Practical kind of girl

I am writing this now as there is no better time for this post than this gift-giving season.

It is 28 years since my husband took me out for the first time. Last week I received a beautiful gift in honour of that first date.

The day was in late November and the year was 1983. Really.  And no, I don't remember that day like it was yesterday; we went to movies and it was not a spectacular piece of moving pictures. We have the normal kind of marriage with its ups and downs (that is the roller-coaster part) and many, many long stretches of just everyday life (no, not boring because  there is only so much of the roller-coaster part anyone can digest) that we refer to as "possujuna"- ride.  All the Finns know what  I mean with this but if you have not been to Särkänniemi, "possujuna" (scroll down, it is there in the right) is a small train that is meant for ages three and under and that goes around and around on a flat surface in steady, very slow motion.

As you may remember my husband works at sea and we have been more apart than together during these 28 years.  When a celebration happens in a time we are together, he usually surprises me somehow. He is very good in it, way better than I am.  I have received all sorts of gifts during these years and I could probably list 10 different ones (never yarn though) but here is my top three at the moment:

1. New washer and drier. While I was having the twins, he bought to me as a surprise new washer and drier and had them installed while I was in the hospital and when I returned home with the girls, the surprise was there waiting for me. Two pieces of beautiful new white maschinery. For two years from then on, they kept going almost non-stop. Oh, how I treasured that gift.  The washer was replaced already some time ago but the drier died this fall and it really felt like an end of an era.

2. The second gift  is a bit more romantic. When the twins turned 2 and Sonja was almost 4, he bought me a short weekend trip to Paris. The way he presented this gift was unforgettable. It was after ordinary longish day in a family with three kids under 4, when we were reading newspapers at the kitchen table after the girls were put to bed. We used to do that every day, it was such a joy to maybe drink a glass of wine, divide the paper in half and then each one of us was reading the own half. I finished my paper and there under the paper, was a map of Paris, flight tickets and money (it was long before euro). It was Tuesday night and I was due to leave on Thursday. He gave me one day to get prepared but not too long to get too worried how he could manage everything while I was away. He told me to get lots of souvenirs and all for myself. Great, great present and they had a good time while I was away.

3. And now we come to the third. We have a high ceiling in some of the rooms and it is very challenging to change light bulbs and dust the ceilings to get rid of spider webs. During nearly 17 years in this house  I have  managed to climb almost high enough and have used settings that one is not supposed to use, like dragging a table and then putting this three-step-ladder on the table, you get the idea… It  is history now because finally I have a proper tool: a sturdy ladder and oh my, what a grand ladder, it takes me high up and I can have a bucket of water up there and don't need to climb up and down every time I need to rinse the cloth.  So I have been cleaning and dusting and have loved every single moment.

I have often thought that I love mostly romantic gifts, but who knew, I am a practical kind of girl after all. (Ok, so 28 years since that date, I am not sure about the girl-part.)

Wool with you,

Lene

Hats are difficult

I don't mean that they are difficult to knit, although they can be very challenging ... but putting something onto ones head and to be able to walk around in public with this thing on one's head, makes hat different from any other knitting in my mind.  Socks, put shoes on and no one really knows. Mittens, tuck your hands into your pockets and that's that. Sweater, ok, wear a coat in public, and you really don't need to make a statement. One cannot go totally wrong with scarves and shawls. But this hat thing... You put a new creation on your head, and your spouse looks at you a little longer and you get worried. Just a little too enthusiastic smile from a co-worker and you are going to get rid of the thing very fast.  See what I mean.

Then there is this fit factor, it needs to stay in its proper place. It cannot keep dropping over your face or keep sliding off your head to make you look like a sugar loaf ... or if it does look like sugar loaf, then it needs to be intentional and that needs to be obvious. 

Hats can make a statement - and can tell much about their wearers and opinions. They truly are interesting, necessary but extremely difficult things. 

 So, I am guessing you have a favorite hat or at least a strong opinion what kind of hat fits you best. I have knit many hats during this long knitting career but all of them have been little bit "off" and I have given away almost every single one.

 But last spring I knit a cloche-kind of woollen (coarse Finnwool) hat, lined it carefully with cotton fabric and intended to give it to my daughter. The fall came with the cold weather, and I still had the hat lying around and while going out one windy day with the dogs, I put the hat on. And I loved it. The fit is perfect, it keeps my head warm plus it has this girly swirl to it. And it totally did pass the spouse thing.  

Now that Christmas is coming and red is just the color for this season up here, I am knitting myself a red one. 

I sincerely hope you have found your favorite kind of hat.  Keep looking, it only took me forty some years to find one. 

Happy Thanksgiving and wool, as always,

Lene 

(PS. I have this annoying piece of knowledge in the back of my mind that with age, one loses self criticism, so I am truly hoping this is not that.)

Kaamos inspiration

Last time I promised to share more of the inspiration behind these Kaamos mittens. But I have been postponing this post because I have been tossing these words this and that way in my mind and for some strange reason, I cannot put my finger on them. Every single sentence seems a bit odd and clumsy. I could just write down that there were three reasons for knitting these mittens: Finnwool, Finnish raanus and Finnish woollen embroidery but then, would that be enough? On the other hand, to write a good, informative post on any of these would require serious reading and studying and that would then take weeks... So, this is it in its shortness and clumsiness and maybe at some point I write more. But at the moment this is blocking my mind and I need to be done with this.

Finns love stripes. And being a Finn, I love stripes. Maybe you know Marimekko and their sriped t-shirts that became very popular in 1960's when I was a child and that have more or less stayed popular ever since. I had many color combinations then and have many today.

Striped rag rugs are truly part of the Finnish heritage. All the old worn clothing used to end up in these woven pieces and there are still plenty of looms in Finland and lots of weaving knowledge.

Not long ago I was talking to two ladies who still remember well the time when most farm houses in the countryside kept sheep for own wool and how the sheared fleece got sent to a spinning mill and how it then came back in hanks to be woven into raanus or other textiles or were knitted into garments. Raanus are thick, wool coverlets that mostly today are  kept for decoration purposes if even for that. The Samis of Lapland used only wool for their raanus, both in warp and weft while elsewhere the warp might have been either linen or hemp and later on cotton. The weave structure in raanus is very simple and the surface is broken by stripes or groups of stripes. (Like this old piece I showed you long ago.)

When I was growing up raanus were very popular among weavers. While this popularity did lots of good to the old textile, it also did some serious damage. Where once raanus colorings were eye pleasing, they gradually  got very garish and then lost their appeal.

I love these old, sheep's color raanus most but I admire some of the more colorful ones too.

Elsa Montell, Finnish textile artist, wove beautiful raanus. She lived close to Rovaniemi, my home town, and I can well remember her work being talked of and also seeing few of her pieces (and many copies of her work too). She began her career by dyeing her own wool with vegetable dyes but later on she used also yarn dyed with artificial dyes. Elsa Montell respected folk art and found inspiration in asymmetrical and freely designed Skolt Samí raanus.

I have carried these images of stripes in my mind for decades. I have been looking at them, have tried to knit them a couple of times but have always disregarded the idea. I never knew just what to do with them. These horizontal stripes are the landscape of my mind, something I cannot get rid of. So it is no wonder that these stripes finally crept into these mittens. I don't think I had very much saying in the end, it was almost like they just appeared on the surface unintentionally.

Once I had the stripes running through the surface like a distant horizon, I knew where I would look for the image of the sun. Old Finnish embroidered woollen covers were my primary source.

We had a dusting of snow yesterday and I happened to be out right then, the experience was once again thrilling. Most of the snow is gone, it was just a dusting but it could be any day now.

Wool with you,
Lene

Kaamos mittens

Knitting these woolly mittens has been a bliss. I promised to tell you little bit of the inspiration behind them. This is the first part.

We are approaching "kaamos" or Polar night. Right here at the Arctic Circle (or just a tiny bit north from it) we don't experience the true Polar night, but our night becomes more than 20 hours at its darkest.

This is the time of the black snow. The black snow is the time when the first snow comes and shortly melts away and then the ground freezes. Yesterday was cold, the world had a beautiful frosting, but today it is again warm and the frost is gone, so there really is no black snow at the moment. But this is most likely about to change.

People commonly refer to the time before the snow as "kaamos" since it feels like there is no daylight, as the days get shorter and shorter and the ground is black and thus sucks up the remains of the light. When the snow comes, this blessed pure white stuff, the world just seems so much brighter.

While walking daily with the dogs I have been observing the autumn turn slowly towards winter. I have walked through thick fog blankets and in soft drizzle and pushed against strong winds.  I know that soon the fields and the forests are covered with snow, so I have tried to memorize the colors, soft fading yellows in dying grass,

deep purples and browns in rotting leaves,

summer greens turning into dark, cold bluish colors and on few rare occasions,

the golden browns and oranges when the sun has brushed them up.

If you look at the mitten, there it is. The sun peeking over the horizon

or maybe reflecting on the water of the lake.

There are the gray long days, when the sun is just a memory but there are the bright, soft yellow sunny days as well when the world is colored with gold.

Add to the mix cold fingertips and I knew what I wanted to make.

So I knew what to make and I knew what it should feel like, but how could I put this world into the mittens. Of that I will tell you next time.

Wool with you until then,
Lene

Are you aware that it is Wovember, the month of celebrating wool?

If you don't read Kate's blog, you should.

The sheep picture she published few weeks ago, gave me the inspiration to make the blog header illustration with the sheep.

Since this month is all about 100 % wool I wanted to make something very woolly, all wool, no man made stuff, pure sheep's clothing.I am glad that there still are available many good all wool yarns, yarns that are not over processed and bear the sheep's label in them. When I find a tiny bit of hay in the fiber, it makes me very happy because that is the sheep's foot print in there, the very proof that reads sheep.

Transition from the baby hat to a new project was once again bit of frustrating. Many, many ripped items in between before I was able to settle in comfortably with the new project.

I have gathered inspiration to these mittens from many sources and I will tell you more about them later. I just love this feeling of being in the middle of a project, when you are mostly satisfied with the design details but when there are just few little things to add and you feel confident that it will all come together in the end.

Happy Wovember!

Lene

Pikku-Pete

This little hat  has been percolating in my mind for a few months. Last summer while in Victoria and Albert museum in London I found a book "Dictionary of Children's Clothes 1700s to present "and there was an old delightful picture of a little boy wearing a hat that was referred to as deerstalker.

The picture text reads: "Deerstalker a type of close-fitting cap with earflaps, originally of cloth but later versions for children were more often knitted... dates 1880-1950s. Bestway and Patons were among those producing knitting patterns for children's deerstalkers in the 1950s. derivation originally worn by deer hunters."

I kept returning to the picture over and over again and something in it spoke to me. Later on while looking for something to knit for a new little handsome I saw a tiny baby hat in a vintage-pattern collection.  I read through the instructions and just had to knit the hat. It was written in a time before all these new tricks in the knitting world and while reading the pattern I knew how to make it more knitter friendly and thus this little hat was born.

From the start I wanted to keep the old fashioned feel to the hat and finding the perfect yarn took little bit of browsing. Blacker yarns has this beautiful BFL fingering weight, the feel is very woolly,  and it was my number one choice for the hat. Later on I knit the hat in more mother friendly stuff, superwash merino wool and the hat works out just fine in various yarns. Superwash wool tends to stretch and that is why I suggest of using small needles to get a firm and stable fabric.

The pattern is written in one size for fingering weight yarn, it is aimed to be used during the first few months but this of course depends on the size of the little person.  It is easy to upsize by taking bigger needles and heavier yarn. The visor is knit with short rows first, then the patterns continues from there with live stitches for the strip that runs from the forehead towards to back neck. Stitches for side squares are picked from the sides of the strip and then finally stitches for the neck ribbing are picked up from the sides of the side squares. It is quick to make, it uses only app 175 meters/191 yards of fingering weight or 4ply wool.

Should you want to knit your own, please visit my Ravelry Pattern Store, button on the right.

Wool with you,
Lene