Dream Blue Sleepy Kit

50% alpaca and 50% wool hand dyed limited edition yarn by Drops. (50g = 150m) I so so love it. These are for Me&MySelf and my own design.

Sleeping socks are always useful. Under these you can wear another pair of socks to hide your toes or wear them in this way if you need to warm up your feet but let your toes to breath a bit cooler air.

(No, these ballerina ankles are definately not mine...

...they belong to LittleLady.)

This fabulous Sleepy Kit is also my Second Knitting Challenge for the year 2014 which was about learning to knit cables.

Horseshoe Cables

More blue for me and my special use...

This time in Horseshoe Cables (Double Cable)...

(My Own Design)

(Later on you will see what it turns out.)

On Tour In Rovaniemi

Chained with cables

Despite all of her duties, hurries and mothering Dear J found time to do something special for me too. It was a great surprise. I really L O V E these! (Thanks again honey!)

Her gift reminded me about the case I have trying to avoid for months: my Second Knitting Challenge for the year 2014. Perhaps you remember First Knitting Challenge which I finished at the end of February 2014.

I have been doing my best to avoid picking up the second challenge because I had some attitudes towards it but it was something I wanted to try out and learn.

It is knitting the plait, braid, cable... what ever you love to call it...

So here it goes; cable stitches to right and left. Part of my own design; blue for Me&MySelf. Dear J was very encouraging and gave me few -know-how-tips- and I found out

I   L O V E   K N I T T I NG  C A B L E S

BlanketNo3

So it all started -MyBigXmasSecret-. It all started because of one ball of Cewec's Silver Soft yarn. (100% acryl, 100g = 330 meters). Little Lady wanted to buy one ball of it at my favourite yarn shop very many months ago. She never ended up doing something of it. When she had forgot it I found myself from the sofa with it.

Sooner than I realised it had turned out to be 5 big Granny Squares. Ooops. I had destroyed her yarn.

But the accident was so extremely beautiful that I wanted more. You know; it is the same with chocolate. You just taste a bit and then you notice it all is gone....

So, there I was; deeper than deep in the trouble. See, despite of all the hard work lovely ladies at Pieni lankapuoti were not able to find or get me more of it. I phoned to several yarns shops selected by the cities I have friends -yes, very tactical- to find out in Oulu they had it. At the end my friend L brought it to me from her journeys to Oulu.

I needed also some white about which you find more about my latest yarnaholic confession.

Well, this is not a secret anymore and I can tell -like we all- Little Lady loves her VerySpecialBlanket. She was curious to know how I managed to do it so hide because we are always together. Well, she forgot she goes to school and I don't work out of house all the time. So, it was not a problem. Pile of Granny Squares kept growing higher slowly but surely...

...until I was at this point. Little Lady -like you too- was curoius to know where I was hiding the blanket so that she never crashed at it. Well, that for sure I am not going to tell anyone otherwise I will lost my VerySecretPlaces.

At this point when all of 32 squares were finished Mr W was very helpful by letting me in and swapping the squares from a place to another until it all looked satisfying.

So here it is

My Very Own Design

BlanketNo3

E N J O Y

M Y

D E A R

F R I E N D S

And no, it was not a huge job to tidy all those loose end yarns because (see the begin of this post) att those beautiful shades come from one sinlge ball. Simple, fast and rewarding. Yes, traditionally Granny Squares are made of left over yarns and it would have been cheaper to use them. BUT, one ball cost about 6€ but it had 330meters of yarn and I needed just 6 balls of it (plus this white) so at the end the cost were not huge. Neither the time because I saved my precious hours by using this kind of yarn. I -truly warmly- can recommend it.

FunnyBunnyXmas

So it is Christmas Eve. It is time to celebrate! Winter solstice is behind and from now on the days get longer and colder.

My gluten free mince pies don't look very pretty but for sure they are eatable. Traditionally instead of Gingerbread House there's always Gingerbread Stable. Little Lady does it with grandparents.

 The temperature is not poblem if you remember to wear your clothes on! Today morning there was -10 Celsius Degrees in our BunnyHotel but the angora rabbits just loved it. They had no cold at all. Despite they had their hair cut day at early December they really have no cold. The wool has grewn already for 1½ weeks and they look fluffy. They don't need to seek warmth from each others. I envy their wool!

Few days ago we share the angoras. Boys had to move into their own cage. In that way we get enough room for each creature and can avoid fights and accidents. Boys were curious about they new house and seem not to miss their previous life. They are 8 weeks old now.

They found the water bottles which have not got frozen despite it has been weeks -5 in the BunnyHotel and now even -10. We fill them with warm water so it takes longer to get it frozen.

The one I pity for is Aunt Lulu. She really loved them all. She proves you don't need to give a birth to be able to feel maternity. She was alloved to keep 2 BabyBunnies; Sleipnir and Pernilla who both are girls.

Lulu loved to cuddle with these 7 adorable kits. But now there's just 2 left. Well, she cuddles with them too. But there's so much to do with Sleipnir who got her name because of her character (wild gallops around the box with shiny black wool and white star on her fore head) not because of her sex.

These are my dear Christmas tree decorations. They are from Kalevala Koru collection. (Notice it is my own translation for the names.) This one is from the year 2005 Juhlayö (Holy Night).

2006 Idän tähti (East Star)

2007 Seimi (Crib)

2008 Sointu (Chord)

2009 Revontuli (Northern Light)

2010 Lapin taika (Lapland Magic)

2011 Juhlan aika (Celebration Time)

2012 Havu (Softwood)

2013 Mirha (Myrrh)

2014 Suojelus (Protection)

Adorable Yule Time to You All!

Little Lady's Turquoise Dress

Here is Little Ladys's dress.

My own design inspired by her.

The dress includes Swarovski hotfix crystals. I ordered the crystals and Be Jeweler Pro from Alemana. I must tell their service was excellent. See, this hotfix crystal thing is new to me and I didn't realise to include replacement tip of Be Jeweler Pro for SS12 size crystals which I ordered with SS20 crystals.

So it was a great surprise when I opened the delivery only to notice I had made a mistake but they had kindly included the needed tip (because the package of Be Jeweler didn't include it) as a Christmas gift for me! It would have cost just 1,90€ but the lack of it would have caused plenty of troubles. Thank you so much! I definately can recommend this web shop I have never used before! You know good service is one thing I really appreciate.

It really is pretty one!

Later on I will add a tutorial for the bow.

How to make it proper and stay in shape...

She was wearing also this hair jewelry. I bought it from Budabest Christmas Market on December 2010. It is hand made by a Hungarian craftman. It is deer bone and has 2 -obviously- glass beads and engraving.

Snow White Petticoat

Today 76 folds got a petticoat.

(My own design.)

It included meters of tulle. Which cutting and sewing were again pain; thanks to TheCat who really is a real girl. She loves tulle and can not help herself hunting it! At the end I needed send her into His room for her nap despite she moaned she is not tired at all! Well, life is not a fair thing...

I know, the waist band is far too black. But it was the only shade available in this band. But it does just fine because it can not be seen. :)

76 folds

Today I can welcome you to Narnia!

There was so much fussy work that I envy these little BunnyBabies who had time for relaxing fluffy moments.

My past few days have included some succeed in my struggles against horrible gluten free foods. Finally I managed to make my favourite porridge so that it doesn't remind goo and I don't need to choke if I dare to eat it. It still was not perfect but good it was! It is Whipped Lingonberry Porridge which we actually call "lappapuuro" rather than "vispipuuro".

I've been struggling also because Little Lady needs a dress. She has an idea what kind of it needs to be. So I took her into a fabric shop. These she chose.

So my strugging started. My own design but inspired by her. Of course also the patterns are hand made by me. No digital pattern makers. Just rulers, pens, scissors and good old tape.

The pattern making was the easiest part.

After cutting I started with the folds.

There is going to be 76 folds which really need to match.

To this point I ended tonight. I need to be honest and say it really needed good nerves, steady hands and tons of patience because I don't have any fancy folding equipments for my Helga.

I really longed for sweets my Dear Friend T send me for my birthday but those have been eaten by now so no sweets for me today despite I have been so assiduous.