AliceBookBag

 

Alice pen case and bookmark form out a pretty, inspiring and literature spirited set with this book bag for YoungLady. All the stories will follow her where ever she goes.

This design is similar to BookBag No13. Despite the mouths of the bags are different the basic idea is the same: pretty fabric with charming lining. No any extras.

SilverFeltBookmark

 

It seems to be a season of bookmarks.

I designed easy to sew bookmark.

You need just thick felt and some ribbon. This ribbon is from my Tallinn journey. These bookmarks are fast to sew even without a sewing machine. You can personalize them easily to choose a ribbon that is suitable for the person it is made for. I think bookmarks can be like a piece of jewelry. These ones pictured here are also beautiful budget gifts.

AliceBookmark

I designed and made this bookmark to match with AlicePenCase. For the bookmark I used the recycled button and ribbon. Also this is for YoungLady. It was funny, when she saw the materials sorted out on the table she said "I want a bookmark of it." Didn't tell her, that was it what I was exactly intended just about to do. Love her!

 

AlicePenCase

 

I designed and made a pen case for YoungLady. I received this beautiful fabric from my dear friend E. from UK with the idea to make something special for YoungLady. Again, notice recycled zipper.

PolkaDotPouch

I designed and sew a polka dot pen case. It is small. The zipper is just 14 cm long so this item is usable also as a small pouch. I used polka dot fabric I've inherit from my granny and recycled zipper. It was fabulous to find a circle decorated black zipper from my storage box! It is like made for this cute pouch project. I don't like polka dots a lot but with tiny portions it is quite chic.

 

Striped Fair Isle Socks

I designed a pair of striped Fair Isle Socks. I knit them by using Novita's 7 veljestä yarn (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m). This is a simple design but have a special striped heels which gives a personal touch for the design.

 

Lavender Bookmark

 

This time I designed and made a bookmark from something old and something new. It must be even two decades ago I received a beautiful gift: a notebook with lavender embroidery decoration on the cover. When I finally had used also the very last page of the notebook I saved the cover because I wanted to re-use the adorable embroidery decoration. Here it finally is. Matched with ribbons I bought from Tallinn, Estonia and felt which was a gift from a friend aboard. 

Princess Coat

 

If you didn't know Finland is famous about its phenomenon on Hobby Horse culture. YoungLady was hot on it when she was LittleLady. She even designed with me her own HobbyHorse. This time I designed and sew a princess coat for a little girl's 6th birthday gift. I made this from a left over fabric of which I sew (over a decade ago) curtains for my own daughter's room.

Tiny Toilet

On early June we updated our tiny toilet for Ladies and Gentlemen. There is just a small nook for the sink. It is only 25 x 60 cm deep hole because of the chimney wall on the right hand. 

The depth of the sink has been the problem because I didn't want anything popping out. I would just hit my head to it when cleaning! We also needed the type that could stand on something. The previous sink has been fastened to the wall but because the old house is an old house and has faced some renovations before us and one stupid solution when building up the tiny toilet so its the walls don't want to bear any extra weight. The previous sink has worked well but there has always been a tiny concern knocking at my shoulder about it. 

I do support small business and boutique / high street shops but when you live where I do -God bless the internet shops! Thanks to internet we managed to find the sink and cabinet for our tiny toilet. They are not the same series but match & fit well together. The cabinet was meant to be fastened to the wall but he bought 4 standing legs for it to stand on its own feet and support the sink against the floor, not wall.

Tiny toilet has brought us also other kind of concern. The moldings (coving) really challenged our brain function and creative mind when renovating the tiny toilet after moving in. There simply are no straight enough wall/cornes to be able to use wooden molding. A bit after realizing we can't place molding there to neaten it all up I discovered we could use nautical ropes instead of ordinary wooden moldings! They work very well and have bear the time in excellent way. I think it was perhaps my most genius idea fixing the old house. Best in it all is that the ropes are much cheaper than those wooden moldings we normally use!

Because we now had a cabinet for the sink the fabric basket for the toilet paper rolls and the old trash bin under the old sink became useless in tiny toilet. We needed new decorative trash bin because I could not hide it anymore. I wanted to do it low budget because paying 75-100€ just for a trash bin -or any other such a thing- feels ridiculous. That's why I went to local super market and paid 14.90€ for a tin trash bin and...

...after that I came back home, opened the box where I keep my laces! This one is a souvenir gift from my mom when she traveled in Portugal for about 23 years ago! Portugal is famous from its bobbin lace artisan culture. Now I decided it has became the time to use a piece of it in simple Scandinavian romantic style.

Biscornu

I love biscornu pincushions! This is Susan Penny design from CrossStitcher (March 2021, page 3-4) gift kit. My friend Sue from overseas sent this for me because she didn't need it so I was happy to stitch it! The design includes cross stitches, back stitches and French knots. The linen fabric is green with white polka dots! How cute. I usually don't like polka dot fabrics but I simply adore this green-white one! 

Recycled Items

Cards are excellent target to recycle commercial items. Also, cards are excellent way to tell your love ones you are thinking about them. This card has a picture from a garden magazine and a note from a tea pack wrap.

 

Also this card received its beautiful picture from the same garden magazine as the card pictured above.

This Cindarella themed card received its picture from a kids' bedding set wrap! The material for paper craft is all over you. It's is all free. Just open your eyes to see it!

AAW Fair Isle Socks No2

 

I decided to design and knit another pair of long woollen socks for Him from AAW in Fair Isle spirit.

To knit them I used our own pale fog blue AAW yarn (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool and 10% nylon) (100g = 238m) and green and blue Novita 7 veljestä yarn (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m). 

This and the 1st pair I will wrap with an art book and give him in November 2021 as a Father's Day gift.

Live on!

 I planted 3 more apple trees because Pii attacked at 4. Ouch! It was those last -still freezing frosty days- when poor Nuka was still injured and need to be taken out in a leash on her own. (At the end Nuka was in her bucket for 30 days PLUS 9 part time days!!!) On those moments Pii's frustration had grown so high that she expressed and boosted it out to MY apple trees. It took just 5 minutes from her to demolish 4 apple trees in my garden. Just 5 mins and 2 were trimmed quite badly and 2 chop-chop-chopped into firewood!!!!

I have learnt at least on thing in my arctic gardening: Everything always wants to live. So I told him not to dig off the apple trees. I told the two badly trimmed ones have good changes to survive but lets try if the chopped ones want to live too. So he cut the chopped ones down to the points where there was no visible damages caused by Pii's extra strong jaws & teeth. I told him to fence the stems to protect the dogs not to get injured on them when running around and to protect the stems from Pii's new possible attack. Then, since that, I have been just weeding and waiting around the demolished apple tree stems. And I am happy to inform, they both are alive. 

Only just in case I removed my new Shedraja cherry shrubs out of Pii's way as soon as my garden was getting free from the frost. It seems I was not able to dig up all the roost so I have been weeding also this tiny start of a new extra sour cherry shrub! I left the hole there because if I had fill it I am sure the dogs had got interested about it and dig it all open -and damage the cherry shrub. It was a genius idea to leave the hole open because now the dogs could not care less about it!!! Bravo!

I need to mention that this year the swallows didn't accept the board for the nest. They arrived in a great hurry and obviously chose the old nesting places. Which unfortunately meant: close to our property I saw a couple going under one roof and a squirrel to follow them and after that I saw no that couple of swallows anymore at all but many squirrel babies few days later coming from under that roof. I hope during the summer new born swallows notice my board and decide to try it on for the next season nesting.