Im Alive, yes really I am.

gosh. seems like Its been few and far between with my post here. I started off really well writing and sharing.. then little by little things changed. the last time I posted I had strep. Well I got it 2 more times. Everyone in the house also had it except little baby. Jasper had it in rash form on his little bum. poor little guy. Then for the real turn of events. We spent this summer 5 weeks about, in east finland. Mika’s mom was very ill and we wanted the kids to see her and to visit with papa at the same time. It was a long hard 5 weeks followed by the death of Anja. Im still a bit shook up over it. the kids are doing well. They will go to spend about 4 days with papa before school starts at the end of next week. It will be good for the kids and papa too.

So my knitting. It has been slow. I have some hope that once the kids are in school and I get the house all in order (gosh I think I always say that! ) that I will be able to knit a lot more.

Im going to go ahead and post a few things that I have done . Really bad pics but better then nothing , right!

wavy hearts collab with Terri from black bird lane and lisa from www.preciouscoverings.com

Another collab with Terri and lisa

Custom and trade with good frieind Jessi at butterfly buggas

custom. This is an in progress photo. Im not sure where the final photo is. but they turned out really great

I made this shrug for the funeral

And am working on this now.

I Will update with the patterns for the last two. sorry about the blunt post, but I keep putting off posting here because I have let it get so far behind. I promise Im going to update with some great summer photos of my baby boys!!

OKAY i GIVE UP. THE PHOTOS WONT SHOW UP AND NOW EVERYTHING IS GETTING ALL OUT OF ORDER. SORRY. NOT SURE HOW TO FIGURE THIS OUT??

Okay, I got some to show up but they are turned all wrong.. crap.. sorry your gonna have to tilt your head a bit! LOL

A catch up post.

Well I have been really busy. I also have been really sick. first started with double ear infection about 1 month ago or more. Then on to a tummy flu that every one took turns getting. I seemed to get sick again with it when the next kiddo got it. So I was sick for about 2 weeks with that and the ear infection. Then I started to feel pain in my throat and neck . Turns out I have strep. I took 10 days of meds for that . Started to feel better for about 3-4 days and then again ear pains , throat pains…etc. Now my voice is gone. I have horrid ear pains and my throat hurts. I have a feeling its not strep now, but my teeth!! I will be at the dentist on monday..!! eeekkk.

So while I have been sick I have been knitting just a bit. Hard to keep the kids busy, house clean , knit and not die at the same time!

heres a few photos of what I have done. some things I have not taken photos of . SOrry…

This will be mailed off to Terri from Black Bird Lane on monday:

they are a size large. Made with a tall stretchy ribbed waistband and seed cuff trims. Finnish wool dyed by Jeni at Rory’s rump.

next:

I have not started to knit yet, but I had to show it off. I got this yarn in the mail last week:

3 ply purewool dyed by :  Leidy at Western Sky Knits.

Then I made a new square for my crochet blanket. I will get a photos soon.

I also made a scarf for my neighbor

A wristlet for Jasper

and I made it to round 2 of the yarn smack down. STill have not died from round one. BUT:…… I did for round 2 . I knit a hat. forgot to photo it. mailed it off and died the next day. I was lucky to die by a wonder soft soft soft red hat!! I will try to photo that soon too! LOL

Thats about it for now. Im gonna try to be better with the photos. Being sick has taken over my thinking skills. hehehe

How to wash your wool soakers

I had fun today. I washed some wool! I thought it would be nice to photo how I do it. Here you go.

Get all your dirty wool ready

Let soak in warm water.

drain all the dirty water after about 30 min.

Now fill with warm/hot water and lather on your wool wash. I used a wool bar.

rub gently into all your woolies,taking care to get out any stains.

Now for the yummy lanolin. I add mine to a bottle

for two bottles I used one large pea size of lanolin

Add hot water and shake. BE VERY CAREFUL ITS HOT. again BE CAREFUL. LOL

Add lanolin to your wool and the water!

Now let your wool soak in the lanolin bath for 30 min or more.

drain and then rinse the wool a bit. dont ring the wool dry , just gently squeeze water out.

This is why its important to wash by color! See how the blue bleeds.

Then take a large towel. Fold it in half and lay wool on top.

fold one side over the wool and roll it. you can fold the other side over if you have to roll it again.

For fun. Step on the wool, get your frustration out!!

shave your wool

Add your lanolin balm to your hand and rub into you wool.

Or you can spray it on your wool.

Lay your woolies flat to dry on a drying rack and your done.

oh yeah, Repeat and Repeat and .. well just keep going till your done!

I still have one more rack in the living room!

Thats all thats too washing wool!!!

hope you enjoyed this!

oh no, I have been tagged

Okay, normally I hate these forward tagged things. Usually it come with a little note saying something like

* If you dont pass this on in the next 5 min you will die a rotten death. or send this on or you will have bad luck for the next 7 years.. blah blah blah..

But since this doesnt come with any of those silly *notes, and because I love me some Jen; I will play along.

So I have to list 7 weird things about me:

1. I hate the colors red and green together. They are awful. They make me sick. It hurts my eyes and I start to blink just thinking about it. (yes im rubbing my eyes right now! )

2. I dont even remember how old I really am since I say im 22 every year.

3. I love a clean house, really love it. But I dont know how to KEEP a clean house.

4. I was once in a religious cult. (happend so fast, bad bad memories)

5. I really dislike the work stupid. I will not even let my children say it!!

6. I once lost my underwear on the rollerskating rink , during a school trip! One of the workers had to come and pick them off the rink!! Oh man…

7. I hate the colors red and green together. Love hot pink and bright green though

Just so you know, I HATE THE COLORS RED AND GREEN TOGETHER.

8. one extra, I very rarely use the words “I hate!”.

so thats it. I will tag shannon , miriam and melissa!

Easter Sunday, Family fun day….

So Yesterday was the easter happening in town. We went had a blast and I forgot the camera!! We planned on going back today for the rest of the fun and festivities but I was just to sick today to go. I got strep throat this year for a birthday gift!! yippy! Mika also is having some flu , so we stood home and made the best of it.

the boys had fun painting their eggs:

and little baby had fun under the table looking for snacks!

im sure he found a few goodies. We have been to sick here to do a good cleaning after every meal!

Here are THE EGGS!:

They did a great job huh!.. … lol.. okay just kidding. here are the real ones:

they turned out even better I think!

After that the boys had a jam session.

even little baby   had a lesson:

my kids , im telling you they are talented!!

Markie helped me to wash and block the scarf I made him , ages ago… you know from scarves of the living dead. well here it is:

I love this scarf. I truly hope that blocking it will keep it from rolling. The drop stitches look great. Either way markie loves it!

After that it was time for the egg hunt. It didnt go soo great.  It was really snowing and cold out. The kids took their gloves off and their warm hands made the dyes start to come off!! LOL but it was fun non the less!

Thats it. After that we rushed inside to get warmed up. the Kids headed over the neighbors for a while and Mika got the rice cooking! yeah… for SUSHI. We love sushi around here. my throat kills, so the only thing that would help is some sushi, right!?!

Here is what I had for dinner. yum. all for me!

I even waited till the rest of the family was all feed. Then got the kids ready for bed. Okay mika did that. I went to the Living room and had sushi and watched AI!! ahhh The life! Its great!

Ice block

today was snowing outside. It was a pretty cold day and I had my black gloves on. I looked down and was able to see snow flakes. Yes like real looking flakes. It was amazing. I tried to take a photo. but, well you cant see them much. here look:

see I told you , you cant see much. But the flakes where so neat looking. Its just amazing that out of the sky so tiny and soft can fall these intricate flakes. As soon I came in, I knew I wanted to make something inspired from those flakes.  I looked online a bit and found this 8 ” crochet square pattern . I thought that in the right colors it would look more like a snow flake then some sort of heart shape. So I gave it a go. the pattern has really bad directions, not complete for every round. After frogging a few times in the first rounds I was able to just guess what was SUPPOSED  to be written down. Since the square was only an 8 ” and I was making a 12″ I added in my own rounds to get the correct total. Im very happy with the result.

Really really long hat.

photos speak for themselves!!

Okay, the hat pattern is a classic found here

 beanie no.212

It really does look and feel great when on. Now, the making of the hat….6 inches of ribbing to start of with.. it got a bit boring. It was hard not to want to knit something else.  I am happy with how it came out though. I would take out at least 2 inches of the ribbing.  The cuff of the hat is really wide when on. On a large man with a big meatball head it would fit perfect. On a med/large size women with a big meatball head (like myself) it fits good, but the cuff over laps a bit to much!

now that is done, I may do one for mika. He really likes this hat and wants to keep this one. NOPE its for the yarn smackdown on ravelry!!!

DIE DIE!!!!!

Newborn/small shorties

DONE!  Just have to weave in all the ends and make an I cord! I think they turned out wonderful! I love how the color worked up!!

Yarn smackdown!! its on!!

Yup, tomorrow. I  will be ready with needles in hand for the yarn smackdown. I am in another knitting dual! It will be a  hat of course.  This time around there are some great prizes! I will list them later. Right now I have to finish the last of my rainbow shorties . Once those are done, thats it, im ready!

Virpominen. Easter in finland… Trick or treating!!

I have decided to add my family blog here. I thinks its best to just lay it all out in one place. You can learn a little something more about me and my life in finland as a stay at home mom! knitting is my hobby but my family is my passion. I would love to share a little something with you. Something that gives me hope and strength everyday!!

Lets start with this weekend, sort of an ice breaker if you will. It was wonderful. Title says it all. So what is virpominen? Well is basically Trick or treating Finnish style. I love it.  Me and sonja spent a good 2 hours Sat. morning walking in ditches on old forest roads collection willow branches. That afternoon/evening Austin , markie and Jasper Toivo decorated them. Janita and Sonja worked on theirs at her house. Me and Sonja ended up making most of mine share in the night but dont tell!! LOL. We used colored feathers, silk paper, gillter and decorative flower wire. Below are some photos of what they looked like.

I put them in very carefully so the baby wouldnt get hurt! No im kidding! he isnt in the stroller!

It was too cold this year for the kids to dress up like skeletons and witches but we painted their face just for fun.

Talk about a GANG of kids!!!

the kids had a blast! They got entirely way to much candy, so mika and i helped them with that! AHHHHHHH

I want to show you what a difference a few weeks makes here in finland. Last year easter was a bit later. Also we had a winter so the snow melted at a normal rate. this year, well I dont know whats going no. no winter for so long and now this!!

Anyways. here are photos from last years easter egg hunt and our day out at the park.

the kids are all in their spring suits. Excited to go easter egg hunting.

Kids eating their eggs. look how small markie is!!

And Here is Markie  in town at the park. We go every easter weekend into town. Tons of programs going on for the kids, it last friday, sat and sun!

Look at him and that blue sky!

Im so excited for next weekend. Me and Sonja have a lot of eggs to boil!! The kids will have a blast. Lets see what kind of weather we end up having!

happy easter!