Spindle clinic

Last weekend I spent some time with Poikelan Martta. She is a retired worker of our college. At the end we managed to fix her and set up to action. She is very happy to return back to teaching on the next term.

When you look at the video, notice how I stop the wheel spinning around only by my foot. I touch the flyer only after the wheel has stopped. Otherwise the flyer hits your fingers with a strong power. 
 

Course tray

I work as a teacher (and education coordinator) at Kivalo-opisto. At the moment we are planning next term. Winds of change are blowing and COVID-19 has caused transformation also in education. That's why, on the next term,  there are now coming available my online courses. This all means you don't need to be physically here when participating on my lessons. 

The teaching language I use is Finnish but the online courses are quite much up to visual pedagogy which means I show everything via live cam, videos and pictures. If you don't speak Finnish, but still want to participate, tell it when booking yourself in. Then I can send you English instructions before each lesson about it what we are doing and what you should notice beforehand and during the coming lesson.

You can find my course tray on my Finnish blog. When the booking opens I update the links on each course. Clicking the link leads you to the booking page of a certain course. From there you can find more information about the course. If you don't manage book yourself in and pay -no matter how hard you try- call to our office +35840 748 3672 (service time UTC+2 / Helsinki-Riga: Mondays 10-15, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 12-15, Fridays closed). Notice text messages are not provided. You can also send email to kivalo-opisto(at)kemi.fi. (They speak English.)

 Welcome to study with me!

For the Warmth

 

I've crocheted one more my own design Mohair Shawl.

It is almost similar to the white one I made before.

I used grey Schachenmayr's KidLight mohair yarn (38% nylon, 32% polyacryl and 30% mohair) (100g = 600m). There's a tutorial for you to crochet a shawl of your own. 

Flora and fauna hanger

Do you remember Bluetits and poppins? I posted it on my blog exactly one year ago. On which it turned about was a birthday secret for May 2020! Because of COVID-19 limitations on postal service this had to wait for so long time until I was able to send it far far away. Now it finally has reached the new home and I can show you all what it turned into. It is a wall hanger. I designed and sew the fabric parts for the original Coats Crafts UK cross stitch design. 

I placed a tiny cute charm at a corner of the cross stitch design to tell everyone it is handmade. I love these signs you can decorate your handmade gifts!
 

Happy Easter

My Easter is always filled with wool work. I finished spinning 100 g of natural white Finnsheep wool with Liinu. Another 100 g to go and then I can ply it for further use. I also blend Finnsheep autumn shades to create some SleepySnowyAutumn yarn for a project I have in my mind.... I have started to spin that yarn by a drop spindle. 

I also found some time to use my stamp collection to create writing paper for my letters. The shade of this paper is pastel blue. Unfortunately the picture fades away that shade.

I usually am dusting my (and others') sewing machines and empowering them to keep going on. This Easter I participated on dusting old typewriter Olympia 8. It's YoungLady's new laptop which she loves over the moon.

Because it is Easter and we had several reasons to celebrate I -of course- had to bake a cake. It was delicious and just enough. I -after all these years- have learnt to bake smaller cakes! I am very proud of myself! 

See how I used the extra left over edges to roll up narcissus to decorate the cake! If you try out to do the same just make sure there forms out enough wrinkles when rolling up the left over pieces you cut off. I did't tidy the outer edges and let them be "broken". It creates even more narcissus like expression.

I used yellow sugar mass instead of almond because the local shops had ran out of it. I used just a tiny drop of rapeseed oil when I started to work with it. I feared the sugar mass dries up but this oil helped to avoid that.

Pieces

I have found time to finish one puzzle for this year. Why I like doing jigsaw puzzles? Well, of course it provides you something to do. It is a budget hobby and you can find jigsaw puzzles also second hand. I like it because I consider it quite meditative. I like it also because it provides me an opportunity to do something totally unproductive. After finishing it I love to break it back to tiny pieces and put into a box. I enjoy that moment as much as finishing the picture! It really relaxes and pampers my extremely productive mind. Sometimes I just love be without creating anything that stays.

This is King's Christmas Collection 2 x 1000 puzzle pack. It includes Czes Pachela`s Christmas Village and the one I finished: Macneil's Ice Skating on The Pond. I love skating but unfortunately didn't manage to skate at all this winter.

Also YoungLady managed to finish a puzzle. It is Anatolian's 1000 puzzle. The original illustration Window Cats by David Maclean. This is a very good quality puzzle.