Valokuvatorstai 133.

Ahaa, valokuvatorstai 133.

Location: near Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Dreaming, dreaming

At the moment I don't have very much space to do anything. Our kitchen is under renovation now, so everything is so messy in the house once again. I can't even make the curtains for the new kitchen window or other sewing projects. I can't wait to finally have some real crafting corner/work desk. We actually got an old timber board from somewhere. I think it was used as table board before, but it is in a bit bad condition now, old paint etc. I am going to start doing something for it as soon as some other more urgent work is done. It is nice heavy timber and I think it would make a lovely work desk. It is not very big, but you can't bring any huge piece of furniture in this tiny little house with limited space. I think our little home is going to look very nice soon and the work desk would be one dream come true, to have one little corner for my own projects.

Valokuvatorstai 129.

Autio for valokuvatorstai.

Violetti

Valokuvatorstai challenge 127.


Location: Kinsale, Co. Cork, Ireland.

My Etsy finds

A couple of weeks ago I did my first Etsy shoppings. I have to say that I am very happy about my new Art print and craft supplies I ordered. I think I am going to order much more later. Etsy is a great site. You can always find something different. Both of my orders arrived really fast, even though they were sent from the other side of the world.

First of all I wanted to order some art for our walls. Something that would look good in this old house. At the moment we don't have anything but mirrors hanging on the walls. I found this lovely shop of Elsita. I just love her papercut prints. I think I am going to order some more later. My print was called Treehouse. It is still waiting for proper frames. Those frames in the picture a slightly too small, but I think this picture would look great with black frames anyway.

I got also some tiny little stickers from Elsita. :)

My other order was purse frames from ThaiSupplies. I have wanted to try making little purses for a while. I ordered two different sizes of purse frames. They seem to be nice strong and heavy. I hope I can soon post about little purses I made. (haven't actually made yet) :)

Hibernating

My poor little blog has been neglected lately. This house takes most of my energy lately. I have been painting or making curtains whenever I am not working. I kinda feel that I have no energy left for any extra activities. Anyway it looks much better here now, and I hope soon I will have some time for my hobbies.

This is how one corner of the living room was looking around Christmas time. It looks much better now.

Merry Christmas!

Lämpö for Valokuvatortai.


This picture was taken around a year ago. My boyfriend's parents own this living room and the dog. With this picture I want to wish the best Christmas to everyone! Hyvää joulua! (Finnish) And of course Nollaig Shona! (Irish)

Brighter colours for grey winter days

The days are shorter and shorter even here in Ireland and the world outside of the house is grey. It's raining often or the sky is just full of dark clouds. It is so nice just to make a lovely fire and stay at home maybe watching your favourite TV show and of course eating lovely foods and drinking many litres of tea.

You could also spend your time knitting something bright to warm up your frozen feet. What would be nicer than a pair of socks or leg warmers? They would make a perfect Christmas present as well. These two projects are very very easy, but I think this kind of multi colours look the best with a simple pattern.

Red Winter Socks


Pattern: my own.
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Solid. 75 % wool, 25 % polyamide.


Noro Legwarmers


Pattern: my own, at least doesn't remember seen something similar.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, 100 % wool, colour 220.

Valokuvatorstai 110.

Valokuvatorstai challenge Glass.

World

My cousin is stuck in Bangkok and his sister is in Mumbai, if I remember right. Maybe I am from a family of trouble makers...

Where to start?

I have so many projects going on at the moment (house, studying, knitting etc.), but just don't know where to start. Then I just get angry at myself because of being lazy. I actually tried to paint some room in this house the other day. We have so much to paint here. I opened the windows and that room was very well ventilated, but the smell of paint felt me feel so sick in my stomach (not pregnant as I know!) and I had to stop doing that. This house will look very nice, when everything is done!

I have read some old posts of mine and can't believe how many mistakes I am making. One reason to that is laziness. I just write and post without reading it properly through. I mean, I mostly can write the words how they should be, but the grammar; articles and prepositions being my weakest part. I also would like to have a bigger active vocabulary in English. I have a huge passive vocabulary, but... I can read very difficult and complicated language, but to produce good written English is different thing. I am reading books mainly in English these days and live in an English-speaking country (some Irish people don't like that expression). Writing, writing. That's the best way to make a better writer. Engrish always helps, when I think my English is crap. It really makes me laugh every time.☺ There are some other people making mistakes and even funnier than mine!

Valokuvatorstai 108.

3 photos for this week's Valokuvatorstai challenge.







Location: Kinsale Old Head, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Finnish Art in Dublin

Virginie by Albert Edelfelt. Photo from here.

Good news for all Finns in Ireland and those, who are interested in Finnish culture. The National Gallery of Ireland is hosting an exhibition of Finnish Art. The Exhibition is called Northern Stars and Southern Lights: The Golden Age of Finnish Art 1870-1920. There are works for example from Albert Edelfelt, Akseli-Gallela, Pekka Halonen and other painters, whose works almost every Finnish person must have seen somewhere. At least in the History books at school, if nowhere else. However these artists are not that famous in other countries. The exhibition started last weekend and will be open until beginning of February next year. I am definitely going to see it, maybe on my next trip to Dublin. I think I have seen many of those paintings in Finland, but I think there are still I haven't seen before. So more about it later.

New look for my blog

I am going to do some changes on this blog soon. I am getting tired of this current look of my blog, it looks really boring at the moment and doesn't inspire me to write very much. I would like to make it look a bit different. I have some ideas, but my skills are not enough to make it as I wanted, but I am going to try.

I want to wish Happy Halloween to everybody!

Holiday knitting

On my visit to Finland I had also some time knit. I didn't have to buy any new yarn though. I had some stash back there in my parents house and I used also some of my mam's yarn (of course asking first).

Stripy poncho-kind-of-thing

This poncho was just kind of knitting what I just started doing from top to bottom without measuring and checking any other patterns. I also did some crocheting for the top and bottom parts of the thing. It is not very wide, but not as tight as it looks in this picture. Maybe I actually could have made it a bit shorter. Everybody was laughing at my silly projects. Hmm, maybe I won't find very much use for it, or maybe wearing it on cold winter nights when watching telly. We'll see. The other projects were actually a bit more practical.


Purple-grey-black Mittens

Pattern: my own.
Yarn: some old left-over Novita Nalle.

Grey-white Mittens





Pattern: my own.
Yarn: some old left-over Novita Nalle.


Fingerless Mittens


Pattern: my own.
Yarn: Novita Nalle and something unknown.

Valokuvatorstai 107.

Valokuvatorstai 107."Silta nykyaikaan."

Some silly cat etc.

Back to Ireland now, but I have still got loads of pictures from Finland in my camera.



Some beanie I made many years ago. I think I took my inspiration from some Finnish knitting magazine, but did lot of changes to the original pattern. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of some other old projects, so I'll add some photos of Milli instead. Milli loves warm places and sunshine.

PS. I seem not to be able to change the font now. Sometimes I really love Blogger...

Old school works

As I am now in Finland and visiting my parent's home, it is good time to make a post about my old works I made at school. I am going to make another post of some other old stuff later.

I made this hand towel when I was about 11 years old. Every girl in my class had to make similar one. This crocheted part has suffered a bit in washing machine. I really have used this towel.

My first pair of socks I ever knit. I was 12 years old. They were too small for me, but my sister and brother used to wear them, when they were small. So they don't look that nice any more. I think they are pure wool, but I am not 100% sure.

This jumper was one of those school works we could choose voluntarily. I was 14-15 years old. This is not my first jumper, but the very first one is gone, disappeared. I think the pattern for this jumper was from the German Burda magazine or something. I used alpaca and wool yarns. This was for my little sister, who used to wear it quite often.

A bit closer look to that previous jumper.

This cable jumper was made about the same time as the previous one. It has been used by two of my little sisters. So it has strechted a lot. The yarn is cotton. I think the arm holes look a bit strange, but otherwise not too bad for a teenager.

I think I am much lazier these days knitting mostly socks or mittens. I really should start making something bigger again.

Valokuvatorstai 104.

Valokuvatorstai "Kiltti". (kiltti=kind, good etc.) He is a good boy at least once a year...

Totoro etc.

I am still in Finland and as everybody else is working or at school I sometimes feel a bit bored, so what could be better than do some knitting and other crafts.

I never knit any toys before, so I gave a try. Totoro, a Japanese cartoon character, is just so cute. It looks a bit like a rabbit, but I am not sure, what it actually is. My Totoro looks definitely more like a rabbit. (and doesn't look very well made) I used some old yarn from my mam's stash. I think the white and grey are Seitsemän Veljestä and black one is something else.

Totoro


Pattern: my own.
Yarn: Seitsemän Veljestä etc. old leftover yarn.

I think next I am going to make a post of my old works. I found my first wool socks I made about 19 years ago and some old jumpers.