Birds

Birds we saw today:

Starlings. Must be at least ten years since I saw moving starlings. 50 years ago they were everwhere.

Swallows. Not so rare, luckily

Shoes. A new species.

Sparrow. Doesn't live near our house, this is a citizen bird. Liked my smoked salmon.

Hm. Dog and hubby. Nice birds.

Rainy day

Det regnar i dag - It's raining today.

My Schlumberga has been out all summer. Now she has moved closer to the stairs, she's coming in soon. But first I'll fix her a bit. She has a lot of debris amongst her branches, and spiders, and other living things with legs. The birds have pooed on her, shame on them. She has to take a real shower, not only sitting in the summer raing. She needs a bigger, sturdier pot, she's very heavy. I got her as a tiny branch from my mother's Schlumberga many years ago.

I the autumn she will explode in pink flowers.

I watched a documentary yesterday. It was about a man they call "Hästmannen", "The Horse Man", in Sweden where he lives. In the film he lived as they did a hundred years ago, only he had a radio in his house. He loves horses, he had three Ardenners, big working horses. He had a few cows also. Later he got ill and couldn't take care of the animals, so they took them away from him. Pics from the film:

There are so many eccentric people in our world. I so wish Hästmannen would be able to have at least one horse, but he really can't take care of them any more. Just look at the pic below where he's trying to harvest in a snow storm.

I finally bought this wonderful book, ten years later than I had planned. It's a treasure. See that sweater with the sheep? There must be all the varieties of Shetland sheep in it. Isn't that awesome? The book was edited by Deborah Robson.

Shetland Flock by Teresa Gardner. Eleven different yarns from nine sheep handspun in the natural colors of Shetland sheep.

Pink!

I have knitted a pink shawl, and I like it! Who could have guessed? Pink is not a color you would think I could wear. Two yarns are handspun merino+bamboo (pink) and merino+silk (reddish). The variegated is Manos Lace, alpaca+silk+cashmere. Needles 2,5 mm. Edging from "A Gathering of Lace" or "Victorian Lace Today", I have forgotten which one. Shawl pattern "The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief" by Orange Flower on Ravelry.

Nalbinding and supported spindling

I was out early this morning and there was a wonderful light over the valley. I'm still nalbinding this hat, it's not a very fast technique. And I spin some lovely BFL-silk hand dyes by Carola: Kariola's Hand Made Items. The Russian spindle with brass tip is from IST Crafts. It's a fantastic spindle, just as good as the small doughnut stone whorl spindle I got from a friend in France.

Morning with the spiders

Hundreds and hundreds of spider webs everywhere! And mushrooms. Only the mushrooms are sometimes difficult to see.

British wool makes me happy

Four happy flowers with their fleeces at Woolfest in Cockermouth in June! I have blogged about that earlier so please look in the archive of July 2011 if you want to see more. I want to show this photo that Knit magazine kindly let us use:

 Barbro, Malin, Sarah, Tini. Sarah has taken off her scarf, but the rest of us wear the beautiful scarves she knitted for us

What more? I'm knitting a scarf from two of my handspun yarns and one commercial, Manos Lace:

That edging takes forever to knit. Kasper thinks it's interesting, but says "Another scarf?? OK, you only have about 20 scarves so why not?" He's a reasonable dog most of the time.

And I finally started a nålbindning project again. This is an Along in the Blacker & Beyond FFSB group on Ravelry to celebrate the group's first anniversary. I love nalbinding, so I have no idea why I do it so seldom. The yarn is gorgeous: it's Pure Castlemilk Moorit with Silk from The Natural Fibre Company. The mill spins small special yarns and this yarn is one of those. Sometimes they are one of a kind, so it's not always possible to get more. Buy enough from the start for your project! Here's the webshop: Blacker Yarns

It's a perfect yarn for nalbinding. The tight twist keeps the yarn together, and it's easy to pull through the loops.

OK, so my right thumb isn't very kind to me right now. I have to alter between techniques as not to stress it too much, so I started a BIG project: crocheted throws for our beds. I'll crochet two so I can wash them in the machine. I like this pattern I found in an old Swedish crochet book.

VIP

Titta! Nu är det bevisat: herrn och jag är VIPar. Vi har fått kaffe och bulle :) Vi blev inbjudna för att vi säljer elektricitet till idrottsfolket.
See: it's been proved hubby and me are VIPs. We got coffee and coffee bread :) We got invited because we sell electricity to the sports people.

670 orienterare med avecs höll till i skogen ovanför vårt hus och på grannens åker.
670 orienteers where up in the woods and on our neighbour's field.

Hösten har kommit. Så här tidigt har bonden aldrig förr tröskat åkern nedanför vårt hus under de 20 år vi bott här. Nu kan jag plundra de vilda svartvinbärsbuskarna på stenröset.
Autumn is here. The farmer has never harvested the field next to our house so early during the 20 years we have lived here. Now I can go and raid the wild black currant bushes that grow on the stones in that field.

Spinning in public

Malin and I spun in a museum today. It's an outdoor museum with many attractions. We both had our modern spinning wheels today, because we wanted to show what spinning is today. In another house a lady showed how people spun around 1900. There was a fire in the open firerplace in our room. It's been raining the last week, so the fire made it more cozy.

In the same room as Malin and me was also a lady doing bobbin lace.  Here she's doing a corner.

In another house was a knitting friend of mine, Marianne Wasberg. She's a master in twoendknitting. Today she knitted a sock.

This is a Finnsheep lamb, very curious. It wanted to eat my camera.

Here is an owerview of a small part of the museum.

I didn't have time to look at the other crafters, but I saw a small knife made for a woman, and a pair of small scissors used by a young lady who's working with herbs. She gave me a recipe I'll try. Apple vinegar and what wild herbs you can find is put in a glass jar and is kept in the window for a couple of weeks. Then you sieve it and use it in food and dressings. It smelled delicious.

Violets

Prize yarn

I won a prize in Tour de Fleece. This is nittydread's handspun yarn. Two skeins singles, two 2-ply, fibers dyed by Spunky Eclectic. Have you ever seen so beautiful yarn? Nittydread is amazingly skilled in spinning space dyed fibers. Oh how I look forward to knit these!

Blending hackle

I bought a blending hackle from a spinning friend in Sweden. This is Carola's hackle:

Dark and medium blue longwool tops, light blue silk tops blended on the hackle. It's good to have prepared fibers in the stash.

Pepparkaka

För flera år sedan fick jag ull av en fårägare på Åland. Jag spann det mesta av den då, men här ljuvliga bruna ullen som jag sparat för att spinna när jag känner mig mogen. Förra veckan gjorde jag det. Jag maskinkardade ullen och spann ett grovt kardgarn. Det är stickigt, så det passar bra att använda tillsammans med andra garner av liknande kvalitet i en kudde eller till och med en filt. Tackan som hade så vacker ull hette Pepparkaka.

Several years ago I got wool from a sheep owner in Åland. I spun most of it then, but I saved this beautiful brown wool until I felt ready for it. Last week I did. I drumcarded the wool and spun a thick woolen yarn. It's harsh, so it will go well together with other yarns of the same type in a cushion or even a blanket. The ewe with the beautiful wool was called Pepparkaka, Gingerbread.

Lazy kates and more

The local museum, a small village museum, has about 5000 textiles and lots of other objects like furniture and tools. This year's summer exhibition shows cabinets that were designed for corners, and lazy kates. The oldest kates are from the 1740s, like this one in the front:

Also have a look at the cabinet that has been displayed in the stove. There is no back part in it, and has never been. It was made like this, was hanged on the wall and the shelves were attached to the wall.

I find this kate very beautiful:

Kates like the three following are common in Finland. They were often made in leasure times as a proof of how skilled the man was, and often given as a gift to his coming wife.

I was quite astonished by the blue kate. Blue spinning wheels are common here, but I haven never seen a clear blue lazy kate before (maybe I haven't seen enough kates yet). The design is interesting too. It must be very good, standing upright even if you have a kinky yarn.

This is an interesting one:

There were several kates of this type at the exhibition:

I also want to show a cabinet from 1815, with beautiful fading flowers painted on it:

And this one, made 1840 and painted white and decorated around 1900:

It's been decorated with wallpaper and something that looks very much like a needle point pattern:

This is a bed made up as they did in the late 1800s:

And this is a view from one of the rooms, with a loom to the right and one of the cabinets in the corner:

I love that museum. It's so full of beautiful things. There is a wind mill, and a smithy that is still in use for teaching new blacksmiths the old art of transfering iron into beautiful things: