Tender lavender

One of my, what I thought would be a never ending project, is finally finished! Remember how I've ranted about a project I'm working on with 2 mm needles that never progressed the speed I wanted? Well, here it is:

Pattern: Plain and simple by Veera Välimäki

Needles: 2 mm

Yarn: Novita Princess Baby

This time I made only one small modification to the pattern: since my bodyshape demands it, I added some waist shaping to the sweater. The buttonhole band is exactly the same, but I choose to wear it buttoned in stead of opened as in the original pattern pictures. Then, as a small detail, I embroidered some branches of... something :)

But in spite of the embroidery I would say it stays very true to the origianal name "plain and simple". No fuss at all. Very easy and actually rather boring to knit. But something you could do when you wanted to really clear your head of every thought in it.

Quite pleased with the result after all. And that's good since it took me over a year to finish it. The yarn is by the way some really old yarn my aunt gave me. It's not in production anymore, in case you wonder.

A drawing

A drawing I made in the beginning of the summer. It's a portrait of Selma Lagerlöf, although her face looks a lot younger than it should. I like drawing when I have a "model", but I suck at drawing straight from my head. And even with a model, the drawing never turns out exactly like a look-a-like.

I've slowly started to knit again, although only a few rows a day. BUT I do have something new to show you as soon as I've had the time to take some photos of it... Meanwhile, you can drool over my new stash of yarn that my parents brought me from London:

Some 800 g of wonderful Purelife Brittish Sheep Breeds Chunky by Rowan. I already know what to do with it and can't wait to start! Then I also got a whole new set of wooden needles. One pair of them got in use straight away as I changed my metallic needles to these in one of my WIP's.

Parisian picnics

As I said in my previous post, I added one small detail to the picnic bag I made for entrance exams. By this I both tried to personalize the product and take distance from usual tourist information.

One problem when deciding on having a picnic is to decide where to go for that picnic. My sollution for that dispute is to add a "best picnic places" -guide to the bag. Therefor, if you can't decide where to go, you might just lean to the bag for help. My guide isn't a booklet that you by accident might lose or forget at home. In stead I embroidered my guide directly to the canvas: a simplified map of Paris (and a written list of the names of the numbered places, not shown in the photo).

I also tried not to list the same places for picnics as all the usual tourist guides. The basis for my tips were my own experience. Hence, I listed six of my favourite places to have picnics in Paris. Some of them are well-known places, some are places where tourists usually don't go. (The numbers by the way have nothing to do with order of superiority)

The number 1 in this map stands for a small but cosy parc not in such a respectable area in Paris: Parc de Belleville.

During my spring in Paris we went there a couple of times since it was close to where one of my friends lived. This time there happened to be a juggler practising.

The number two is a much bigger and much more popular parc among the citizens of Paris: Parc de Buttes chaumont.

This was one of the last parcs I visited before heading back to Finland.

The third one is actually part of the riverside of Seine, located a little bit futher to the East of the small island Île Saint-Louis: Port Saint-Bernard.

The fouth parc I chose was perhaps the one I frequented the most: Pont des Arts. This one is also known among tourists.

The fifth is simply La Tour Eiffel. I know it's rather a cliché, but you actually felt you were in Paris when you sat there.

Last but not least, the parc furthest away is located right outside the centre of Paris: Bois de Bologne. A huge parc that was very idyllic and calm.

So next time you visit Paris, you might want to try out some of these.