A great stitchers' weekend!

Last Friday I drove about 300km to spend a weekend on a holiday motel called Onnela with 22 other stitchers. Onnela means something like haven and that it surely was! The whole weekend meeting new stitching friends, eating good food, laughing A LOT and of course stitching! :D We had so much fun and I really can't even remember last time I have laughed so much.

Lilian Kok from the Netherlands came to teach us. She is such a sweet and wonderful person! She runs a mail art group at Yahoo and knows so much about diffirent stitching styles. She is also the person behind the My Aunt's Attic. She taught me some basic Hedebo and I will definitely try to learn more from the internet since it can be used for so much. Thank you Lilian!

She also designed us two charts. I managed to stitch the tin topper and some of the scissor case. The tin topper still needs a ribbon or a cord around the edge. When the scissor case is ready I'll use it to keep my iPod in it. :) I changed some of the colours of the designs, I changed the yellow for pale lilac and violet for Atalie's thread Rubis.

Totally Useless SAL

I took part in a Totally Useless SAL. :) You can read more about it from the blog Dragon My Needle but the basic rule is to collect your orts, little bits of fabric, broken buttons and so on from your stitching projects during the year and put them in a jar and show your progress at the beginning of every new moon.

I am a bit late showing what my jar has eaten but here it comes. I put in some bits and pieces from the little boxes I made for our wedding and also some yarn from the bouquet. The actual stitching orts are from the Neighborhood Row I stitched for the alphabet exchange. This is fun but I really must find a prettier jar. :D

Wedding photos

We got the photos from our photographer Ari Kilpivuori. First two are taken before the blessing ceremony.


Here we are listening the cantor of our church singing Josh Groban's song "You're Still You". I wanted to show this one since it shows how beautiful the church is.



Here we are coming out of the church. Our guests are throwing grain on us (we used it instead of rice) for fertility and wealth. :)

You might have noticed the new spring look of my blog. :) We still have a lot of snow on the ground but the sun is shining and the snow has started to melt so it feels like the spring is just around the corner. I used Messy Edge Alpha from Digital Scrapbooking for the text on the header. Flowers and the line between the backrounds are from Wild Sorbet kit by Michelle Coleman, it can be donwloaded from Memory Makers website. Yellow backround and the backround of the header are from Moments kit by Summer Driggs at Summertime Designs. Green Floral backround is from PixelGeek Designs, it's part of BOGO Blogtrain and you can download all the parts from several blogs, start here.

Alphabet exchange

I took part in an alphabet exchange. I stitched Bent Creek's Neighborhood Row to Leena. I finished it as a pillow. I'm not sure what count the linen is, maybe 32ct, stitched 2 over 2. I also sent some threads as we sent something that begins with the same letter as the recipients name (L for lanka, thread in Finnish).

This is what I got from Ritva. I love that flatfold, it's really beautiful! And I got "Sari's ort basket" as something beginning with S. :) She has dyed the cotton herself. Beautiful colour!


I am so happy with this exchange. Everyone got so beautiful things, can't wait for the next exchange. :)

Felted wedding bouquet

You saw some of these flowers on the earlier post before they had a run in a washing machine. I knitted flowers in three colours, red and sand as I had those colours on my wedding dress and white to make the bouquet look brighter. My husband had a smaller red flower on his buttonhole, the two bestmans had white flowers. No need to dry this bouquet and it will definitely not wilt. :D

Two nights before the wedding I decided it was time to make the decoration for the cake. It's made from Darwi's air drying modelling paste. I painted it white and the little lily's red to make them stand out.

Here is a little peek at the wedding. :) You can see some of the cape I sewed. It would have been too cold in sleeveless dress and I didn't want to wear a jacket so I sewed a cape with fake fur collar and hem.

Things for the wedding and a gift from a friend

I made (with some help from my sister and cousin) 60 little boxes with candy inside to give to our guests at the wedding. I found a great tutorial for them from Paper Pleasing Ideas. My boxes are a little bit different and just 3cm x 4,5cm, so they are quite tiny. :)

I am knitting lilys with woolen yarn called Huopanen (100% felting wool). After I have all the flowers knitted I will toss them to washing machine to felt. I'm going to use them to make my bridal bouquet. Here is a pic of some of the flowers and stems before felting.

I got a wonderful gift from my blog friend Heidi. I helped her with starting a HAED chart and she wanted to give me a gift in return. Isn't she sweet! She has bees so she sent me two jars of honey, lovely stitched card to congratulate us for the wedding, little sheep and some flower shaped tea in a cutest little apple shaped jar. :) Thank you Heidi! We love your present!