Fiber Field Trip!

My mother and I recently traveled abroad to Finland, Russia, and Estonia for our yearly field trip. Thanks to my mother who moonlights as my travel agent, we traveled very smartly this year. This trip really has been the most knitting/fiber-related of all our European travels to date. Instead of posting pictures of all the trinkets and treasures purchased on this trip (and believe me there were many!), I decided to "return the favor" and post information about the yarn shops visited along the way. We always scour the net for knitting blogs and yarn shop reviews when we travel, but we found a lot of yarn by accident.

Our first stop was at the Hakaniemi market hall, Hakaniemen Kauppahalli, which is a charming

old market building right next to the tram/metro stop of the same name in Helsinki, Finland. There is a small outdoor fruit/veg/flower market with a few vendors selling baskets and household items on the actual square there, but the market building was a little adventure in and of itself! The entire lower floor was crammed with bakery stalls, fishmongers, butchers, cheese shops, and vendors selling all different varieties of olives, spices, mustards, preserves, sausages, sprouts, organic and specialty foods, etc. as well as a few small cafes/coffee shops. It was an absolute maze in there and if you miss the escalator the first time around, it's kind of a puzzle to find your way to the upper level! Upstairs were more craft/gift-type shops.

There was a Marimekko shop where you could get finished items as well as yardage and I couldn't leave without a meter of their flagship poppy print. There was a woven rug place that sold poppana woven items, a sort of haberdashery shop with trims, beads, buttons, appliques, and patches but I wasn't thrilled with anything and then we unexpectedly came across a stall named Vihrea Vyyhti Oy. The gal there spoke Swedish with me and was very helpful, as well as being gracious enough to pose for a picture. We'd read about poppana before the trip and she explained what it was (more on that later) and took us down to another stall to show us examples of the material. I bought 2 skeins of a local handspun bulky yarn and a ball of sock yarn in some lovely shades of green.

We ventured down to the harbor market half by tram, and halfway on foot. This market was a major attraction because it is right next to the harbor where ferries and cruise ships unload cash-laden tourists. Many of the vendors there were artisans selling any and all kinds of handwork and handcrafts: wrought iron, carved juniper wood items, amber and silver jewlery, pottery, handknits, baby clothes, nic nac paddywhacks, t-shirts, birch bark woven items, fused glasswork, handwoven items, you name it. They also had ice cream stands and huge grills with fresh seafood and veggies-watch out for seagulls! We also noticed upon returning from Russia, that several people had stands of common Russian craft/souvenir items we'd seen there--but for 5x the price! We wondered if they didn't ride the train to St. Petersburg every few weeks and bring back a suitcase full of stuff to re-sell to the ferry and cruiseline tourists.

We were, however, specifically looking for The Riihivilla Mitten Man I'd read about in Piecework. When I told him I'd read about him in an American knitting magazine, he laughed and was kind enough to let me take pictures of his wares. I really liked the luse mittens and wanted to get them as a kit but they were only available already knit, so I instead bought some yarn to knit myself a pair.

The market building opposite the harbor market houses mostly cafes, coffee bars, and specialty/imported food vendors which were very interesting. We walked through and looked at everything before sitting a bit for a cup of coffee and a cardamom-y apple strudel and map review. We then headed to the Taito shop on Etelaesplanadi 4 which is visible on the corner if you're standing next to the fountain. Taito had housewares, glassware, linens, etc. but we were interested in the yarn in the back.

They had several shades of a few different weights of what looked to be local brands, but nothing truly fabulous in the way of yarn in my opinion. They had heddles and carders and other small equipment, as well as a large selection of poppana for weaving. Poppana is a uniquely Finnish cotton ribbon that is used for weaving. It reminded me of inch wide strips of cotton t-shirt material and when woven is almost a chenille texture. Mom bought a beautiful poppana wallhanging from a woman at the harbor market, so it was interesting to see what it was made of. I bought knitting nellies for myself and my two nieces and learned they are called nuelenukkes in Finnish! :)

We specifically went looking for the yarn shop Menita because I'd read that it was THE yarn shop in Helsinki. It is located at 20 Korkeavuorenkatu which is across from The Finnish Design Museum. I thought I had died and gone to heaven in there. Seriously. They had several different weights of Finnish yarns in several shades, a large selection of Drops yarns, as well as staples like Jo Sharpe, Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Regia, etc. I could have spent hours in there just walking around and around looking at it all.

The staff were very helpful and spoke both English and Swedish. They also sold needles, notions, patterns, tools, etc. and there was an adjoining embroidery/needlework shop. It really is a shame that they do not have a website, but maybe that is for the best because you truly need to experience this store to appreciate it. I have no doubt if you contacted them, they'd bend over backwards to ship you whatever you wanted if you were able to describe it or send pictures of what you wanted. They were SO helpful and friendly and I enjoyed myself immensely. I should also stress that Helsinki has an excellent public transportation system with easy to navigate bus/tram/metro lines which made yarn hunting very easy.

I picked up some Finnish yarn as well as some Drops including a lovely linen yarn. We were visiting with the gals in there and saying how for us living in the Midwest, we may as well travel to Europe to shop for yarn in an actual yarn shop because we simply don't have well stocked yarn shops here. The nicest shops I've been to here in the US have thus far been in Fargo, ND and that is an 8 hour journey by car. In this case we traveled 8 hours by plane and hit the mother load.

We spent another day at the open air museum and toured around the various buildings and visited with some of the demonstrators. I couldn't believe how many working antique wheels and looms we saw as well as flax brakes, swingle knives, and hatchels for processing flax into linen. Until then I'd only seen pictures of them and I kept expecting Tasha Tudor to walk into the room.

I loved how the buildings had all kinds of furniture pieces and tools and items just sitting out in the rooms. I especially liked these stockings hanging over the fireplace. They are flammegarn or Flame Yarn which is basically a peasant tie dye process where the yarn is wrapped in birch bark strips and it creates a mottled effect when knit up. I'd read about them in Nancy Bush's book "Folk Socks" but had never actually seen any. These must have been well worn because they have patches sewn onto the heels and soles.

We traveled on to St. Petersburg, Russia by train where we were met at the station by Sergei and Vladimir, our guide and driver respectively. We were accompanied for a few hours each day to tour the city, tour The Hermitage, and travel just outside of town to Tsarskoe Selo Palace. The rest of the time was spent frantically trying to see as much as we could which left no time to look for yarn. We'd found a few yarn shops mentioned in blogs, but the addresses we had were in the Latin alphabet and of course the signs were in Cyrillic. Navigating was a bit nerve wracking at first too because it is the closest you'll ever feel to being illiterate when you can't recognize the characters of what you're trying to read. There is no place to start, no root words, you can't discern suffixes or prefixes let alone see patterns in them, etc. I experienced this years ago in Greece too and it is the strangest feeling, almost alarming. This photo of a statue of Lenin is one of my favorite photos from the trip, even if it has a streetpole in the middle of it. Vladimir was an excellent driver but he was aggressive and kept up with the traffic which means we were literally being thrown around in the backseat at times. I feel lucky that we got the shot that we did! ;) We braved the Metro alone and were the only tourists riding the trains and bought blinis from a street vendor! We also visited The Ethnographic Museum and saw all the national/folk dress/costumes from the entire and absolute expanse of the Soviet Realm and you have to stop and think of the huge area that entails. That place is a national treasure and it's a good thing they didn't have a guide book in English or I'd have paid any price and then carried it even if it weighed 50 pounds. We took pictures of almost every display in there. I was reminded of the costumes from the newer treatment of Dr. Zhivago by some of the regions.

We could not come to Russia and not look for any Orenburg Lace. You can get lace shawls from the markets, but they are not the real Orenburg. I was reading before we left that they use the word "sherst" to describe any fiber content. Sherst literally means "fiber" and sometimes they are made from wool and mohair blends and sometimes even dog hair blends. The knit shawls we saw on the street were soft and pretty and I wouldn't have cared if they were in fact made from dog hair, but the point they were trying to make is that there is no such thing as a $10 Orenburg Lace shawl. Mom found Nevsky Souvenirs online and sure enough they had the real stuff in the back and we had to ask about them. I bought a square gray shawl and Mom bought a white lace stole for my sister in law and white square shawls for my sister and herself.

I could not figure out a way to take a picture that gave some sort of justice to this beautiful item. It is as fine as gossamer and shiny and delicate and you'd swear it was knit on piano wire needles. It drapes beautifully and you can actually pull it through a ring it is so fine. You have take care not to snag it on your jewelery or buttons and even rough skin can catch it because it is so fine and delicate.

We visited St. Isaac's Cathedral with Sergei and marveled at the dome and the mosaics and paintings. We visited an Orthodox church in each country which was fascinating. Sergei was a wealth of information and Mom and I both really enjoyed him. We've both said, "Anyone who knows his way around The Hermitage without a map really knows his stuff."

We traveled on to Tallinn, Estonia and stayed in the Old Town area of the city. Last year in Copenhagen, I bought some Kauni yarn which we later discovered was made in Estonia. We set out for the market in Town Hall square and stopped into several shops selling knitwear along the way. Most of the shops appeared to be craft guilds and sold a variety of locally handcrafted stuff like hand knit socks and mittens, carved juniper wood items, amber jewelery, horn handled cutlery, silver jewelery, pottery, wirework items, woven braids, felted hats and slippers, linen items, etc. The Old City Wall had niches built into it and every day they would set up huge knitting stands in the recesses. The knitwear seemed to be priced fairly consistently wherever you found it, but you really had to pay attention to the prices of amber. You can get very beautiful amber pieces almost cheaply and a few other places had mediocre items at horrendous prices. Our favorite amber shop was on Viru #7.

We saw this sign for "crafts and wool" on the corner of Town Hall Square next to Raekoja plats #18. It was a small shop that sold the Kauni I was looking for! I bought all 5 skeins they had of the same rainbow colorway I bought last year in Copenhagen. The woman working there was so very nice and helpful despite the language barrier. She kept apologizing that she couldn't speak English very well and told us she could speak Finnish very well. She directed us to their sister store which was 3 times as big as the shop there on the square.

The sister store is located just a little past the corner of Suur-karja and Muurivahe. It is #11 I believe. The Old City has close pedestrian streets with almost almost starburst intersections of 5 and 6 streets so it is easy to get turned around. They had a larger inventory of the other store and I bought 5 more skeins of that rainbow colorway. Each skein was twice the size of my forearm so that was a lot of yarn, but I was thrilled because it was exactly what I was hoping to find and I never thought I'd be so lucky! As we were entering the store though, I heard a man behind me calling out, "Madame. Madame," and I turned and looked and here was a man standing on the stoop across the street beckoning to us. He said, "Come. Look. We have beautiful yarns." Turns out there was another yarn shop just there across the street from this sister store. But talk about competition! We did stop in there after we finished in the Jolleri shop, but his inventory was mainly novelty and synthetic yarns and I have no interest in that.

We also saw what appeared to be space dyed pencil roving made by the same factory as the Kauni. I could not believe all the felted items we saw for sale, both wet and dry. I looked at this but didn't buy any because it was so thin that I don't know how you'd spin it because it would just pull apart and it was too delicate to knit with, or so it seemed to me. I saw some wet felted panels and wallhangings that appeared to have strands of this felted onto the surface.

Pikk #15 housed what appeared to be multiple handcraft guilds. The main showroom had bead knit wrist warmers, braided trims, what I would call "bunad shoes" or shoes for their national costumes, sweaters, jewelery, beautiful and ornate knit stockings or almost hose, and actual woven yardage of their national costumes. It appeared to be 60" wide or so, but it was almost 80USD/meter. I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures in there because it didn't seem too browser friendly. It was what I'd call the closest thing to a Husfliden that we saw on this trip. Through their back hallway was a felt workshop called Vildikoda with wet and dry felted items like elf-ish slippers and hats, animals, and objects, pallets of wool roving, more Kauni yarn in variegated and solids in fingering and sport weight, and more pencil roving.

I bought some flax for spinning and some linen yarn in odd lots. I am so impressed with the flax and linen processing and history that we've seen. When spun and woven or knit, flax is known as linen. It lightens and softens with each washing and old pieces are quite valuable. I was reminded of the expression "flax colored hair" and it makes sense when you see raw flax. I have flaxen hair ;) We visited Estonia's open air museum and were very impressed with the buildings and the spinning and the weaving and the knitting and the history and the people. We rode the city bus through the city and saw the evidence of Communism in the buildings and the rows of apartments. We climbed up into the Old Wall and walked the ramparts and climbed the Nun's Tower which was the view from our hotel window. Utterly enjoyable.

I did buy myself a machine knit lace linen sweater from a vendor next to The Old Wall for about 55USD which is an absolute steal. This picture does the garment absolutely no justice because it is just stunning. Mom bought a linen stole knit in the same pattern.

I also bought some handknits from the vendors along the Old City Wall. The lace socks and the patterned mittens are hand knit and cost around 15USD. The colored Kauni stockings were machine knit and also cost around 15USD. The lace mittens were purchased in a shop and were about 21USD and are absolutely gorgeous.

One of my other favorite photos from the trip was this statue of a peasant girl. She was just standing in a clearing on the way to The Museum of Occupation. She looks like a Soviet propaganda poster and was so pretty.

We had such a good trip and I bought a lot of yarn! I still don't quite know how I got it all home, but thank heavens for space bags, that's all I can say! In Finland, everyone spoke Swedish or English and we got along just fine. In Russia and Estonia not all museums or not entire museum collections had English descriptions, but lots of people spoke English. We were able to communicate by pointing and counting on our fingers and we learned to say "thank you" in their language which makes such a difference. Once or twice we used the Visual Translator and of course we had our frustrating moments, but for the most part we were just fine.

I am so lucky to have my own Travel Agent/Travel Buddy in my mother! She planned another great trip. Once again she was the brains and I was the brawn!

Tulip Bag

Mom and I leave soon for our yearly Field Trip so I had to make myself a new Messenger Bag. It's an Amy Butler pattern that I think is no longer available or I'd post a link for it. This is the best bag for traveling or anytime you're going to be walking around all day and I absolutely love this pattern! The fabric was a 2/3 yard remnant of some upholstery fabric and has a lovely subtle sheen to it. I laid it out and started looking at the pattern and was instantly aware that I wouldn't have quite enough, but I remembered I had quite a few yards of some reddish canvas in The Stash. It's actually kind of a cranberry color, but it matched perfectly and I quite like the contrast. The only thing I'm worried about is that it might bleed or rub off on my clothes, so I'm washing it right now in some very hot water. Now that that order of business is finished, I'm off to go and pack! ;)

Dinks

Melissa and I have been having Crafty Fun Night over at Deedee's house along with her kids. Recently we've made embroidery floss friendship bracelets, glittered Martha Stewart craft kit greeting cards, and ShrinkyDinks! Deedee has the perfect source book for tracing and we all took turns sitting around the table working on our designs. I am always impressed with how vividly plain old colored pencils turn out on these. We used up almost an entire package and must have baked 4 or 5 pans worth of different pieces. We have really had a good time constructively doing something all together.

However, I cannot believe how many people I've come into contact with who have no idea what ShrinkyDinks are! What kind of schools do they have in this area?!? I remember as a kindergartner, after we'd memorized our address and phone number, we were sent home with a pre drawn and colored ShrinkyDink with our name, phone number, and address on it with baking instructions. After it was baked, it was a zipper pull for your coat. I can remember growing up, Mom kept the cardboard envelope of ShrinkyDinks up in the high cupboard next to the kitchen sink.

Warsh Rags

I've been knitting a lot of garden variety dishcloths here and there trying to destash my variegated cottons and just get them out of the house, yet somehow I keep buying more when I see a fabulous colorway of the stuff... Anyhoo, I found some solids I'd had and made a few Warsh Rags from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I'd seen these here and there on other blogs but had never gotten around to making any and I'm quite taken with this little project. I also found some solid Martha blues and greens I'd had that will be perfect. Included is a picture of my parents' dog using my yarn as a pillow! ;)

Knitted Vegetables

Can you spot the knitted produce in this picture? ;) I knit an ear of corn for Deedee's mom to set out at her farmer's market stall. I used up some scrap yarn left over from a baby sweater and a lot of novelty yarn that hitherto I hadn't known what to do with. The pattern came from a whole set of knitted vegetables from the now defunct website Magknits.

More Keyholes

Here are a couple more of those keyhole scarves--I just love this pattern! I made another gray colorway out of that fabulous Rowan Tapestry for a girlfriend at work who has been ill and had surgery-and I'm getting it to her just in the nick of time for her to NOT be able to wear it this year! Oh well, better late than never. That lovely shade of pea green is MY scarf knit from some Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid Lustre yarn that I got up on sale in Rochester. Listen to me drop yarn names! This was my first ever Jo Sharp and it's not quite worsted but a little thicker than a DK I'd say, but it was an utter pleasure to knit with this yarn! I will be looking out for this the next time I'm in a yarn shop! I like variations in the lace of the gray scarf because it reminds me of blocked Shetland shawls.

Butterfly Pouch

This is a little bead knitted pouch I made for a girlfriend of mine. I'd seen a picture of a similar pouch on another blog a while back and started fooling around with it. My photo isn't very good, but the upper wings are a little longer than the lower wings due to some short row shaping. If I were really smart, I would have used something for scale in the picture. I've had this knitted for some time, but I only just sewed it together and finished it up this week. I am very pleased with it and would like to borrow it this summer for the fair. I do believe I bought that fuschia pearl cotton up in Thief River Falls, MN when we were up there for a family wedding a few years ago.

Yarn Repurposing

This is a lace sock I've had on needles for some time now. I've given up on lace socks because they never have enough elastic in them to actually stay up, and I spend way too much time swearing at them as I'm trying to follow along with the pattern. This was knit from some fabulous Koigu Premium Paint Merino wool...

and I've had a darker green shade of Koigu for some time... So unraveled the sock and started work on a Chevron Scarf from the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It is such a lovely and ingenious little pattern as far as color work goes. It's just like feather and fan lace, but instead of doing YO's to make holes in the knitting, you just kfb to increase stitches so it leaves no gaps. This photo does not to justice to the colors of the yarn.

Super Crafty Fun Night

No that is not Easter candy, those are bath bombs! Melissa came over last night for crafty fun night and we made over 25 assorted bath bombs for family Easter baskets and to hand out to girlfriends at work. We made about a dozen egg shaped bombs and they're HUGE! I actually weighed one and it was almost 9.5 ounces!

We picked up some carry out food and then watched rental movies at the table while dyeing eggs. Melissa even remarked that we hadn't worked on these since Oscar night last year. Martha had run a project article in last year's Easter issue where they wrapped eggs in lace and dyed them and we'd been meaning to try it out. I tried it out with a piece of lace from my grandma's bridal veil. After I wrapped and rubber banded it, the lace didn't cling or conform very closely to the egg so I kind of "trussed" it on with a needle and thread. It turned out quite pretty on just this one side of the egg, but I didn't like that I had to ruin and throw away the lace, or at least THAT lace. It might be worth trying again with some ordinary lace, but I don't want to waste any more of Grandma's for this project.

I dyed two more eggs with the wax and dye. The bunny one was just kind of an experiment, but I was quite pleased with it and I think I'll try to make a few more like it. I have a bunny loving sister who would like one! ;) I wonder if the dyes lose their potency over time because I'll bet the dyes we used have been mixed for over 2-3 years. Melissa was having trouble getting the pink dye to take, and ahem...the egg on the right was dipped in RED as a final color and it is a pale brown at best. It might be time to get some new dye!

A Shrubbery!

These are my sister in law's birthday socks from October! I've had them done for a while but hadn't bothered to take a picture of them and haven't had a chance to give them to her! I wrapped up the one that was finished at the time and gave it to her for her birthday. Upon opening it, she held it up and said, "But I have two feet." Happy Finally Birthday Socks, Amy! I was home with my parents this weekend and stuck my feet in the flower pots on the deck. Very organic, isn't it?

Kauni Purse WIP

I am working on pleat 11 of 14 on my Kauni purse! I can't wait until this weekend when I'll have some time to work on it! The pattern says you need a small amount of a second ball, but I'm already thinking about how I can slim this down just slightly. The display purse in the shop was knit from a vivid rainbow colorway but I bought the very last ball! I'm hoping I can get an entire purse out of it!

ERI ornament

This is another resin/jar lid ornament I made. I keep all my dvd discs in large cd wallets and then I recycle the cases and liners/notes. Of course there are certain ones I just can't bear to part with because of fabulous pictures and I've saved them for "no particular reason". It's no surprise then that I saved the notes from Elizabeth: The Golden Age! I used copper leaf flakes and bugle beads to frame Bess and I think it looks quite regal! ;)

This ornament will soon have a companion because Mom has asked me to make one from an old tag she has kept. Years ago we got some lemon curd that had a tag with a print of Elizabeth from an actual painting. Mom has since saved that tag and it's hung from the handle of her china cabinet. She suggested making an ornament out of that paper tag and I happen to have the perfect lid for that: Devon Double Cream! I'm not even going to paint the lid!

Slouchy

Mom and I went to Prairie Yarns while we were up visiting in Fargo and I bought 2 fabulous skeins of Malabrigo yarn! I have a pattern for a cabled hat knit from solid colors of the stuff, but this was too variegated for any texture work and the stitches would just get lost. I knit 2 more Le'Slouch hats out of it and had leftovers for small projects. Here is one in the works on my lap shortly after I realized (of course towards the end) that I'd increased too much at the beginning! Oh well, it is just extra slouchy! I do love those colors though, and you can see my eggplant stitch marker! :)

This is the colorway of the other skein and I knit a pair of baby bootees from the leftovers. These will be mailed with a box of kringlas to my friend Rachel. She will come back to work with us towards the end of the month! We can't wait to see her, and I'm sure time will pass even more quickly for her!

This is another pair of bootees for her 2 year old. She was telling me how her toddler had tried getting her feet into the newborn bootees I'd knit for her baby brother! Now I'm afraid they aren't going to fit her! I guess if they don't, her brother will just have to grow into them because these are going into the box too!

And I'm tired of dirty snow and mud!

Hey Kool-Aid!

I swear my mother has become a born again knitter. She taught me how to knit YEARS ago and I remember her knitting baby things, doll clothes, Barbie items, vests and sweaters for us kids, ski hats and headbands, and I remember when she knit herself an Icelandic yoke sweater out of Lopi. But then my mother put her needles down for several years...and I plundered and borrowed those needles while I slowly fell in love with knitting. In the last 2-3 years though, she has picked them back up and is really making a go of knitting again! I think she is KnitPick's most valued customer because she is always ordering from them! She and I have always been interested in dyeing a batch of yarn and KnitPicks makes it so easy! Mother bought me a "sock blank" for a Christmas gift, and my stocking was full of packets of Kool-Aid! How DID Santa know?! ;)

A sock blank is a large knitted swatch of fabric made from cream colored yarn in various weights. In our case, it was a double strand of sock-weight yarn. We read through the instructions and made our first attempt at space dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid! You soak the blank for a good 30 minutes in warm water with a "glug" of vinegar (this whole process is very similar to dyeing Easter eggs--and I know you can dye yarn with Easter egg dye tablets and I hoarded a bunch last year when they went on sale--but more on that later).

We dissolved unsweetened Kool-Aid in hot water and "painted" it onto the blank. I was using Blue Raspberry and Grape but I wasn't too thrilled with the grape because grape Kool-Aid is never quite purple, it is more of a grey shade, so I threw in some Black Cherry as well.

Next you wrap up the painted blank in plastic wrap and nuke it for a couple minutes to set the dye.

Here is my finished and dried blank. Remember that it was a double strand of sock weight yarn...

...and here it is all unraveled! If you look closely, you can see bits of white coiled up in the yarn. I think we didn't let it soak quite through before we started. Dyeing yarn must be like dissolving yeast in that you have to literally set the timer and walk away for said time, otherwise you'll be too eager to start before it is in fact ready. I've already skeined this up and it's sitting in my sock yarn stash. Our next dyeing project will be the full blown acid fast dyes, but we'll have to wait for a little nicer weather so we can work out in the garage!

And I had to put this on because I think it is one of the funniest things I've seen all week! I love Failblog!

Late in the season...

My family is not going to be able to get together for Christmas until the 23rd of January, so I have a truly legitimate reason to still have my tree up! I bought these 3 ornaments in Holland this year on my trip. 2 are delft and the Svaert Per is resin. I had to really stop and think, but I don't think I bought any ornaments in Denmark. I'm also going through a heavy ginger molasses spice cookie phase right now! These smell like pure Christmas, they'll scent up an entire house, and if you make enough of them, you'll eventually get a new jar lid from the molasses!

This is another pair of baby bootees for my friend Rachel. They were knit on US 2 dpn's with Araucania yarn from a Socks! Socks! Socks! pattern. I'm currently knitting another keyhole scarf with the remaining yarn, but I should have enough left over for a matching baby hat. Too bad you can't knit "grown up bootees" because I think these just look cozy! ;)

God Jul!

Here is my modern, Scandinavian centerpiece of the season. I didn't feel like putting up my Christmas village this year because I only have 4 buildings and 3 of them are bakeries. I have seen similar electric candelabras and they are very pretty but also very spendy. This is from IKEA and cost me $6! I just love it! These Moravian type stars were made from paper strips I found in Denmark. I've made these before from ribbon and paper, but these are fussy! For those 3 that are finished, I have 3 that I ripped halfway through the folding process! I hope everyone had a good day today! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Weekend Update...

I had a nice weekend snowed in with my parents! We stayed warm near the kitchen making lefse and drinking hot cider. I love my parents' deck for cooling things off in a hurry!
Melissa and I went to the big going out of business sale at a local quilt shop. Everything was 20% off and they were actually selling all the shelving and decorations and displays, etc. I nabbed 2 of these asparagus crates for $5 each and I just love them! They also sell roving by the yard for needle felting projects but I use it for spinning and chose a few yards of several colors and a lot of ivory for dyeing. Melissa picked up a pieced and quilted runner/wall hanging for $5!

We also made another batch of photo ornaments for Christmas gifts. These get better every time we work on them! And now we're really getting low on lids! It's a good thing we had pasta with sauce from a jar...

These are the lace scarves I knit for my girlfriend gifts this year. My favorites are the beige and grey ones. That is Rowan tapestry yarn made from merino wool and soybean fiber! They are so soft and shiny and I bought several skeins of it. These scarves are only 18" or so long and you pull one lace panel through the "keyhole" and wear it like an ascot. I just love this pattern I found on Earthfaire. I have to say I am a fan of theirs now because they have bead knitting supplies and patterns as well as gifts and things for knitters! :)

before and after!

Melissa and I had a long overdue Crafty Fun Night! After cancelling or getting busy at the last minute I don't know how many times, we each finally got some pictures printed and got together. We ordered delivery from Hunan, loaded up the dvd player with Christmas specials, and pounded in eye hooks while we waited. After supper, we sat at that table for hours bent squinting over our work. It was actually quite hard to decide what to do with each of them because we really had lots and lots of materials to play around with.

I am so pleased with the way they all turned out! And it is always so fun to see Melissa so excited! I felt so bad she had to leave them here at the end of the night so they could dry. She is probably dying to just go and look at them because while typing this, I've probably gotten up about 4 times already to go look! They are just stunning. Melissa agrees with me that even though the resin is transparent, it adds so much of something that you can't quite explain. You have to see them to understand. I hope they are dry by tomorrow night so I can bring hers to her at work! We both agreed that we will be making these not only yearly, but year round because they are so awesome! Now what to string them with?

Erika Knight Bootees...

I hit the big sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics the other day and picked up a copy of Simply Knitting and got a free 2009 Pattern Calendar with it! It is a British and rather expensive but lovely magazine so I grab it whenever I see it--once even at a tuck shop in Denmark! I immediately set to work on these bootees from the calender pattern with some leftover Rowan Tapestry and had just enough. I had these buttons from the antique store and the color changes really cooperated with me as far as halfway matching! These will go to my friend and co-worker Rachel who is due in February with a baby boy!

And these will be the centerpiece of tomorrow's crafty fun night... More on that later!