Maailmaan tuli vauva. A baby arrived.

Maailmaan tuli vauva. Ei tosin meille. Mutta iloitsimme asiasta maalaamalla munia, jotka ovat muinaisia hedelmällisyyssymboleita. Vauvapaketissa oli munia, onnittelukortti isosiskolle, itse tehty kehäkukkasaippua ja suklaabanaanipuuhkuja. Ai niin ja kukkaisteetä, mutta se puuttuu kuvista. Haaveenani on edelleen lasinen uunivuoka muovikannella, jotta voisin viedä kasvaneelle perheelle pistaasilasagnea pakkaseen.

A baby arrived to the world. Not for us, though. But we celebrated by painting eggs, which are ancient fertility symbols. Baby pack included eggs, a greeting card for the big sister, handmade calendula soap and chocolate banana muffins. Oh, and blossom infusion, but it's missing from the pictures. I still dream of a glass ovenware with a plastic lid that I could use for bringing pistachio lasagne for the just-grown family.

Vauvapaketti. Baby pack.

Munatoivotus.
Egg wish. It says, 'Welcome to the world, baby!'

Munapakkaus kiinni. Egg pack lid closed. It says, 'Congratulations!'

My new peg loom. Riemastuttavat tappikangaspuut.

I ordered myself a peg loom from The Hand Weaving Company in Wales. Oh, it's genious. Such a simple way to weave plain weave without a huge loom, and with warps of yarn, and, and! Indispensable in airy felted scarf projects I have dreamed of. And you can weave rugs and bags and... Not like I had done anything yet, though, as it only arrived today.

I do wonder, though, if they're popular or even much known outside Wales. There's no entry for peg loom in wikipedia and I couldn't find a word for it in Finnish. Most weavers seem to be Welsh. Probably I can't survive without getting a History of Weaving.

While searching for peg loom related information, I came across this page. I love it. They don't only tell how to weave a peg loom; they also teach you to make butter, weave a basket and tap a birch tree. I want to make butter, weave a basket and tap a birch tree, too.

Still wrapped. Vielä muovissa.

Tilasin tappikangaspuut Walesista. Ne ovat yksinkertaisesti nerokkaat. Yksinkertaisuudessaan. Niin yksinkertainen keino kutoa palttinaa ilman suuria kangaspuunrohjokkeita, jotka täyttäisivät koko huoneen. Loimalankoina voi käyttää villaa. Oh. Ne ovat korvaamattomat sellaisten ilmavien puolihuovutettujen huivikkeiden tekoon, joita olen suunnitellut. Niillä voi tehdä mattoja ja laukkuja ja... Ei siis sillä, että olisin tehnyt vielä yhtään mitään, sillä ne saapuivat tänään.

Jos joku tietää lisää tappikangaspuiden suosiosta tai historiasta, niin minua kiinnostaisi kuulla. Onkohan niitä paljonkaan Walesin ulkopuolella? Niitä ei löydy wikipediasta eikä niille ole sanaa suomeksi. Googlatessa vaikuttaa, että kutojat ovat pääosin walesilaisia. Luultavasti en selviä eteenpäin ilman jonkinlaista kutomisen historiikkia.

Mutta tappikangaspuista tietoa etsiessäni törmäsin tähän sivuun! Paitsi että kertovat, kuinka tappikangaspuilla kudotaan, opettavat punomaan koreja, kirnuamaan voita ja juoksuttamaan mahlaa. Mäkin haluan punoa koreja, kirnuta voita ja juoksuttaa mahlaa!

A tub reportage no., I guess, 3

 

No, my tub isn't ready yet. It's neither polished nor waxed. But I poured in some water and it didn't get clouded, so I couldn't resist and prepared myself a bath. And do you know what? It was awesome.

Spider web bonnet

A spider web bonnet of linen yarn. It looked so much better on my colleague's that I gave it to her. (She doesn't like modeling.) I wasn't sure if the pattern would turn out nice when I started, but the longer the tube got, the nicer it looked. Again, the pattern is from Betty Barnden's The Crochet Stitch Bible.

Linen daisies

Too many thoughts today. Refuse to be organized. All the boxes and stuff I should pack are spread on the floor, equally unorganized. Sigh. A good thing about moving a lot, though, is that you have so little stuff that you know it can be packed in few hours.

 

But here's a crochet daisy bonnet of linen-rayon yarn. Pattern can be found in Betty Barnden's The Crochet Stitch Bible (which is certainly my personal bible). Behind it a derelict yard in Haapsalu, Estonia, and Baltic sea.

(I don't like working with plant fibres as much as with wool. They never work quite the way I'd like. Fibers are too long and independent, always going to the wrong side of the hook. But it's summer. Not a wool season. Instead it's a butterfly season. I saw a beautiful orange tip—and a picture of an orange tip trinket someone had made.)

A tub reportage

It's spring. It's finally a real spring. I've seen brimstones, peacock butterflies, a heliconian, a mourning cloak and today, finally, gossamer-winged butterflies (blue-wings in Finnish). 

And I've got a tub for the summer cottage, originally used for storing cereal. I guess decades ago. I'm trying to make it swell, but there are some very persistent caps...

A perfect day

Best days are the days you don't have to do anything. Okay, getting tyres changed. But that's done now and I have summer tyres and sunglasses and new windscreen wipers. Well, yeah, and a new car. And white lilies in the bathroom, gotten from a sweet American girl who was couchsurfing here. And another sweet, joyous couchsurfer sleeping on my floor, this time from Brazil; and melon muffins, although I used honeydew and toadskin melon instead of cantaloupe and damsons instead of apple sauce; and a happy tired cat and patches, endless, neverending patches. Soon, soon it'll be finished and I can finally do something else. And I feel like writing a memorial to my old car.

Sun, cat, crochet :)

Sun is shining today and Ludvig will get to go out. She doesn't look extremely eager, though. 126/135 patches ready!

Oh, March

It's a grey, dull day, clouds hanging miserably on rooftops. And after many days of surprising excessive energy, I have none. So don't imagine I'd be going outside for a second, expect slouching to the nearest grocery store to get candy. Instead, I'm spending my day pretty much like this:

The book is Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and a DVD of Agatha Christie's Marples is just outside the picture.

I've made a bet with my boyfriend. If he finishes his bachelor's thesis before I finish my alpaca quilt, I'll treat him a dinner in Dong Bei Hu (the best Chinese restaurant in Helsinki, and the only one which number I have on my cell phone). And, obviously, vice versa. He's written some five pages of minimum 15; I'm up to 89 of 135 patches, above to which I will have to crochet the uttermost round to each 135 and sew them together.

More bonnets

Now that I'm on the topic of bonnets. I can't remember where I got instructions for this one; I only remember I applied them quite freely. You knit two and purl two so that stripes formed move to right all the time. I was so happy when making the bobble that I didn't realize that if I use more than 100 grams of yarn, the bobble will weight more than 100 grams. But it's still nice, huh?

The red one I crocheted on a plane just a few days ago. I love it that I can take my crochet needle to a plane—and I've taken it dozens of times—but they get all cranky about French cheese, because it's too gel-like. At least the Swiss security did. Anyways, I was thinking of a Japanese summer hat I had years ago which was approximately of same model, and I think I was also hoping to look more adult. Apparently that's not possible, though.

I started from the top and used ordinary crochet as long as I was increasing, then changing to this woven stitch I found in Betty Barnden's The Crochet Stitch Bible. Basically it goes: one crochet, one chain stitch, so that you always crochet on the chain stitch on the row below. I love the texture. Yarn is untwisted sheep wool from Estonia.

Finnish ski bonnet

I have an enormous collection of bonnets. When my friends see an animal-shaped bonnet they want to buy but don't want to wear, they give it to me. Last spring two brothers I know were travelling to different destinations - one to Peru and one to China - and somehow they both managed to bring me a bonnet. The one from Peru was owl-shaped; the one from China, panda.

Most of my bonnets, however, are versions of a Finnish ski bonnet. It's simple, it's cute, and I love it.

Basic ski bonnet made with thick, untwisted yarn.
Crochet laces to tie under a child's chin.

Basic model with stripes and really thick alpaca.

This is slightly more complicated, although not very.
Instead of knitting every row, you knit two rows and purl two,
changing the yarn so that the colorful rows show knitted and
purled white on the outside.

Instructions. (I link guidance to basic stitches for those of my friends whose first knitting I know this to be; if you know what you are doing, no need to check them. Gosh, some of them have terrible music playing.)

First, you need to cast on a necessary amount of stitches. If you are knitting for an adult, the width should be approximately 18 cm; for a 3 years old something like 12 cm and for a one year old baby something like 10 cm. This also depends on the thickness of the yarn you use: you need more width if your yarn is very thick.

Knit the first row. On the second row, knit one, then decrease one by knitting two stitches together. Knit until you have two stitches left. Do a lifted increase - that is, knit one stitch of the stitch on the row below and then knit the second last stitch normally. Knit the last one and all the way back. Repeat the increase and decrease on every other row until you have one fifth of the desired length when you slightly stretch your knitting. (Desired length is the head circumference of the person you are knitting for. For example, my head is 56 cm, so I should now have some 11 cm done.) Your knitting should be kind of leaning to right.

Now you change: you knit one, increase one (by lifting), knit until you have three stitches left, decrease by knitting two together, knit one. And then knit all the way back. Repeat until you have two fifths of the desired length when slightly stretching your knitting (in my case, 22 cm). The second part should be leaning to left.

Then you change again, following the instructions for the first part, except that now you only continue until half of your the desired length is done (in my case 28 cm).

Change again, following the instructions for the second part, until you have three fifths done (in my case 36 cm). Change again, following the instructions for the first part until you have four fifths (in my case 45 cm) and then follow the instructions for the second part until you have the whole length. Cast off.

It should look like this:

Now all you need is to sew it together. Sew A to A, B to B and so on.

And it's ready.

Fifty-three to go

 

Seventy-one patches done. Fifty-three to go. Although I think I miscounted and need actually a total 128 - in that case, fifty-seven to go. Plus of course the outermost ring to each one. And the sewing.

I think I gotta do something else for a while. Something I can complete sooner. Something like this, perhaps, to use as a purse when flying.

Macramé

Temping as a substitute teacher of arts and crafts some time ago, I was to teach a bead workshop. I know nothing about beads, but fortunately the kids knew what they were doing. So while they were doing whatever they were doing with tiny seedbeads (for which I would have not had patience), I was skimming through some books about the subject. And there it was, what I had tried some years ago in a craftshop in Estonia and then forgotten: macramé. The book said it's "ethno-spirited but can look nice when used right". (Nice and right meaning, cheap.) After my first, succesful try, I came home and started to check macramé patterns in web. Probably should have tried this with something else than alpaca.

Neverending patches

My eternal problem seems to be that I buy more yarn that I can possibly use. Sometimes I go on strike: no more yarn until at least some of the old is finished! And then I stare at my yarn collection (and believe me, it's huge) wondering what to make. For example, what to make of the odd collection of alpaca?

Inspired by this, I started my own crochet quilt. Unlike this beautiful tulip quilt, my patches won't be so flower-like: just rounds surrounded by either a hexagon or octagon. The color for the outermost ring isn't decided yet either, as I thought I'd finish all the yarn I already have before choosing the binding color.

I counted that I would need some 124 patches for a blanket - that is, if there's enough yarn. Still 83 to go.