more jacket. Elsi got to choose the fabric, so it's no big surprise that the garment was to be pink. During Iisa's nap, I made a pattern and sew this jacket. The results are far from perfect, but I had fun making it.

Here's the proud owner of a new jacket

Weekend crafts

Pointy Kitty in process

On Sunday morning I got a chance for furious knitting while the kids were watching the telly. Although I appreciate the possibility to sleep longer on one morning every weekend, those days usually end up being a bit blurry. Too much sleep at once seems to be quite as bad as no sleep at all. Even though I have not finished the sweaters nor the WeeWonderfuls Pointy Kitty I have been working on, I started one more new project. This time with Novita yarn 'Huopanen'. I'm knitting mittens in kid's size. This is my first time knitting with 'Huopanen' and I have no idea, how much the mittens will shrink in the felting process, but at the time the mitten (the almost finished one) looks gigantic. Hopefully the children's size is meant more for like four-year-olds than for school kids. I'll show you the mittens before and after the felting when I get that far.

With all the crafting going on, I don't seem to get myself out of the house and to do all those things that are waiting in the garden. The vegetable garden needs serious weeding and there are some cloves of garlic waiting for planting, even though it might already be too late for that.Of course I'm outside with the girls every day, but the combination of two small children, muddy garden and a ditch filled with autumn rain is not very practical.

The collapsing beauty

Look at this rose, frosty nights and rainy days have almost managed to steal its' beauty, but only almost. There is still plenty of pink left and the buds look fresh from a distance. If you picked that rose, it would instantly fall apart, but left alone it might even see the snow falling in a day or two. I don't even dare to hope that my roses will survive the coming winter, even though they coped with the ever changing nature of the previous winter. So this is my goodbye for them: hope to see you next spring!

This is an other warrior of summer, fresh leaves of Lupine. This miniature pond of water might turn into ice-skating arena for ladybugs overnight.

Something sweet for Thursday

My daughters don't always have to wait until Saturday to get something sweet to eat, because their mum is not able to wait that long. Today I needed something sweet and preferably fatty, so waffles were the obvious choice for afternoon snack. I would do the hole thing much faster alone, but my kids won't stay away from kitchen, if I'm doing anything which involves bowls, eggs that need to be broken and flour that needs to be stirred. Some of the waffles I even managed to get on the plate for so long that I got a photo of them, but after all it is amazing how much a three-year-old girl can eat, if there's sugar mentioned on the recipe.

Last beams of summer

In October the sunshine gets here so rare that you have to cherish every single beam of it and every beautiful shadow created by it. My Oilseed pumpkins are more or less freezing on the porch, but they still manage to fill me with the joy of growing things and harvesting things.

Now that the season of gardening is almost over in here, there is more time for indoor activities like sewing, knitting and baking. In summertime I live in and for outdoors but now it's time to get active inside the house. I've started with two simple sweaters, one for me and the other for my younger daughter.

This fluffy yarn is Kuura by Novita and I'm knitting of it a simple sleeveless tunic sweater for myself.

Oh, if you are wondering the sudden change in language, I have an explanation ready for you. I decided it could be wise to use this time on computer as effectively as possible, so now while I'm learning new stuff about my computer, I'm at the same time brushing up my English. The downside to it is, that writing my posts takes now double the time it would otherwise.

Aivan alussa

Kuukausi sitten otin harha-askeleen blogimaailmaan ja sille tielle jäin. Jäin ihmettelemään niitä kaikkia ehtoisia emäntiä, jotka hoitavat kodin kauniiksi, laittavat ruoan, neulovat, virkkaavat ja virittävät langat ja kankaat ja vielä ehtivät kuvaamaan sekä kirjaamaan blogiinsa tämän kaiken. Ja tähän on tultu: Nyt haluan minäkin etsiä arjestani ne kauniit hetket ja pienet saavutukset ja jakaa ne teille.

Tämäkin kasa kangasta on vasta vain alku. Tavoitteeni on vuoden vaihteeseen mennessä saada kasasta aikaan jotain, ehkä tilkkupeitto pienelle tai vain muutama säilytyspussukka. Jos jotain raportoitavaa syntyy, kerron sen kyllä.