Too hot to blog

Summer is a great time for taking pictures, but less so for sitting on a computer. They keep promising a thunderstorm, but where is it?! All I'm able to do nowadays is lie very still in as few clothes as possible.

Well. That's not exactly true. This week I took a trip to Tallinn for a day, to the city's infamous wholesale craft store Karnaluks, a mecca for all who like to stitch or glue shit together. I went in with a plan and came out with everything I need for the next month, shit-wise:

And for a fraction of the price I would have paid in Finland.

I will show you how everything turns out when the time comes.

Despite the heat I have managed to get some knitting done, too. The second I saw the first pictures of Cladonia (links to Rav), I knew I had to knit it like RIGHT NOW. So I did, with some subtly self-striping sock yarn from my stash.

My dress form is always so fancy.

To my surprise, even though I'm quite happy with it, I really love the versions other people have knitted with very pastel palettes. I'm usually all about the dark and muted colors, but this could be a good pattern for some experimenting, quite like Daybreak, which I've already knitted twice. I'd also love to knit this again in something extra luxurious, something silky maybe.

The echo shawl of insanity has made some progress, too. It looks like some sort of a skin condition right now, but you just wait until it's all finished and blocked!

Then it will look less like a disease.

I also had a bit of a scare recently when the little cat went missing for 29 hours. She is not very bright or capable of taking care of herself so I was beside myself with worry the whole time. When she was found 9 months ago I promised her she would never have to be lonely and hungry and scared again, and obviously I felt like I let her down massively. She had never been outside since so I had no idea how she would act and how to find her.

What eventually cracked the case was this, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's a web page with details about what a lost cat probably does based on her personality. That and many statements from friends encouraged me to keep looking near the house, because a shy and timid cat like her will most probably not stray far. She was finally found hiding on a neighbor's yard, scratched and miserable but all right. I've never been quite as relieved, for a moment I thought I would never see her again. As soon as we got home she was back to her own self.

Normal = unable to decide whether to play with a roll of tape or lick butt.

Whoops!

The last few weeks have positively flown by, I don't even know how. First two people moved out of the house, and I cleaned a lot. Then one person moved in and I cleaned some more. But cleaning is not all I've accomplished, a fact proven by how not clean my room already is. Oh well! On with the show.

Remember this?

Well, it soon turned into this:

It's a mask. A very specific mask, for my día de los muertos -inspired wrestling persona. I constructed it using my face and a well-fitting, cheap carnival mask to model it on. 

First I crocheted two identical circles for the eyes, leaving them thinner next to the nose and the holes slightly bigger than desired.

Second I made a heart motif and kept crocheting around it for a bit. When the heart motif met the eyes (I roughly fitted it both on my face and the other mask every now and then) I sewed all three together.

Third I filled in the nose area a bit, sewed the eyes together and then filled the gap above the nose.

Fourth I filled in both sides of the forehead to form a continuous shape with the eyes and the heart motif.

Fifth I crocheted one full round of sc around the entire mask and one round of shells, leaving a gap around the nose.

Finally I filled the eye holes with shells as well to give it that día de los muertos -look.

It has to stay on during some pretty spectacular moves, so I decided to try my hands on starching.

I first looked into starching with sugar, but decided that I didn't really want to risk it while sweating profusely. Instead I used your every-day craft glue mixed with water in equal parts, the carnival mask and some cling film.

First I lined the inside of the carnival mask with cling film.

Then I submerged the crocheted mask in the glue/water mix and squeezed all the extra starch out.

 Next I spread the wet mask onto the carnival mask, careful to align the eyes and straighten all the edge shells.

Then I let it dry, stretching and adjusting it later when it was less damp and easier to manipulate. You could probably use more glue to achieve a crispier result, but I chose to repeat the starching process to make the mask harder. The more repeats, the harder the results I would imagine.

When the mask had completely dried I zigzagged an elastic band on it, and another one on the first band itself to go over the top of my head. I used these instructions to make two black and two red ribbon roses, which I then sewed on the second elastic band. The length of the ribbon is not very important, it just affects the size of the flower.

Aaand then I took some promo pics. Complete with make-up. They actually came out surprisingly well despite my very limited experience with both make-up and posing for a camera.

Oooh yeah, myspace-a-licious! How I wish my camera had a self timer.

The dress I'm wearing in the picture above is that black lace number from Stockholm.

It has had something extra done recently, too. I took red sequins, an embroidery frame and some black tulle, sketched an anatomical heart on a piece of paper and proceeded to sew the sequins on the tulle in the shape of a heart.

Bling!

Then I pinned and zigzagged it on the front of the dress, trimming the tulle around the stitches. It's very thin so it hardly shows.

And that's only the beginning. Stay tuned!

I also started (and frogged and started and frogged and started) and finished something summery just in time for all the cold and rain. For some reason I had so much trouble with this little waistcoat. Could have been my insistence to knit mostly in the middle of the night, who would have thought! Now it's done, however, and I'm very pleased with it. Worn in the picture over my flowery summer dress with a very generous amount of cleavage, which was actually the inspiration to make it in the first place.

I've also got something in the works out of that mystery!cotton yarn that's been flying around the world. It's already driving me nuts, but will be fucking gorgeous when I finish it. Behold the echo flower shawl:

Impressive, isn't it?

Last night I also whipped together a little owl pillow/pouch. It just needs its drawstring legs and face and it's done.

You see? I have not been slacking even though posting about it has been on hiatus. And this does not include all the work stuff, mainly hats. They will have to be in another post because wrestling practice and figuring out what to knit over the weekend at a friend's cabin awaits.

Visitors and pretty dresses

A bunny the size of my fist. And my hands are small.

 
We had a little Easter visitor here on Monday. It tried very hard to remain invisible there in the empty flowerbed just in front of our door. Smart, because we all kept an eye on it until its parents came back. Last summer they were not as lucky when they hid their baby in our garden, and my cat found it instead of me. The downside of evidently having a rabbit family in the garden is that now I have to worry about them every minute I'm outside with kitties.

Remember when I said I would be going away for the weekend? Well I did. Checked out Stockholm and two exhibitions there with my very good friend Malike: Voudou at the Ethnographic Museum and Lust and Vice at the National Museum. I especially loved the voudou exhibition; I've always said that voudou would be my religion of choice if I was a religious type. It's inclusiveness, lack of a black-and-white worldview, as well as shamanistic aspects appeal to me.

And don't forget really, really awesome paraphernalia.

Luckily for my wallet all the yarn shops of Stockholm were closed, but I did make some pretty spectacular finds at one of the local Beyond Retro stores. I went there looking for a dress to modify for a certain event later this year, and against all odds actually found one:

It's as if it was made for me, the fit is perfect, which means that I won't have to do any sewing alterations to it. It's from a California-based teen label, All That Jazz, and I would date it to the 90's. Meaning that I won't feel bad about putting a ton of sequins on it. It says dry-clean only, but I have this urge to just toss it in the washer. What's the worst that could happen? It's just nylon and rayon after all. Maybe just a gentle cold cycle. Would the lace suffer for it? Any suggestions?

The next item is the real treasure. I saw it, squealed a lot, looked at the price tag, squealed even more (still out of delight), put it on, squealing the whole time because it looked like it just might fit, had to call Malike over to button it up and then almost fainted because it was just so perfect.




It's hand-made, I'm thinking someone's wedding dress from the 50's judging by the length. You can't really see it from the pic but it's deliciously creamy and the hem is ragged and stained - hence the very generous pricing. The hem is exactly why I fell in love with it, it gives it an air of decaying romance which I find very hard to resist*. Apart from the hem it is in fabulous shape. It has 27 little buttons in the back.

Why yes, I do need someone to dress me!

The neckline is a lovely shape and has a lace edging. The bust has that 50's conical shape, but it's easily fixed. A couple of the buttons are a little bit loose, too, but that's really all I have to do with it. I'm considering letting the side seams out just a little bit to put less pressure on the buttons, but it depends on how easy that would be.

Apparently I am exactly the shape and size of 50's women because this is not the first time something roughly from that era fits me like a glove. If I was wearing a conical bra, that is.

It was very productive weekend trip, as you can see. I even finished the secret knitting project I mentioned, thus probably breaking some sort of a record. If you think there's no way you're the recipient and simply cannot wait for me to publicly post pictures, go here.

I went thrifting again yesterday (I may or may not have a problem with that) and, among other things for new, exciting projects, found this gorgeousness:

Pretty pretty pretty pretty!

A 50 gram skein of beautiful, shiny yarn in an intensive, bright, burnt orangey red. I'm guessing mercerized cotton, viscose or a blend, but it's hard to tell. And the weight? We're talking about sewing thread thin. It's crazy. I could make a shawl out of this thing. The thinnest, most delicate shawl ever. Or tons and tons of lace edging. Or socks.

* I blame the 1986 film Snow Queen, which I quite frankly think is one of the best and most visionary Finnish films ever. I had a massive crush on the robber princess, who in retrospect is definitely the weakest link in the whole damn film. But she was really cool when I was 4! You can actually watch the whole film on YouTube. It has influenced me immensely, aesthetically.

Thrifted treasures

It probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that I like thrift stores. I love looking for, and finding, treasure. Mostly treasure I can turn into something else. I've been obsessed with little porcelain cups and plates for a while, ever since I started my teacup collection. (What, I didn't tell you about my teacup collection yet? You can rest easy, that's a post for another day.) Teacup collection soon spread into a saucer collection, and then plate, teapot, sugar pot and creamer collections... you get my drift. All this has gained more purpose recently when I started picking up pretty candle holders, too.

Take a couple of pretty, similar but not matching plates and saucers, add a bit of epoxy (and fix other broken stuff while you're at it) and you have fancy-pants multi-layer cake plates:

Pretty, no? They're quite sturdy, too. Perfect for mad teaparties.

It's always fun to go thrifting with some actual goals in mind, but equally pleasing to see surprising potential in something frivolous and almost free. Like this for example:

It's a little plastic frame that looks like leather with pictures of what I can only surmise is some sort of a crime family lead by an evil naked baby. To hide the atrocity I went through a collection of old photographs and printed three out on photograph paper.

Now that's what I call improvement! It still needs a bit of cleaning up and perhaps a lace trim. We will see.

In knitting news I started an exciting new project and cast on Roxanne Mystery Shawl from Feministy. Two clues have been released, but there's plenty of time to catch up! I'm not going to spoil by posting pics until the whole thing is done, but if you're curious, you can see the result of the first clue on my Rav project page. Mystery knitting is always fun, I heartily recommend it! Even if you don't like the result you can always gift it to someone who will. I myself intend to like this one, because I lack a nice soft shawl I can wear next to skin, and purple is just my color.

The only downside is that you have to wait for the clues. Hence another project, because I'm going away for the weekend. And what is a weekend away without knitting? Nothing, I tell you, nothing! This one's going to be a present, though, so no links or pics for you! It's another shawl, that's all I'm going to say about that now.

They call me the pie master

I watched Twin Peaks for the first time in its entirety last year with my flatmate, who cooks. It started with brie and butter baguettes. Then came the donuts. Soon enough we were stuffing our faces every other night and dreaming about the perfect cherry pie. Apple, bilberry, pumpkin too, but especially cherry. I'm a sucker for that poisonous essence found in canned cherries, Dr. Pepper and arsenic.

The reason it took me about eight months to actually get around making said pie was that it's impossible to find fresh or even frozen sour cherries in Finland and even canned tend to be hard to find and expensive. Miraculously at least Citymarket now carries huge jars of both sweet and sour cherries, and this pie is made with the latter.

Damn good pie, this is. Glossy, too!

I have to say, I am extremely pleased with this pie. I don't know what the secret is because it was all very simple, but let me take you through the process so that I, or you, can maybe replicate it later and pinpoint the source of fabulousness.

The crust

5 dl flour
225 g cold butter

All crumbled together. The secret to a nice flaky crust is to handle the dough as little as possible to keep the butter from melting. The consistence should be teensy crumbs of butter encased in flour. I am now dreaming about a good pastry cutter, but a kitchen blender should do the job as well and I just pinched little cubes of butter in the flour with my fingertips until it was suitably crumbly.

Now, for a regular shortcut pastry you usually just mix a small amount of water in with the butter-flour mixture. Apparently you can replace some of the water with vodka, which will then evaporate from the pie and result in a deliciously flaky crust. The recipe I used contained a small amount of vinegar, which I suspect works in a similar manner. I added

0,4 dl water
0,1 dl vinegar
0,75 egg (I mixed the yolk with the white and left a little in the cup for later)

I then smoothed the pastry into a lump, divided it into two (I even used a scale to do it!), wrapped the halves in cling wrap and put them in the fridge.

The filling

1 jar (350 g) of sour cherries + about half the liquid
3 dl brown sugar
a healthy dose of cinnamon
1 dl flour

All mixed together. Now, this is the point where I took a two-hour nap, so I let the filling stew and the pastry cool in peace. It's imperative to keep the pastry cold, but who cares when you combine the filling ingredients, not me.

After I woke up I took one half of the pastry out of the fridge, sandwiched it between cling film and proceeded to roll it into a thin, pie dish sized shape, readjusting the cling films every now and then to avoid wrinkles and stickiness. I let the bottom cool off in the fridge while I rolled out the other half and cut it into the lattice strips. Then I brushed the bottom with the remaining egg, added the filling, made a pretty lattice top, brushed it withe remaining egg remains and baked the whole beauty in 220°C for 35 minutes. Let it cool for a bit and served with ice cream. OMG perfect! For the record, there was no cherry essence taste: apparently adding a little almond extract makes it even more delicious. I couldn't use it because of an allergy, but do try it if you will! And the vodka crust, too. Just don't eat it raw too much.

Om to the fucking nom nom!

In other news I've been more inclined to start projects than finish them. There's a pair of wool pants on the needles that will probably only premier next winter because it's most definitely spring now, commission hats are waiting to be cast on, a sock pattern awaits proper inspiration, I think I promised to make two pairs of socks for different people... but most excited I've been about Geodesic cardigan (links to Rav, here's the link to Interweave store).

I'm at the first tucks, how exciting!

I was originally going to splurge on some Malabrigo lace for it, but in some fit of common sense decided on this mystery laceweight wool I found from a thrift store. A bit disappointingly the first of two skeins had numerous cuts here and there, but no trace of any animals and all my yarn is nowadays safely tucked away in ziplock bags so I decided not to worry about it. I ended up with two bigger balls and several tiny ones. But hey, 150 g of laceweight for 2 euros, what am I complaining about? It's a very pretty purple, too.

I've also been on a cross stitch highway. I decided way before Yule while making the kitty-vomit-thing that I needed motivational sign myself. Something like a motto I could live by, that would inform anyone visiting my home of the values I live by. Something pretty, sophisticated and subtle. Something like...

The antique frame compliments these delicate stitches perfectly.

The font is from freepatternsonline.com and two of the birds from tipnut.com. The frames and the bird on the bottom left I designed myself. As before, the picture below should be big enough to work from. Because I know what's been missing from your home decor.

You're welcome.