My Birthday Exchange Package arrived!

I took part in this years Stitching Bloggers Birthday Club Exchange and as some of you might remember I didn't receive a gift on September when I had my birthday since my partner had disappeared. Luckily there are Angel stitchers who make us forgotten ones happy. :)
My angel was Edgar and I received a gift from him today. And I love it! He stitched me a "Sheep" by the Prairie Schooler and mounted it into a beatiful wooden box. And the box was full of lovely things, I got myself a brand new pair of scissors (so needed since I only had one proper pair before), a cute piece of fabric with piggies and cows for finishing, a beautiful fridge magnet (how did he know my favourite style in paintings is Impressionism!), California Poppy seeds that will extend my birthday even further as I'll plant them next summer and aromatherapy body lotion "Sleep" with lavender&vanilla AND chocolate :P´This whole package was so wonderful and so worth the wait. Thank you Edgar!

The gift was wrapped in a lavender colour paper.


And here are all the great things that I found inside!



One thing I have forgotten to blog about is that Jaana had some good news and so she had a giveaway in her blog to celebrate that. I won this pretty Christmas ornament from that giveaway. Isn't it cute! :)

Stitched mailart to Lilian

We had a personal sheep mailart exchange with Lilian. She sent me hers ages ago and I finally managed to finish and send mine. I just heard she received it yesterday so now I can post about it. :) I found the perfect chart from Cosmic Handmade, it's called "Under the Willow Tree" (you'll find it here). The designer had made it into a travel sewing case so I thought I'll make my very first mailart as a small project bag. I used light green linen (bought from Violarium) for stitching and some darker green cotton fabric for lining. The size of the envelope is about 20cm x 13cm.

On the front side I stitched the whole design. I found a sheep stamp too. :)


On the back I stitched two sheep, a bit of the border and my address.


When the envelope is opened, there's a place for scissors (I sent those green/blue scissors to her with the mail art) and for needles. I didn't put any needles there since I thought they might come through the fabrics and poke some innocent postal worker in hand. :) I also sent a thread winder she can keep her thread in with the project, it's inside so the picture is from The Gift of Stitching shop where I bought it from. And as you see I stitched four chickens here.

Stitching this was so much fun and I am sure I will stitch more mailarts in the future. They are fun to receive too! :)

Take a look at 2010 weekly SAL blog

First I'll tell you that the tea crisis is over. Thanks for everyone who offered their help (and support in these hard times... ;)). I got my Tea Fairy now and with her help I will never be without a decent cup of tea, or at least in the near future. Thank you Nadia. :)

And now to the business. :)
Gaynor has started a blog for 2010 Weekly Stitch along. I just saw it the other day and decided to join with "Wild Ones Alphabet" by DMC. The blog is here if you'd like to join or just see what we are going to stitch next year.

My piece for the SAL:
I will be stitching this for our first baby. We don't know yet when she/he will be arriving to this world since she/he is still just a thought in our heads but I want this to be ready before that day comes. :) Just in case there will be twins (that runs in a family...) I also have the "Counting with Wild Ones" chart. :D

Wanted: Tea Fairy

I have a problem. I love English tea. Well that is not the problem but the lack of it is. My friend usually travels to UK once or twice a year and brings me tea but this year she didn't go there. So now I only have four tea bags left and I'm in panic! Maybe I should explain a little why I like the English tea better than the local brands we have here. The brand my friend brings me is not any luxury brand or expensive or anything, it's as basic as it gets. BUT it tastes so much better. I can have my strong morning tea without the bitter taste our local teas have if you make it strong. I like the flavoured teas we have here but I just haven't found a basic black tea that would taste as good as the English.

So I think I need a Tea Fairy this time instead of a Thread Fairy. :) I was wondering if anyone in UK might be able to help me? If someone could send me a pack of Sainsbury's Red Label round teabags it would make me so happy! And of course I will pay the tea and the postage, I can pay with Paypal. If you can help me please send me an email, my address is in my profile. Please... I'm begging, help me! :)

Christmas came to my blog

I start thinking about Christmas months before the D-day since I buy presents if I find something I think someone in my family or friends likes. I haven't put up any Christmas decorations at home, instead I start my decorating here in my blog. I created a new Christmas look today.
The letters in the header are same that I had before, they are from Shabby Princess' pack "Two Soon".
Backrounds, the header and the decoration are from Scrap N Tag's pack "A Lot Like Christmas".
Some small details may still change as I continue tweeking all the little bits but this is how it will mainly look like through the Christmas time. I hope you like it. :)

My catch from the crafts fair in Tampere

The crafts fair is now over. I was there on Friday and the time just flew by. We didn't have enought time (since some older ladies wanted the bus to leave back home earlier) but we did get to do the most important thing: meeting friends. I met two of my dear stitching friends, Lennu and Ritva. I just love to spend time with them, they are (almost) as talkative as I am and we laugh and laugh all the time. :) I also met Heidi, we have been emailing and keeping in touch earlier but now we saw each other for the first time and hit it of instantly. We would have had so much more to talk about if we had more time.

But now to the items that emptied my purse. :D



From Violarium I bought many things. I blame Marja for buying the wooden pine tree frame since she showed that to me in crafts fair in Oulu. :) She had bought it before we had a tea break and I had already spent so much that I just couldn't get it then so I corrected that in Tampere. I also bought two Tralala's charts "Duo Noël" and "Kokeshis". I love Japanese Kokeshi dolls so I just had to get that as soon as I set my eyes on it. My dear friend Michiko sent me five Kokeshi dolls from Japan last year, you can see them here. I also bought some Atalie thread for the charts but for some reason they are not in the photos.

I think I complained a while ago that I needed 6mm knitting needles and I had all the needles between 3 and 10 but not number 6. Well that is now corrected too since there was a sale on Novita on knitting needles and I got the straight ones and circular ones.

In the center of the pic there are some fabrics for finishing. There are monsters and crazy cats fabrics from "Scrible Monsters" series by Leerè for Clothworks, cute girlie fabric "Heart to Heart" by Moda Fabrics, a set of three autumn themed fabrics and a Christmassy and a bear fabrics. There's also a Little Red Riding Hood ribbon that I just had to buy since early in the morning when we were waiting for our bus an older lady told me a poem about the Little Red Riding Hood (maybe because of my red hair, red coat and a red jumper :D)

Down in the middle are some dollhouse decorations that were really cheap. They are for the dollhouse I one day make, as soon as we have more room. :)

I saw the vendor that sells wooden jewelry in Oulu and bought some wooden hearts from him then. This time I bought two pins and some red wooden hearts. I have many ideas for the wooden hearts.

On the right in the center there are little pieces of felt that were left overs from the products one seller had made. They sold bags of the left overs with just one euro. There's also the only knitting yarns that I bought this time, some Panda bamboo&wool yarns. The red one is really a dark red, it looks like orange on the photo.

Down on the right are two funny elves made from conifer cones and a fridge magnet with a fun saying.
I bought a few other things too but they are for presents so they are not in the pic. So that's my catch from the fair, I spoiled myself with my last paycheck. Now I have plenty of materials until I get my a new job and can buy new ones again. :)

I showed you the Lima yarn on my last post. I took it with me for the bus ride and this is how it looks now. Not much done since we mainly chatted and slept in the bus. There is Honeycomb pattern in the middle but I won't tell you just yet what it will be. :)

A small stitching finish

Tomorrow I will be at the crafts fair in Tampere. We leave early in the morning and come back late at night. Before I start packing my snacks for the bus ride I'll show you one thing I just finished. Or actually it has been almost ready for ages, I just wasn't very happy how it turned out. I wasn't able to make the edge nice enough and as it's a present I didn't want it to look horrible. I tryed again today and I think it's quite ok now. Well time to tell what this rant is all about. :) I stitched one matryoshka doll from Tralala's chart "Poupées Russes". It looks like I attached a ribbon to it but...


... there is actually another smaller matryoshka inside. I modified one of the dolls from "Poupées Russes" and made a mini version of it.


I also had to make up the backsides myself since the chart only has the fronts. :)


I have been knitting while watching TV from our bed (not enough light to cross stitch). This is a part of a tunic. The yarn is a Finnish yarn called Puro (creek in English), colour is Kanervikko ("heather field"). Still quite a lot to do but I wanted to show how lovely the yarn is. Oh, who put that Mozartkugeln there? I never eat chocolate while knitting... lol!


This yarn is coming with me for the bus ride to the crafts fair. It takes about four hours to get there and the same coming back so I have plenty of time to knit. I let you know later what this and it's five friends will turn in to. :)


This is how it looks at our backyard at the moment. It's the first snow that have stayed and I hope it stays permanently now. I took these when the sun was going down already so they have that nightfall blue ambience.

Spooky things, fruits and birdhouses

I sent forward two Round Robins today. The first one has a Halloween theme and the second one is all about fruits. I was a bit late with these but I have caught up now. :) And I already have a third one under my needle.

For Minna I stitched a ghost casttle with bats and all, it's a part from The Cross Stitcher magazines chart "Ghouls only". I found the witches brew from cross-stitchers-club.com's chart "Scary!". I changed the colour of the logs under the cauldron since the original light pink colour made them look like... hmmm... well something men really would not like to see burned. :D



For Tarja I stitched a pineapple and cherries. Chart for the pineapple is from an Italian booklet and cherries are from "Fruity lids" from cross-stitchers-club. I really like the pineapple and I think I'll stitch it again and finish it as something small.


My own RR fabric has been on the fast lane since it came back already! I just love all the pretty bird houses the girls have stitched for me! Thank you girls! Look, doesn't it look great? I wrote stitchers' names under the birdhouses to remember who stitched what. I will stitch the ground and also poles for the houses and maybe some pretty clouds on the sky. More pics when this is all finished.


Eventhough I don't go to work anymore I feel like I have less time than I had when I was working. Well, all the weekends have been booked. Last weekend I was on a cruise to Tallinna, Estonia. The company I used to work for had the Christmas party there and I loved seeing my ex-co-workers, some of them maybe last time. There was a cover band on board and I sang along so loud that I almost lost my voice completely. :D It still is a bit lower that my usual voice...
A week before that my sister had her house warming party and a week or two before that I was on crafts fair in Oulu. This Friday I will hop on a buss early early in the morning and head to another crafts fair to Tampere. I will be back on the same day late late in the night so maybe I'll get some more stitching done on this weekend. :)
As a balance for all the fun I attend my business course two nights a week and do my homework for it about two days a week. :)

Oh I almost forgot that I have also done some crocheting. I did a two nights panic version of a shawl that has two short sleeves since I needed one to go with my Christmas party dress. I'll post pics when I look good enough to take some photos with it. Now it's late at night and my look doesn't go with a party dress and a shawl. :D