Confessions

Saara, who blogs in Finnish about gardening, life and everything in between, has most kindly and flatteringly given me a picture and, apparently, a task to confess seven things. I actually hesitate to post these sort of things (not that I've had the occasion to before) because then I'll have to pass it on and suddenly we're at confession number one, which has a lot to do with my "comment on blogs you read week":

1. Reading other people's blogs makes me feel like a sweaty, creepy stalker.

Because I don't have many real life friends who blog, I have two options: One, pass this on to someone with lots of readers, someone who's probably already sick and tired of all memes and thinks "Oh dear lord, who is this nobody who thinks I actually care? Obviously my blog is great." Two, pass this on to someone with few readers, who will think "Jeebus, what is this pervert doing, reading about my life like this? We've never even met!" And I guess three, some sort of a combination of the two. You see? Awkwardness all around. The whole COBYRW was pure hell. It was like having to go through the entire neighborhood in your underwear, knock on every door and sing a song to them. I'm never doing that again!

Yet I guess I have no choice but to choose one of the above, because all other options - not accepting the acknowledgment or not passing it on - would just seem snotty and/or self-congratulatory. You just can't win. So how about I just tell you my favorite blogs and leave it at that? I don't actually have to go and tell them I creepily talk about them here behind their back, do I? Good.

JaanaMaa blogs about knitting, sewing and thrifty things in Finnish. She is so pretty and makes such awesome, inspiring things that when I found her blog I read it all in one sitting. Creepy, huh?

Needled belongs to a wonderful, wonderful knitting designer and I always feel refreshed and inspired when I read her writings about knitting history and hiking or look at her gorgeous photographs. I actually have a room in the basement decorated with pictures of her with her SO's face scratched out. (Too much?)

Okay, so there. Go stalk, it will be worth your while. On with the confessions, then.

2. I really, really, REALLY hate cooking.

I've tried the whole cooking, healthy eating yada yada thing. Okay, I lie. I've thought about trying it. But the truth is I'm more of a frozen pizza girl. If it wasn't for my finances, I would stay on that beautiful, greasy, carbohydrated path. Because of said finances, once again I've been forced to make food in my kitchen, the place I most like to use for watching other people make me food.

So I hate cooking, but baking bread, making hummus and eating all that with some smoothie? That's not remotely the same thing. I could easily blog about baking, but for some reason I find it really boring. Writing down instructions and recipes is so mechanical and rarely anything groundbreaking. Yet I just have to tell the world that I finally managed to bake the perfect ciabatta. 

I made these! Can you believe it?

I used this recipe (actually half of it) and I think I have now discovered the secrets of ciabatta:

1. Mixing the yeast in with cold water

2. Leaving the dough very soft

2. Putting a bowl of water on the oven pan with the loaves

Cold water means that the yeast does not really spring properly to life until in the oven. I let the dough leaven for two hours and it had maybe added a half to its volume. There were bubbles in it, but not many. Yet the loaves doubled in size once in the oven. I hesitate to add the softness of the dough to the secrets because I don't know how important that is yet, but that's another thing I did differently this time around. My previous attempts have resulted in very flat, dull loaves, nothing like the crispy plumpness of these specimens.

Srsly guys!

Another kitchen discovery this week has been the perfect flapjack recipe. (See? If I just link to other people's recipes, I don't have to write them out!)

3. I am not a morning person.

I wish I was, I really do. I'd love to be one of those people who rise and shine with the sun and get all sorts of shit done before the birds finish singing, but I'm not. I'm grumpy and slow and I'd rather sleep an extra half hour than, say, have breakfast. Enter flapjacks. I first encountered their chewy goodness during my studies in Wales. Packed with life (read: sugar), they are just the thing I like to stuff my face with on the train in the mornings. Or afternoons. Or nights. The recipe above made twelve separately packed snacks, enough for a week's worth of missed meals. I used butter instead of margarine, just cheap porridge oats and added some leftover chocolate muesli plus a pile of dried and chopped dates, apricots and goji berries. Delicious!

"We are food! No, really we are! Truuust uuuus!"

It's a beautiful evening outside, so let's save the last four confessions for another time. I want to get some gardening done before sunset.

Giveaway results

Well, it seems that I'm a little late with this, but somehow just didn't get around to writing this yesterday. Blogger has been a bit of a bitch lately and either did not post or just plain removed a couple of comments. After pondering it for a bit I decided to count the missing comments anyway because I still had all the notifications in my mailbox. If someone changed their minds and removed their comment themselves, they won't contact me and I'll pick someone else. Seems fair, doesn't it?

As it happens, Big Cat turned six yesterday so I wanted to involve him in the raffling process. Unfortunately he wasn't really that interested in pawing pieces of paper from a hat.

"FINE, I'll sniff them! The things you make me do..."

Next I lined the tickets on my desk knowing that they wouldn't stay there for long. Little Cat indeed meddled them within the minute, but only when I turned my back so I didn't get a picture. And she only dropped three tickets. Both refused to show any interest in my stupid tickets any more, so I gave up, put the pieces in a hat and picked one myself.

"I think there's something interesting happening outside."

(That's the finished but unblocked Roxanne mystery shawl, by the way.)

Now I had four winners, but how to distribute the prizes between them? Damn, I needed more paper. And hats. Both cats had found something more interesting to do, but after a very scientific process I finally have the four winners paired with four batches of yarn named by the number on the scale.

Our winners are:

Kasia - 74 g

Julie - 155 g

Lori - 62 g

 Ambrosius - 76 g

Congratulations! Send me your address to stranded.things@gmail.com and I'll get your packages on their way. I think I'm going to give the skeins a bit of a wash before sending them because honestly? Cat hair everywhere, plus a general thrift store rule even though they came in a sealed plastic bag. I need to block that Roxanne anyway, so I'll save you the trouble.

I'm actually already working with the yarn and leaning more and more towards cotton in my analysis. It will make a lovely light warm-weather shawl indeed. It's not a shawl I'm working on, though. Ten points to anyone who can guess what these are going to be! Cheating with my Rav projects page does not count.

I knew I had that 1,25mm hook for a reason. Okay, it's not even the smallest...

Thank you for everyone who commented with their ideas and pleas of cake! A line formed pretty quickly here and I actually ended up wishing I'd eaten more myself. Oh well, there will always be more cake. Maybe I will share the recipe at some point, I tried to do that last time but got bored.

So three months of public blogging have gone by. When I started I didn't really define what I was going to do and why.

After years and years of intent I finally went and sold some of my crafts at Ofelia market last year. It was exciting and I got asked about having a website/blog/online store a lot, so I decided to put at least one up. My friend Malike, who was there with me, came up with the name as we both share a love of the sea and its treasures, and gave me permission to use it. A website is in the works and it will feature both my crafts and my work as a translator, animator and graphic designer. All are things I do for a living - some more, some less. Right now this blog exists for me to document and share the stuff I make, and maybe in the future to promote places I'm going to be at or possible shop updates. Who knows. The main purpose is to raise my self-esteem as a crafter and remind myself that yeah, sometimes I actually do get shit done and some of it is actually quite nice and really? I have a pretty cool life.

This year is going to be different from the last few and let me just tell you that's a very promising thought. This blog is part of that. Three months is not much, but it marks a spot. Makes you keep digging for the treasure.

Blue Monday, or, giveaway week for adventurous souls

Since my mother is now safely wrapped inside her new Holden shawlette I feel safe to post pictures of the finished thing. I'm very pleased with it, it turned out so pretty and I just love the yarn, which is a limited colorway from Little Red Bicycle (Tandem Sock in Dagon). 

I guess I shouldn't have used the "thrifted treasures" title so soon because in all honesty that is a pretty big part of this blog. Browsing pretty things is, for me, a big middle finger to stress, hurry and being poor. Thus, after last week that was dominated by a big rush-job and me being so tired that I left a bag of yarn on the train, I somehow ended up splurging a little bit.

Used to hold a skein of yarn instead of the arms of an innocent bystander, for all of you not in the know.

In all honesty I bought an antique yarn swift last summer, but it's missing a somewhat vital component, the screw that keeps it attached on a table. A post about all the little projects I have lying around with the innocuous "I'll fix this bit and then..." labels attached to them is for another day. At least I now have something to model that missing screw on, and I paid a fraction of the retail price for it. Besides, it will soon come very handy.

Because I also bought a bag of cobweb weight yarn, nearly a kilogram altogether. It's not quite as insanely thin as the last one, but close. Again I have no idea what the fiber content is, but I'm guessing cotton. It's squishier than the last one that I suspect is mercerized, but not squishy enough to be wool. I did a burn test, but it told me nothing, really, except that it's organic material or rayon.

There's black yarn. 

Also in the picture: my IKEA scale, very useful for everything from baking to knitting to weighing kittens.

There's gray yarn.

Also in the picture: a sheet ripped by a kitten and destined into the sewing bin

And then there's a whole bunch of different shades of blue yarn.

Very dark, purplish indigo. 

A more greenish and duller shade of blue.

Bright, deep blue.

Very close to the last one, but a bit darker and duller.

Blue really is not my color. And since a week from now this blog turns three months, which obviously is a big fucking deal, I've decided to hold a giveaway worthy of such a milestone. Do you want my ridiculously thin blue yarn of unknown fiber content?

This is relevant also because I decided to overcome my stupid blog shyness and comment on all of the blogs I follow this week, starting today. So, comment on this post and tell me what you want to make out of 62-155 grams of maybe cobweb maybe cotton yarn. I really could use the ideas because apart from making a summer shawl/scarf from the gray yarn I have no ideas for the black yarn except a gazillion pairs of fancy lace stockings. After a week I'll pick up names from a hat or something and mail one of these batches to four people anywhere on this planet. And unlike all the fancy pants giveaways out there, not many people actually read this blog so you might end up with all four of them! How wonderful! Or not!

Let me repeat the rules:

1. Comment on this post.

2. Tell me what you would make out of 62-155 grams of mystery!yarn.

3. If you have a blog, put the address in the comment, I'm easily amused.

4. You have until May 16th midnight Finnish time to comment. The winners will be posted on May 17th.

5. Feel free to celebrate your own "comment on the blogs you read" week if you are as awkward as me about it.

I'm going to finish this post with a cake. In the last couple of weeks I've made 45 liters of mead, over 120 doughnuts, three cakes and some ginger ale and this is the only picture I have to show for it. It's also entirely mine, my own, for me to eat. I had that slice and now I'm full. Cake, anyone?

Chocolate cake with cream, mascarpone and cherry filling and chocolate frosting. Yum!

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.

Pushing buttons

I continue recovering, although it feels painfully slow. My main occupation is still being a snot factory and I get exhausted quickly, but every day sees improvement. The goal is to be able to dance and wrestle by the weekend and if that doesn't happen, then I'll complain.

In the meanwhile I've been finding pleasure where I can. When my mother came by to bring me supplies over the weekend she brought me the greatest thing a sick person could ever wish for: a bag full of buttons. No, not that kind of buttons.

These kind of buttons.

I know! Amazing, right? There must have been over a kilogram of them. It effectively doubled my button collection. Oh... didn't I tell you about my button collection? Well you're in luck! You can just let go of the reins because those horses are gone.

Some years ago, when started seriously obsessing over crafting in 2007 or so, I realized that whenever I needed buttons for something I had to go out and buy some. And as most of you probably know, buttons are damn expensive, and it's hard to find the perfect ones. So I decided that any self-respecting crafter should have a button collection and started systematically picking up nice ones from craft wholesales, trips and thrift stores. (Of course this thinking spread and now I have pretty extensive supplies of pretty much everything). Then my mother (love you mom!) found this amazing old sewing box full of knitting needles and lace and buttons and everything sort of got out of hand.

That right side? The one that doesn't shut anymore? Yeah... that's my button drawer.

So I have been sorting the buttons little by little. I have a system you see: First I separate the ones there are two or more of and tie them together using sewing thread. If there are perfectly identical ones in different colors or sizes I sometimes tie them all together. Then I assort the rest according to color and store them in ziplock bags. It's like building a jigsaw puzzle. Especially the hundreds of nearly identical little white buttons closely resembled the sky parts of certain 1500 piece puzzles.

This is about half of the bag.

And every now and then I would run into something fabulous and go "OMG MUST BLOG ABOUT THIS BUTTON!" I would blame the fever, but let's just face it: I get really pumped up about buttons. So do you want to see the Best Of? Of course you do! Why else would you be there if not for morbid curiosity or desperate procrastination and I know that at this point, anything goes!

Item number one: Occultists have uniforms? Who knew!

If you really want to avoid doing something right now, find out what that is. Is it a khamsa, protection from the evil eye? Some freaky Danish coat of arms (it's made in Copenhagen)? What ever it is, it's pretty cool. Too bad there's just one.

A measuring tape for your convenience and amazement.

Next, tell me these aren't the most precious thing you've ever seen. They are mother of pearl and about 6mm in diameter. They are tiny and absolutely gorgeous and wouldn't seem out of place in a dollhouse. Here are some other favorites:

Glass flowers! Pretty as ice.

Tiny blue stripes!

That on the bottom right? IT'S A LITTLE HAT!

Hand-painted!

Tentacles!

Probably some berries, but they really remind me of cells and blood vessels.

I'll admit that most of my more eccentric buttons are going to be hard to use because personally I tend to favor simple, basic forms, like these steel ones I searched high and low and paid way too much money for, on my dropkick cardi:

Autumn photoshoots: I need more of them.

Or these on my first and favorite cardigan (click for better picks on Raverly): simple but the colors slide from bright yellow to deep red (picked up from Edinburgh, actually):

Also featured: droll colors and my squid dress.

So far I have always chosen buttons for a project, but with my current selection I think I should start designing projects for buttons. These, for instance, would look very pretty on a between-seasons wool coat:

Brains or roses? You choose!

And these really want to be on a pretty gray cardigan - there can never be too many cardigans:

They have deer on them! And stars! And speaking of deer:

I haz them.

There is something about metal buttons with pretty pictures on them, I'm telling you. By the way, here's another question for you curious types: that flower button on the bottom there really, really reminds me of something but I cannot for the life of me think what. Something by Gallen-Kallela or Simberg, maybe? Perhaps it's just this, perhaps it's something else, all I know is it strikes a chord and I love it.

This was only a small glimpse, but I feel sorry for you now (the feeling is mutual, I'm sure) and shall finish on another note entirely. After all these weeks I finally blocked my Geodesic cardigan and now there are only a couple of yarn ends to weave in! Ironically, there will be no buttons on it.

That needle cushion sure is an attention whore.

Oh, by the way, look down! I added voting buttons so you can feel rewarded for your reading experience and make your mark, if you wish. Suggestions for better options are accepted in the comments!

Back from the dead.

Wow. Good thing I never actually wrote it down that I was going to update once a week because that would have been embarrassing. I have a lot of excuses though; not only was I busy with clothes for Riazan but I also got myself a translation gig, the deadline of which I managed to push to Monday after the game. The fever set in on Monday night and oh boy have I had a fun week since! I'll spare you the details but I'm slowly recovering and today I'm even able to form entire thoughts and sentences, as you can see for yourselves, and even better, lift and move my hands enough to type them down in a satisfactorily accurate manner.

So, where were we? Riazan, right. As it turned out I didn't have time to take my sewing machine to be serviced and my housemate's Pretty Woman at the very least needs its bobbin screw, which I couldn't find, tightened so I ended up sewing all the visible stitches by hand. As a direct result I didn't finish the green coat at all and went with just the apron and lots of layers. Luckily it was warm, but I wouldn't be surprised if first sweating indoors and then wearing no actual outer garments and getting my boots and socks wet twice in the forest had something to do with the flu that followed. The curse of Koschei indeed.

I did iron it, before the game.

Here are some pictures from before the game, the only ones that have been linked so far. Some of the costumes were insanely gorgeous and I felt very plain, but that was appropriate for my character whose clothes were, after all, the ones that had been buried under the floor of the house of her Chinese husband (who thought she was a crane maiden) for years before she managed to find her way home. With a fake plait I think I looked very much like the inspiration for my character, though instead of Beautiful or Wise I reckon she had earned the name Wily. I had heaps of fun, in case you can't tell.

I think I've had enough exercise for now. Time to pass out for a while, but I'll hopefully get back to updating before the week is out. To compensate, you know.