Friday's Foto From Finland #16

I seldom see sunflowers in Finland.

Podcast Episode 6: Started a Shawl

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Show Notes

KNITTING:

• Rough Sea Shawl by Preita Salyer.
• New stitch to me in this shawl: (K2togP1) = my interpretation is K2tog, leave these two stitches on the left needle. Bring the yarn from the back to the front between the two needles. Purl the 2 stitches tog and remove them from the left needle.
  

FINISHED:

• Cable and Lace Baby Blanket by Stephanie Ament
  

DONE BY THIS PODCAST:

• Granny Square
  

BY NEXT PODCAST:

• Repair mitt.
  

REVIEW:

• Punokset puikoille by Johanna Koski and Kristel Nyberg.
  

(Library Book. All opinions in the review are those of the blog author's.)

SOMETHING ABOUT FINLAND:

• value added tax
  

Friday's Foto From Finland # 15

They flowered well but where are the radishes?

Podcast Episode 5: Blanket is Finished (Sort Of)

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Show Notes

KNITTING:

• Cable and Lace Baby Blanket by Stephanie Ament (free pattern from Ravelry).
  
• Vortex Shawl by Kristina McCurley (free pattern from Ravelry)

FINISHED:

• Secret Knitting: Bread Basket Liner using the Arrowhead Pattern at the Will Work For Yarn blog in Novita's 100% cotton Tennessee yarn.
  
• tea cozy: my own pattern from unknown stash yarn
  

BY NEXT PODCAST:

• granny square
  

REVIEW:

• Virkattua by Katriina Leppänen and (photography by) Antti Huittinen

(Library Book. All opinions in the review are those of the blog author's.)

SOMETHING ABOUT FINLAND:

• Moomins by Tove Jansson
  

Wedding Gifts

My sister is getting married at the end of August. Unfortunately I can't attend and so I had to make the gifts I wanted to make and get them sent off. I knit this bread basket liner from 100% cotton. I was thinking of using linen and I found a linen/cotton blend but it could only be washed in 40 °C and the cotton in 60 °C. So I chose the cotton.

It's 192 rows long (including the cast on and bind off) and I knit a different wish into each row. The first being "May your bread always rise." and the last "May you cherish your new titles, husband and wife." Most of them I had to find from the internet as I couldn't come up with enough!

The second gift I made were two picnic placemats. They like to drive around and I thought that if they had to sit in the car to eat then they could use these on their laps. I had planned to either use the same pattern in different colours or different patterns in the same colours but I couldn't find any. Well I did find gingham styles but I thought I'd spend too much time on keeping the lines straight and with my horrible machine I didn't even want to think about it!

The napkin is folded and a third of it is inserted into the pocket. Then the cutlery is added.
The rest of the napkin is folded over the cutlery and slipped into the pocket.

After rolling the placemat up it is tied closed. If I went on picnics I'd make some for myself.

Friday's Foto From Finland #14

Sunsets can be so wonderful.

Friday's Foto From Finland #13

23.21 pm. I don't know why I like to look at the moon!

Strawberries!

I don't know why I used an exclamation point in the title as I'm not that fond of strawberries. But my son likes them ... so I bought a 5 kilo box. I rinsed them and while I was hulling them I divided them into different piles: large and medium large (for my son in case he comes to visit soon before I have to decide what to do with them), not very soft medium and small to freeze as is, soft for jam and what was left I chopped up to freeze (only one small container) and then those that were too soft I tested them to see if I needed to throw them away but I didn't find any. I was surprised how few had to be thrown away (because of weird things on them).

I usually only use 1 kilo for jam. This time I wanted to use up the jam sugar I had so I didn't have enough. The recipe calls for 2 parts strawberries to 1 part jam sugar and some water. I don't add water as there is always enough liquid. I had 2.8 parts strawberries to 1 part sugar. Looked good and seemed to be jelling. I can't be bothered to do the work for jarring them so I just freeze the jam. It's really easy and if you haven't tried making strawberry jam before I recommend trying a batch or two.

Friday's Foto From Finland #12

I know it's blurry but it was 23.07 pm and I had to zoom. Later another one joined this one but I didn't think I could get a picture.

Friday's Foto From Finland #11

Summer Art. Artist unknown because tag was missing.