Spring time

For such a long time I've lived in countries where the change of seasons has been more suttle, more invisible. Finland has been covered with so much snow this winter and these masses of snow are now fast melting. This spring has left me in awe- everything around me has changed by hour! The change is brutal and strong. At the moment there is plenty of mud, dirty, grey snow with muddy puddles everywhere, nature looks like it's been caught naked.

In the same time there is this strong sense and smell of new life, air is full of nest building birds and their tweets and beeps, creeks are running with new power after the pressure of ice and one can nearly hear the trees stretching their bent branches and twigs, getting ready to push the new leaves out ready for summer.

I'm starting to get itchy too, I'm ready to build my own nest! This year's relocation is forgotten, I need my own home now, and my hubby by my side. In reality, this is nearly nimpossible for us at the moment, so I've pushed my extra energy to knitting; I've several things on needles, and in more plans in my head too...new colours, styles and ideas.

This soft orange invites me to make more slippers! Yarn is my favorite felting yarn, Huopanen by Novita, and the only negative thing is, that I do not have more hands to knit few projects in same time!

My mum found this Regia silk yarn, char coal black yarn. Such a pleasure to knit with, and to wear I'd imagine! cardi is soft, but not flimsy. I knitted a basic bolero with soft ruffled neckline, as soon as I'll have a model I'll be adding it into my shop!





This is the reason I love knitting. Out of the odd chaos, mixed colours and little bit TLC, one can create some sense, something unique and individual. This item will be added into my shop soon too, as I'm nearly done with it. These are sleeves to summery cardigan. Check out my shop soon, and you'll see the finished result.

Ironic enough, due to relocation adn spring time I'm knitting more than ever- but I can not add my items to my shop without available model, someone to help me out!

Gingerbread men

I had a panic attack; Christmas is only 5 weeks away! In my mind I'm still living in October...hmm... This also means I'm only 5 weeks away from gingerbread men, cinnamon buns and chocolates...You can not eat them before, as it only spoils the Big Days! So on 24th (yes we celebrate Christmas for 3 days by Finnish tradition), on Christmas Eve, one starts to enjoy, and by 26th one can not face another gingerbread man for another year!

Hereby I offer our family tradition for your service, make them and enjoy, just follow the lead of Lukas (shown on picture making them)
The Recipe for the Best Thin Gingerbread Men

You need:
200 g butter
2.35dl of sugar
1.5 dl of syrup
1 dl cream
7.5 dl of flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of cloves
1 tsp of allspice
0.5 tsp of ground ginger

Melt the butter in the same bowl you'll mix the dough in. Mix the baking soda with small portion of flour. Add the seasoning (ginger etc), sugar, syrup and cream to the cooled down butter. Mix the ingredients well together, to make sure none of the seasonings are clamped together. Add the baking soda mixture, as well as rest of the flour by gently mixing or even rather spooning the flour in to the dough. Cover the dough and the bowl with clean towel and plastic bag and leave it in a fridge to set until following day.

Day 2: take the dough to room temperature, put oven on to 190 degrees. Start moulding the dough, portion at the time with rolling pin, to a thin flat disc, press gingerbread men out with the mould of your choice, add men on oven tray and bake for 5-10 minutes until dark golden brown. Decorate if you wish, with icing sugar mix when men have cooled down.

Hint: moulding is easier when the dough is still cool

Hint 2: once baked, lay the hot gingerbread men on flat surface, on uneven surfaces like plates etc they’ll just turn wonky...

Hint 3: Eat plenty and enjoy!

Also, some knitting pictures as attached- latest customer orders, skull mittens and pink slippers.

Rain, sharks and new yarns

It’s raining again. And we have another lot of visitors. It looks like Crete Aquarium will become the hot spot and saving grace for rainy days! It seems to suit everyone from Grandma to teenage cousins. This weeks picture is from shark section, they are just mesmerizing creatures. I can not get my head around the fact, that their skin looks so soft, and even, whilst glimmering with all shades of brown and grey, and in reality it is as soft as sanding paper…

I managed to finish off the second shawl, made with Garnstudio’s Drops yarn and pattern. I’m not 100% happy with it though, I think I’ll need to make it slightly longer to suit my customer. I’m waiting for her judgement re this matter. I also had a look into Garnstudio’s new yarn, Baby Merino. I’m glad to see baby yarns are not just in different shades of pink and blue, they’ve actually added some deeper colours on shade map too, even including black! I’ll have a look if I can get my hands on some of the new yarn shortly.

I’ve also started making a new pair of slippers, this time with Novita Huopanen mix, which is their superb felting yarn. This yarn is mixture of black and white, and so far it looks good. I’m waiting impatiently to see how it works when felted. I’ll keep you updated.

New Slippers

Let me proudly present; this is the last order which I’ve just finished. 3 pairs of slippers were an order and extra 2 for our new Etsy shop-Knit Matters. All except one made from Novita Huopanen and Hahtuvainen, felting yarns which are such a pleasure to work with. The purple pair was painful though, customer wanted to have ladybird decorations, and after several attempts, even after working with Fimo; I only managed to create a red pizza or wonky black dotted skull with legs, which had my 6-year old son and his friends in hysterics. After this encouraging encounter I decided to keep ladybirds simple and decorative only... With the other ones I’ve tried different things with, Fimo buttons/bases etc.