WhoseCountry

In August 2023 I encourage you to read a book that tells about Middle East. For the challenge I chose  The Country of The Others by Leïla Slimani (in Finnish, audio book). I wanted to read something from Morocco written by Moroccan author. It was not easy to find but at the end I found French-Moroccan Leïla Slimani. She writes well and everything is believable. From her words echoes experienced life with history and knowledge. The story opens the curtain to Moroccan society and makes you to understand it a bit better; to understand why it is a bit this and that. Also, it makes you to understand why the things can be a bit explosive. It is a story about being a foreigner in the country you choose to live, being a woman in the society where the human rights of women are not the similar you grew up and about the human mind how it functions in the crisis and how the choices we make are universal but individual. To get deep enough into the story you need the basic knowledge about European and WWII history. Knowing the history of Mediterranean area since the begin of the time helps even more. For sure I will read more about Leïla Slimani. 

TinyMittens

I designed and knit tiny mittens. Actually, I made these last spring but forgot to post about them. I used the left over yarn from the green BubbleSet. The yarn is Sublime's lustrous extra fine merino dk yarn (67% extra fine merino wool, 33% nylon) (25g = 95m) in 335 Peridot (green), 291 Hush (very light pink) and 294 Folie (pink). 

InMemoriam

Sad but as planned, it was time for KukkaTheCat to leave her physical body. The day is the same when GrannyDog was allowed to leave us in the physical way. Despite KukkaTheCat had photosensitive epilepsy since she was born she would have turn to 16 years next month. Last January-February-March was very difficult to her and we considered to free her already then but with the weather and extra care she started to feel better. Then we decided that it is time to stop her suffering and free her before the next seasonal change for her disease. We provided her one more summer when she is always better and let her go before it turns bad again. I know -despite she was 100% indoor cat- she brought a lot of joy to many of my online. For some reason she always knew when the live lesson was on and hardly ever missed the lessons, except on her very bad days on the last term. She is pictured on my many videos too and will stay there forever.💞  

OldDesign

At work I've been organizing and cleaning our craft classroom and its back storage. I have found many treasures because it is old "after wars" building and the adult education center of Tornio has always worked there. These are Pentti Havia's designs according to old Finnish folk design style. I found the full series and you can be sure I felt like winning in lottery. These are originally made for wood work decoration but I am sure you all can see it embroidered when you close your eyes. Next term also these are available for my students. 

Leaf

Weird but true: I never published any macrame craft on my blog. Wow! It is time to change that. I designed and made this macrame leaf. It is going to be apart of a bigger class room project at work.

The actual shade is closer the truth on the picture above than on the 1st pic of this post. It is like autumn leaf or burnt orange. 

The height of the leaf is approx 20 cm but I'd like to make it mini size too. For this project I used Novita Natural Collection 's Cotton Feel yarn (50g = 120 m) (50% brand new cotton, 50% recycled cotton). Wooden parts are recycled.

The 2023 Reading Challenge No 8

The Reading Challenge 2023 is here!

On 2023 I encourage you to read books from different places. No other rules but geographical location. You can choose the genre! 

August 2023 theme is Middle East!

It is getting interesting because Middle East is not a continent but political or historical area.