CoolMayDay

 

I have celebrated May Day before. It is not a surprise it can be cool up here in the north. This year, 1st time ever, I was over 700 km south from home to face this May Day weather. That was a surprise!

We spent the holidays with the kids and their families. We had lazy and relaxing moments. Last year our MayDay looked like this. 

Kirke looks like dead but believe me, she is not. She spends hours like this and if you lift her away she runs back. It must be relaxing. Just think how it stretches your back when hanging like that!

On our holidays in Turku we always walk a lot because of the dogs. We usually spot church yards (which are my favorite top ten) because Turku is almost 800 years old town and that's a lot in Finland.

The weather was not arctic all the time. We faced also beautiful -almost summer like- moments there. I love how they have built the play grounds there! They are park-like.

What amazes me most in Turku is that at least by Aurajoki river the wildlife is around. The birds nest in the parks and play grounds, rabbits dig their tunnels and I have never seen a fox that close anywhere else than in the city. The animals have lost half of their natural fear against the human in the city environment. That makes at least the Aurajoki riverside an excellent place to spot birds and other animals.

It would be wonderful to recon the bird nests by their figure, how they are built up. That is something I can't tell about the nature.

In Turku I found the heaven on earth for coeliac's gluten free life. I usually go another super market but this time I was introduced K-Citymarket Kupittaa by YoungLady. That means I had a guided tour around. I found many gluten free food products of which I have only dreamed about! The Citymarket is huge (from my perspective) so if you ever go there with a special diet, just make sure you have enough time! There are specialties from the big world but also something that is typical to Finland region kitchen.

Also, it was wonderful to come back home to find this "soljo" delivered to my GreenOldHouse. It is a traditional Sámi brooch about which symbolism and meaning you can read here. This is from goldsmith Tomi Mansikka's Aamunkoi collection. It is not sold anywhere yet. This is the 1st piece. Once I asked him could he make this design also as "soljo". And he did, and here is the result. Tomi works for Taigakoru which is my favorite jewellery trade mark in Finland. I am sure he will make some more if you like. :) 

Dutch Heel No4 (var.)

I designed and knit this pretty pair of woollen socks. It is inspired by my Ireland Erasmus+ journey 2025 with my students and the visit at the IrelandsEye Knitwear factory. For the socks I used Novita 7 veljestä yarn (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m) in green shade and AAW (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool, 10% nylon) (100g = 238m) which I plant dyed by fire weed. 

For the decorative knitting I used Single cable and mosaic stitch. In these socks you can find the mosaic stitches in the green stripes. To knit the mosaic stitches you use only the stripe shade so you knit by just one yarn (it is not Fair Isle). You knit the 1st row, then purl the 2nd. BUT you need just to slip the stitches between the stripes. It is very easy, just try it on.

For example in this version I knit on the 1st row "knit 4 - slip 2" and on the 2nd row "purl 4 - slip 2". 

I knit Dutch heel variation with seed stitch. Seed stitch is very easy and pretty. It is suitable for the beginners who want to learn to knit something else than just plain. You can use seed stitch just a little bit, only for few rows. Or you can do even double seed stitch for bigger surfaces. 

To get the seed stitch surface you just need to purl every stitch and knit every purl stitch:

1. knit-purl-knit
2. purl- knit-purl

AranHeadband

I designed and knit Aran Chain Cable twisted headband. I started it at the Aran Cable Knitting workshop in Dublin 2025. 

This was my 1st ever twisted headband. I am sure I will make more! I used cable knitting and actually crocheting too.

The yarn is King Cole's Dollymix DK yarn (100% acrylic) (80 yards = 78 meters) in the shade Peach. Never used it before. Actually I didn't know it exist. I usually don't use 100% acrylic yarns but this was just fine for the work shop and sample work.

Easter 2025

This Easter we spent at home and had some visitors up here in the North. I had few moments when I had some time to enjoy about the sunshine, warmth and knitting outside.

We made the 1st bike tour in the local area for this spring. It was windy and a bit chilly there where you could not hide from the wind.

But there where you could hide from the wind was very warm and comfortable. We climbed to the bird watching tower with our binoculars to look out over the bay to spot swans, mallards, greylag geese, golden eyes, sea gulls and mergansers. If you remember we are participating in the nature conservation project of goldeneyes.

If you compare the pics of this post to the spring trip 2024 you can see this year we didn't have so much snow, neither frost. The sea is still frozen but it is melting fast.

NewT-shirt

This time I dyed an old T-shirt. Actually, it was given to me for rag rug weaving. It was just fine with a few tiny spots. I decided to call in FashionNOW and make a new T-shirt for myself.

This time I used red onion peels. From the peels we had dyed at work with my students already quite a lot of wool yarn and they still gave me this strong shade.