Breath of fresh air

Recycling is a trend. Unfortunately trend is starting to turn against itself, as recycling and enviroment friendly are terms easily and light heartedly used in any marketing and advertising. I tried to make Real Finds in Etsy as well as from web, and 80% I managed to come across was something from the grey zone- something which possibly was recycled, but most likely not, word has just been tagged in to create traffic. Other option I found in my travels was recycled odd items- purely recycled but with no usage purpose, something to purchase to be ecofriendly (but how ecofriendly one can be just by purchasing something with no use or need?) My personal red flag also is too expensive upcycled items- why would I want to pay more for a recycled button ring (plastic button attached to a kinder egg ring) than for a truly handmade silver ring?

Thankfully I found some true crafters! There are still some clever ideas around and clever crafters to make them. This week I chose some of my favorites, have a look and be surprised what can be done!

 

 Bird cage by Paperleaves

This is a blank pop-up greeting card made from recycled and repurposed paper. A tiny red bird sits on its perch in an open cage.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/paperleaves

Rug like my grandma used to make- by Emmeli Works


Do your fitted sheets wear out faster than your top sheets? Mine do. The good news is that I am left with high thread count sheets that have past their prime for my bed, but still have a lot of love to give. I add all the used fabric I can find that matches (in addition to sheets, this rug contains some shirts, pants and even a poly/cotton shower curtain) then I render that fabric into strips and knot them together using the toothbrush method. A beautiful, soft and durable rug is created!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/EmmeliWorks 

Recycled rice sack by Panbeh


Recycled basmati rice sack shopping bag . Burlap outer shell and red cotton inside. Great for shopping and going out!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/panbeh 

Piano Key Belt Buckle Recycled Licence Plates -


These little baby piano keys are cut from license plates so you can walk, dance, or drive to your own music!
I've designed these buckles with bits of vintage, retired, and found-alongside-the-road vehicle license plates, mostly from the state of Michigan [although Ohio has worked its way in here and there]. These plates have traveled places, and now they will again! 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/vintageinretrospect

 

Lady Liberty -Hand painted upcycled decoupage decorf art canister

The eco-friendly recycled materials used in this item are: a tin can, magazine clippings, recycled paper, and yogi tea tags. This lovely, symbolic piece displays a silver 1890 coin with Lady Liberty upon it and then an illustration of Lady Liberty in her flowing white dress nurturing an injured dove (symbolizing peace); pink tulips and exotic flowers surround the dove. Lady Liberty's hand is also depicted pulling a white rope which represents the strength of liberty; as well as her delicate smile of hope.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ecofriendlyfreckles

New Year, New Beginnings

We've returned to the normal routines of our ordinary life! It actually feels good to be back at home, and to jump back to normality. Having said that, our lives never occure to be normal. This week we are dog-sitting (last week it was combined house-horses-dogs-sitting) for a 6 months old puppy Max, whose owner has gone on holiday. He keeps running riot around our older dog Charlie. I can forgive all the accidents, including the smelly ones, but Max has now commited the cardinal mistake of attacking my stacks of yarn, and that is a mistake that is not easily forgiven. My hopes to get a new dog addition to our family have vanished nearly completely- I would not have patience to deal with the mess just now. That is unless someone introduces me to a puppy who hates yarns and wool, my son's toys and hubby's shoes- oh and who automatically knows the toilet issues too! Having said that, I do really love them, bless their smelly socks!

I will also confirm the winner for my Christmas Pay it Forward competition- Sue is the winner and I wish her Happy Birthday as well as plenty of blessings for the surgery on 18th of Jan!

Regarding the knitting, I do have some new ideas. As a mum, my child's safety is always in my mind. When in Finland I noticed most of us wearing a good old safety reflector, and I thought to add some reflectors to my accessories as an extra additional bonus and safety measure. First item is out, second is waiting for a model to arrive and help me out (my son profoundly refuses to model for girly hat, and I can not fight with that).

These are some logistic I found from this web site http://www.laxodesign.ch/, they also have some stunning reflector styles & models on sale including the ones I've used myself.

At night, the human eye only works at 5% of its usual capacity, which is a frightening fact and makes road safety measures all the more important. With a reflector our visibility can go from 100 to 300 metres with high beams and from 20 to 150 metres with low beams.
A person dies on our roads every 97 seconds – a simple gesture like wearing a reflector can help us stay safe and reduce the number of fatalities.

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.

Living with polar bear

This week has flown by! This is because it's been the first week since our move to new house, and we are all trying to find our bearings, and the tricks there is in the older houses. Also partially because I’ve really tried to study, and concentrate to this course about accountancy, with no luck I’m afraid…It has become clear that me and mathematics do not agree with each others.
I have managed to grasp the basics, but every time I try a new exercise I get confused. Why mathematics can not be as simple as on knitting or visiting the bakery- one chocolate cake, two chocolate cakes…. If you have any ideas how to help me with basics of accountancy, please feel free to contact me!


I have also finished off a few new orders, white ones made with traditional style, with Novita pattern, and brown ones with Garnstudio pattern and Novita yarns. I have concentrated all my efforts on these knits, as my dear husband, who has been a valuable asset (read a hand model for men’s gloves) has stopped smoking. This has meant that our 1st week in new house has been as pleasant as living in a zoo with wounded polar bear. Bless him, he is trying really hard, week 2 is nearly done, but I’m ready to attack him with 10 nicotine patches while he is a sleep, just to make our life easier...So if there is anyone out there who knows tricks to accountancy and grumpy husbands, please contact me urgently!

Greek lightning!

Just when I thought my lige was settled after previous uprooting and relocation, we're hit by Greek lightning!Ou landlord gave us 5 days to move out; his brother needed a home, our home. After four sleepless nights and attempts to find a new home we finally, on last minute found one (finding a new place which would accept a family with pets, and also one that we could actually afford was not an easy task)! Praise the Lord!

Our new home is actually better what we've had before, and after all the hassle with broken heater, knackered hot water boiler and no cooking facilities, we've managed to conquered the move and settle in! I missed last weeks blogg update, as I did not have access to internet either, obviously due to the move, so please accept my apologies re this.

Anyhow, I've attached a picture of our new drive/path into our new home. Poor Charlie the Dog gets tormented by local cats- they keep appearing behind our windows just to drive him potty!!

Amongst all these manic circumstances I've unravelled my stress levels with knitting, and here are my new items for our shop, Merry Berry Christmas socks, Clever Blue mobile phone case and also latest customer order for brown gloves, made with Garn Studio pattern Z-434, and Novita Nalle yarn.

p.s:When checked into Etsy, came across this seller InspiredbyMarie and item wood burned sign: Welcome to Nuthouse! Brilliant, that's what we need!!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32164599

New orders

This is my latest handy work, a pair of felted slippers which were made for my good friend Sirpa, as a birthday present. My plan was to decorate these orange beauties with gold, silver, and diamonds (all mentioned being authentic materials of course….hmmm in my dreams…and hers…) to match her beauty queen like appearance, but after a thought I decided to stick with more common material, wool instead, to match with the real world. She did like them, so mission accomplished!

I also received my first Alchemy requests-custom made requests, via Etsy. Hooray! I’ll keep you posted, but so far requests include gloves, mittens and few slippers. Brilliant! I’m also waiting for new stock to arrive. There will be new yarns like Puro, Huopanen, and Luxus Cloud to arrive to my shop listing!

I love making presents and orders, as whilst knitting stitch after stitch I also weave part of myself to them too. Orders are also fun in a sense, that the requested item my not match my taste and style at all, which sometimes is like opening my eyes to the world I did not know existed. One becomes so accustomed to daily routines and colour schemes one is used to, that getting an order with different view, with new colours and shapes becomes a learning curve. I also believe that in a process of doing anything artistic, hand made items, writing etc one becomes blind to the results and therefore to make the item, it’s better to stand away from it, so one can clean the act and open the eyes again for finishing touches. These are my words of wisdom for this week, take care and God Bless!

Riikka's week

This week has been busy, we've had some visitors, suffered in a small heat wave and also I've worked hard to promote our Etsy shop by joining in I love etsy.com, Ravelry etc and in the mean while I've also tried to hunt down pattern ideas for my banana- silk yarn I've had in my stock since 1969 (approx of course...but that's how it feels and I do not like to leave yarns unknitted (is that a word)). So far hunt has been desperate, and unfortunately not that successful. But I'll be strong and conquer this matter eventually. Please let me know if you have some ideas for patterns or etsy shops!

I have also started with my latest knitting order, lace styles shawl. The attached picture is from the project being half way through. I've followed pattern by Garn studios, and also used their yarns for this as that was what my customers wished as we had to match the colour of yarn to her new dress. I do have to admit, shawl is stunning, I'm nearly done with it so will keep you updated. This project has been slightly hot to deal with, yarn is a mix of Cotton Viscose and Alpaca, and with this heat wave it has been a pretty good exercise to knit it, I sure that on my diet terms this means I can take second helping of chocolate cake!

Welcome to Knit Matters!

Due to family circumstances we had to relocate, and I’ve just landed in the island of Crete, which itself is not a bad option at all, but it also meant I had to leave my dear friends and knitting club behind. Knitting club was up and running only for a short period, as me and co-founder in club and Knit Matters Jenny, decided to act on behalf our dear hobby only about a year ago. Because I can not take part of our club’s weekly meetings, we decided to meet up this way instead, by updating our progress and this way keeping in touch. This would also allow me and Jenny to keep up with Knit Matters together, and brag about latest yarn purchases as well as knitting orders we’ve finished.

So let me introduce my part of Knit Matters; My name is Riikka, I’m 33 years old and I’m from Finland. I’ve been knitting since I was 11 (the basic’s in knitting and other crafts are taught to us in primary school), but I do have to admit after being forced to knit a pair of woolly gloves, where the end result was stunningly bright pink yarn (think 80’s) with tears and snot covering the finishing results and other glove being 3 times bigger than other, I swore not to knit ever again. This oath lasted until few years later my older sister waltzed in to our kitchen wearing a stunning hand knitted jumper, which of course I wanted to have! More importantly I wanted to learn to make one. So after quite many painful attempts and endless advice from both, my mother and sister, I finished off my first jumper and haven’t stopped since. I now-a-day knit whilst watching TV, sunbathing etc. I use all methods, crocheting, knitting, felting and due to my first experience with gloves made from synthetic fiber which created so much static electricity I could have saved lives and sell them to survival kits all over the world (did I already mention being part of girl scouts also) I use only natural fibers and good quality yarns. I’ m most well known from my slippers and cardigans, I love wearing them, hence my obsession with these items.

I met Jenny, the co-founder, in Wales few years back, and if I though my life was over taken by stacks of yarn and new patters, I was now overwhelmed with the endless supply of ideas, yarns and patterns she had! No need to mention we became good friends very fast. We set up our knitting club, took few orders here and there and also decided to set up Knit Matters as Ebay shop, selling Finnish Novita yarns and ready made items. My relocation changed the plans completely, so here we are with out new plans, brand new Etsy shop, blog etc.

The reason why we stock Novita yarns and why we love them is fairly simple. Yarns are excellent quality, and the yarns are also reasonably priced. I hate setting my eyes on a cardigan pattern and finding out that the yarn options will send me to the brink of bankruptcy and divorce (my dear husband has given in to the fact that house is covered with yarns, knitting needles, pattern books, all merrily covered in woolly fluff, but even he has set some limits to my bad habits). Novita yarns have been around for the last 80-years, which also mean yarns are made for usage, they are durable, most are machine washable (hooray!) and they last very well. Everything a mad knitter needs!