Kotitiikeri

Here they are, my first project from the lovely knitting book I got: Neulekirja by Ilona Korhonen & Jenni Österman. I actually saw one version of these socks on Napit puuttuu at first, and since they looked so lovely, I had to look up the book itself searching for the pattern. Then the book turned out so lovely too with a lot of patterns I'd like to knit, so I just had to add it to my bookshelf.

Pattern: Kotitiikeri and kulkukissa

Needles: 2 mm

Yarn: Hot socks Marrakesch by Four Seasons Gründl

As always, I changed the pattern just a little bit. In stead of making five small holes for buttons, I made three bigger ones for these beautiful wooden buttons I found on (believe it or not) Stockmann. The 2 mm needles were killing me, though... It's so SLOW! I'm actually working on another project too, using 2 mm needles there as well. Who knows when that one will be finished...

Anyway, these socks turned out to be perfect for work since the "official colour" of the museum is almost the exact same shade of red as the yarn I used. So I guess they can't kick me out since I match their interior so perfectly ;)

Yesterday I went to the library to get (hopefully) the last theory books for my master's thesis. "Introduction to social psychology", "Introduction to psychology", "History and social theory", "What is cultural history?", an article about analyzing letters, some book about socialization within a society... Ugh... These books do interest me on some level, but the other part of me would just rather enjoy some fiction. But I guess it's the same for everyone: as soon as you're forced to read something, it starts feeling boring even though it was something you had chosen to study in the beginning. Sigh.

Well, back to work now.

Presents to me!

Time to show some of the many, many lovely presents I or we got for Christmas this year. Better late than never, right? ;)

First some knitting and crafting related presents:

My aunt gave me this box full of linen yarn designed by Gianni Versace! Forgive me if I now show my total ignorance, but I actually didn't know fashion designers also design yarns. I didn't find this yarn on Ravelry, though. I think it's quite old and not in production anymore. It would be interesting to know how my aunt came across it... Although, she has a diploma in crafts and design, so she probably knows a hell of a lot more of this stuff than I do.

Then I also got two wonderful books:

The bigger one is Martha Stewarts' Encyclopedia of Crafts and it has more than 200 project of totally different kinds. Then the smaller one is the new finnish knitting book I already talked about earlier: Neulekirja by Ilona Korhonen and Jenni Österman, and I will actually very soon show you my first project from that book. Maybe already in my next post, if I have time to finish it.

I just wish I'd graduate from the university soon, because for some reason I imagine that once I don't have essays after essays to write and exams after exams to study for, I'll suddenly have lots of free time to do all sorts of handicrafts. Still I know that once you start working full time, you become a slave of "nine to five" in stead. But the evenings and weekends will still be free, right? If not, please don't crush my hope, because that's what gets me going right now. I haven't done almost anything else for the past two weeks than writing on my masters' thesis. And it actually goes better than I thought it would. I'm already on page 51, so only some 20-30 pages to go! Plus all the corrections. Plus all the extra reading. But still. I can already see the end. Yay! :)

And from these happier thoughts, let's move on to me showing off two of my collections:

This year two cups were added to my collection of Moomin cups. And now they are 21. But believe me, I don't have all of them yet. The two new ones this year was the two cups on the lower shelf on the left: the Muddler (Hosuli) and the Skiing Competition (seasonal special 2010). I think my favourite cup (at least at the moment) is Mymble, the pink one, because it's just so sweet and girly.

Then my other collection:

Disney cartoons! Now you must think I'm crazy, but I actually have 37 Disney movies (some are Disney-Pixar, though), almost all of them on DVD. So the shelf in the picture is only 1/4 of the movies I have. And this years' new ones: Robin Hood and the Beauty and the Beast <3 So if you have kids that needs a babysitter, bring them to me! At least here there will always be something to watch ;)

Snowflake mittens

This is the last Christmas present I had time to finish this year. Hopefully I'll have more time next year.

I promised already over a year ago that I would knit a pair of mittens for my friend, that would match her winter sharf (which is somewhat orange-pink-ish). And since this winter has been sooo cold, I decided that now it was really time to get it done. So here is the result:

Pattern: a mix of several ones

Yarn: Marks & Kattens Carolina Tweed

Needles: 3 mm

I call them snowflake mittens since I happened to stumble over those big white buttons and thought they looked just like snowflakes. Not more complicated than that :)

The other day I noticed that I had way too much milk, so I decided to bake a little.

This is only 1/5 of all the buns I made, all with cinnamon and sugar, because those are my favourites! Yummy.

The same day I had also been to the supermarket and picked up the newest Pirkka Ruoka -magazine (it's a small magazine filled with different recipes) and I decided to try out a recipe for bread that I found in there, just because it was made out of milk, too. But as I am horrible in following recipes, I had to make some small changes. I chose caraway in stead of fennel and mixed in some rye flour too to make it a bit darker. And I have to say it turned out delicious! Probably because I like caraway-bread so much :)