Christmas At My Home: Day Oops

Well the camera was off with its owner over the weekend so Happy Belated Christmas!

Christmas At My Home: Day 21

A and I are cutting it close this year. At least we did get these decorated before Christmas.

Christmas At My Home: Day 20

I gave in and bought something else. Red hand towels. I had to look in a few stores before I found these. They were sold out in the first four. I didn't want any with hearts which is what the other red towels had that I found.

Christmas At My Home: Day 19

A didn't want a gingerbread house this year so I suggested that we could decorate some cookies instead. This is a surprise for him but it didn't turn out as I visioned it (but I suppose it is still edible).

Christmas At My Home: Day 18

Some things are a really great idea. Like this piece of material my sister D sent me. Somehow it really feels Canadian and I don't know why. Colour? Poinsettias? Thanks again D.

Christmas At My Home: Day 17

As I mentioned earlier we don't have a mantelpiece so I've hung these stockings above the decorations in the Dec 5th post. Two we were given, one won and one made by me.

Christmas At My Home: Day 16

This is A's official stocking. I hang it from his doorknob and you can see one of the items that is usually in it.

Christmas At My Home: Day 15

The only new things I've bought for this season. It was about time I bought some new oven mitts and these will suit through to Valentine's Day (at least I think so).

Christmas At My Home: Day 14

Why don't I remember these until it's almost Christmas?

Christmas At My Home: Day 13

I used to stick our cards to the bookcase with blue stick but then I found these clothespins and so I put them on the hall wall.

Christmas At My Home: Day 12

Look what I received in the mail today from my sister D! Aren't they the cutest? They're about 12.5 cm long. They'll go on the tree once we've put it up but because the sun was shining straining through the clouds, I quickly took a picture.

Thank you again D! OK I haven't actually thanked you yet but I will when it isn't night there anymore.

Christmas At My Home: Day 11

This wreath is usually on the outside of the door but because the inside one broke and I haven't figured out yet how to fix it I've put this one here.

Christmas At My Home: Day 10

Another raffle win.

Christmas At My Home: Day 9

This is something else we won in a raffle.
Last month when I was at the charity store I took some free magazines and I found this in issue 11/88 of Kotivinkki. Maybe I'll make one some day.

Christmas At My Home: Day 8

This pathetic tree used to be in A's room but he hasn't wanted it for a few years. I decided this year to use it instead of having it just lying in a box so I have it on our kitchen table. I only used about a quarter of the decorations. I divided them so that there was a pile of anything with wings, a pile that had something red on it and the rest I used this year. Next year will be the red ones and the year after the winged ones. I made the curtains and the tablecloth is plastic.

Christmas At My Home: Day 7

I think I crocheted this in our old apartment, so that makes it over 13 years old. I used to put it on top of the tree but we use a star now.

Christmas At My Home: Day 6

Something else I've woven. Probably in the same course as the poppana in the last post. I don't know why I feel that this is for Christmas even though there is black in it.

Christmas At My Home: Day 5

Except for the silver coloured tree I either received or won these in a raffle. If I had a mantelpiece I would probably put them on there but they are now on the bookcase in our hall. I wove the ”poppana” when A was small enough to fit under the loom and push the pedals for me (to keep him occupied for a while). Poppana is a 1 cm wide bias-cut cotton fabric that is used for the weft.

Christmas At My Home: Day 4

I don't know how many weeks it's be overcast. Hard for me to take indoor pictures. If it is ever sunny enough I might redo all of the photos. Let's see. Here we have a cushion cover I made some years ago. Its place is on our small sofa. (I wish I had started a craft diary a long time ago so I'd know how old things are.)

Christmas At My Home: Day 3

My sister D gave these to us in 1990! I can't believe we've had them so long.

Once I had finished the ribbing on H's sock I started to wonder if the foot part was going to be too big because I had to use so many stitches for his large calf. So off went one of the socks, with the heel partially done, and the verdict was that perhaps it should be 6 stitches smaller. Now it is 6 stitches smaller and it will go off again before I start the heel to see if it is now OK.

Christmas At My Home: Day 2

I wanted to put the throw over the back of the larger sofa. I wonder how long it will last there. I made these cushion covers many, many years ago from some fabric samples I bought from the charity store. There was only enough to cover the cushions. They aren't very Christmasy but red enough. Someday I want to make some Christmas ones.

I finished a few little Christmas gifts but I don't want to post pictures until after Christmas.

Christmas At My Home: Day 1

I like seeing how other people decorate their homes for Christmas, so I thought I'd try to do a December "picture a day" of what I'm doing this year. If I can come up with enough ideas that is!

This year A said that he didn't want a chocolate advent calendar . I didn't ask him why but I suspect that there's too little to eat in it. I thought I'd make him one with a bit more in it. I didn't want to waste paper or other materials so I decided to use newspaper and fold the pieces into envelopes. I used the fern letterfold. I went through some newspapers and cut out pictures that didn't have too much on them (or they didn't look like advertisements).

Snowflakes On Their Way

Just as I had tied off the last knot after sewing the snowflakes to the piece of cardboard, I realized that I hadn't remembered to take a picture of all of the snowflakes once they were stiffened. So I took them all off and took a picture.

I had to soak the pins to soften the glue so that I could clean it off them.



The pins were needed so that I could finally wash and block the ”somebody else's UFO”. I wanted to wash it first because I don't know how old the squares were before I got them and they were in my cupboard a few years before I worked on them. The throw isn't much bigger than this – only one row missing on each side so it's only about 55 cm by 110 cm.

Finished the Snowflakes

I've wanted to knit myself a scarf out of cotton yarn for those days when I need something around my neck but with the sun shining it would be too sweaty for wool or acrylic. I liked the simple look of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's scarf and thought that I would make it from that. I don't know if it is the cotton yarn or the size of my needles but it doesn't look the same. So I've taken two other patterns from the internet and will try them.

The last 2 snowflakes are finished and waiting to be stiffened. I forgot to take a picture of the seventh snowflake before blocking it. While I was pinning it I noticed a mistake on the second row. Too late to fix it now! I'm not surprised to find a mistake though. I struggled so much with it. The pattern is actually quite easy but I kept doing mistakes and mostly the same ones over and over. I couldn't understand it.

Snowflake number eight seems to have one more row in the picture than called for in the pattern. It was big enough without the extra row. I followed the pattern until the last row where I only chained 7 between instead of 10 and 10 where it called for 12.

Blocking Snowflakes

Snowflake #6 was suppose to have beads but as I don't have any, I didn't add any. It might be interesting to try sometime. I changed the outer points because, maybe because of the lack of beads, it just looked like a blob. I only did one b-picot.


I suddenly realized that I should start blocking the snowflakes so that when they are all crocheted they will be dry enough to send immediately. I used a blocking pattern that I found and now that I have rustproof pins I don't have to worry about rust marks. Last time I used a mixture of white glue and water and painted it on. I had read somewhere that you shouldn't use sugar because bugs, etc. might want to eat it and so I'll probably use glue again. When I blocked them last Christmas I put some cling wrap over the pattern but before starting this set I saw that someone had used wax paper and I'm trying that. I put the snowflakes face down so the glue goes on the back.

T's Socks Are Ready

T's socks are finally done. The color pattern isn't the same on both the socks but the pooling is close enough not to bother me too much. The yarn is Novita's Nalle Colori. I liked working with such colorful yarn but it will also be nice to go back to a solid colour for a while.

I used the pattern on the back of the label with a few changes (of course). The toe was one change and I don't think that I really like it after all. I'll have to keep looking.

Fifth Apron All Done

I found this material in my stash and thought that the colours would be OK for a fall apron.

Not wanting to use the winter ones yet, I'll use this until December. I won't make my new winter one until the end of this month. Then next month I'll probably make an apron for a gift. I have the material for it but it might not get done until the last minute!

As there are only 49 days until Christmas I thought that I should get some gifts done so I could mail them off before Christmas. For a decoration I combined mini mittens and a mini hat.

I found four more snowflake patterns, so I'm hoping to get them done soon.

Fourth Apron is for an Apron Challenge

I'm cutting it a bit close entering the tie one on challenge. I'm not quite sure if I want to use white cotton for the 'fur' or this fake fur that I have just pinned on for now. I didn't think about what I would use for buttons or a buckle, so they too, are just there temporarily.

Third Apron Done

I didn't have much trouble after replacing the sewing machine needle, other than the usual annoyances, I mean. I used one long strip for the middle and then cut a strip for each side of the apron part. I don't have a serger so I try not to leave any raw edges anywhere. The picture on the left is before sewing the pieces together. I often use a French seam because the zigzag on my machine (and the machine itself) are not worth the trouble. The pattern on the material isn't centered but it doesn't matter, does it?

Knitted Bookmark

I came across Sia's blog (it's in Finnish) and she is having a competition. I thought I would like to enter but at first I couldn't think of what I could make. I wanted to do something with a Santa but I couldn't come up with anything that I wanted to do. It couldn't be anything big because of my hands and it needed to be complicated enough to be interesting.

So after thinking about it for a while I realized that a bookmark would fit the bill. I haven't knitted a bookmark before and it would be a chance to do some lace and practice blocking because I finally found rustproof pins! I never thought that I would.

I have no idea what yarn this is. It was just a ball in my stash. I tried the picot cast on and bind off but the cast on didn't work. I wanted a pattern that looked like a snowflake but the only thing I could find was a pattern called snowflake. I decided to use it anyway. I added a K1 on each side of the repeat (which I only did one of). I had to redo each row at least twice. And I ended up counting the stitches each pattern row. Sigh. How can Stephanie Pearl-McPhee knit lace that ends up with at least 880 stitches across? How many times would I end up undoing that?










On the left is the preblocked bookmark. On the right after blocking. Not much difference, eh?

More Material

I've taken some time off from knitting and crocheting. I was working on an apron until, well you can see from the picture what happened. That put me off from sewing for awhile.




I had taken the material off of one of our chairs so I could wash it. After 15 years or so they really needed washing. I tried to wash it carefully but as you can see it shrunk. I have to look for some material to make new covers.



I went to one store to look but instead I came back with these. Some material for aprons. I felt so guilty about buying material that I don't need. I have enough material to make many, many aprons.

Aching Hands

I have to accept that I can't knit as much as I would like to. Too much pain in my hands. I've tried doing hand and wrist stretches before and after but it hasn't really helped. I've settled on only doing one sock row (64 stitches) every hour. I'll see if I'll need to do less.

So I have to come up with some sewing. I want to make fall aprons with material that I have. I found this piece in my stash. I don't really like the pattern but the colors are fallish enough.It is just a strip of material (26 cm x 300 cm), so I will have to fiddle with it.


The fifth snowflake is done. I used this pattern. I found at least one mistake. I should make a decision on how many snowflakes I'm going to make. I've printed out 3 more patterns, so I'll at least make them.

T's Sock

T's first sock is finished. Do all variegated socks turn out like this? Will the second look the same? I'm sure it has something to do with my knitting or picking up 18 stitches instead of 17 but could it be something else?

I was looking at the Girl on the Rocks blog and saw her set of stitch markers that she made so that she can learn the kitchener stitch by the time she gets to the toe graft because she is always looking up how to do it.

I thought that that is a great idea and I'm going to try it too, but I was thinking of doing words I have trouble spelling. My first marker will be for a Finnish word I'm always having trouble saying. Why do we stumble over some words? I remember someone who couldn't say 'chicken' and never used the word.

I redid the starting knot on T's second sock about 10 times so I could try to get it at the same point as sock number one. I'm sure that there is an easier way to do it. I don't mind if the ribbings are different but I would like the insteps to be at least similar.