It was a while ago when Ilu finished a pair of traditional Finnish mittens in very patriotic colours, and had the posters and cards not been printed by then, one could almost imagine how they were felted and later formed the symbol of Anu Tuominen's exhibition in Hämeenlinna, Finland. I visited the local art museum in January while still in Finland, but photography wasn't allowed, so we'll just have do entertain ourselves with whatever Google brings up. Like these.
The knitting (and spinning) cow participates in interesting swaps - one of the recent ones was with the theme "fire under the ice". I don't know about fire, but at least I wanted to catch a sparkle or some twinkle on the surface of this yarn combination. I'd got some thin grey mohair from Tippi, and then there was a tiny ball of pale lilac merino wool in my stash. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get my hands on any more of it, so I had to try to make the yarn both as thin as I could while still keeping in enough strands so that the lilac colour would show through. Sorry if this sounds completely stupid but I tried to capture a moment from any Finn's childhood in it: you're out skiing and the sun's rays just play in the snow. I'd bought some lilac sequins to combine with the grey mohair, and just yesterday I came across some superb white beads which look just the part. Now I'm just wondering whether to go the whole hog and add the silver strand or not. Maybe the mohair's fluffyness will cut at least some of the sparkle. No?
Again, did some stash diving while in Finland. This pattern was published in a Finnish magazine in the 80's, and one could either make a doily or a lovely dress for a little girl. Well, knitting was a different business those days, and I remember making several sweaters where I'd use the lace pattern for the yoke and then just continue from top to bottom. This poor thingy was abandoned after I ran out of yarn. Just haven't had the heart to rip it either. And lo and behold! what did I find while browsing some knitting blogs? Di tutto cuore sports the same pattern, which isn't a big surprise because she's the original designer. Lovely, isn't it?
Walking down the memory lane...and shedding some tears. Here's my father at the age of 24. It's just been two years since he died, and flipping through some family albums brought back so many memories. Obviously, my mother misses him very much, and thought it would be nice if she could just hold someone's hand (even though if she got herself a boyfriend, he'd have to be about 20 years younger since she's just so active and quick as a cat. No man at her age could match her.) Anyway, just when I was knitting mittens a few weeks ago, I thought it would be nice if this photo could be transferred onto them.
Mielity already makes mittens of that sort - how about a pair with your (grand) parents' photos on them?
Apparently, there's been a program on some French tv channel about knitted graffiti. Ho-hum, that's a bit old news. Kirsi has been doing that for ages, much to the amusement of the people living in Tampere.
knitted graffiti or
Knitting community
Knitta - knitted graffiti
Houston Press
Space and Culture
And finally, a connection between a pattern and whatever comes out of your mouth. For February's "big" project I finally chose a sweater pattern from the same Japanese knitting book with which I've spent so much quality time lately. Re-calculated the amount of stitches and rows, cast on and made some good progress... until reached the tip of those oak leaves. Once again, the Japanese had a new trick or two up in sleeve , and I just wouldn't had solved had it not been for this blog. That's exactly how I feel at the moment, that's what I'll do even if it was the last thing I ever did. (I just wish that the original bloggers would be back... or has the Herbstlied won?
2 comments:
Are there any instructions for the doily anywhere? Very, very pretty!
It was published in the 80's - I will ask the lady who designed it. Where can I reach you?
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