Linnea 'Ea' quilts...

My dear little brother turned 26 last Tuesday, and even though I got his present ready the Thursday before that, I couldn't write about it here before he had gotten the present. Would have been kinda silly: him knowing beforehand what he would get, just because I wrote about it beforehand! Anyway, I have the hardest time buying presents for my brother. That doesn't mean I don't try - oh boy do I try! But sometimes, finding him a present is like finding ice in Sahara. Just not plausible. So, I try to do what my dear mother once told me about buying Christmas presents: "Try to look for Christmas presents for people during the whole year, not just in December" Sometimes, I actually manage come across things that are *perfect*. I found an alarm clock in a this weird interior decorating store (the clock had skulls on it...), and ever since my brother bought me a matching set of 3 raspberry colored kitchen containers with skulls on them... well, let's just say...

I must say, sometimes being a biochemist can be quirky. It enables you to read things - things not relevant to the work you're currently doing - out of other fields of biological research, and grasp concepts that rely on the understanding of the basic organic chemistry that is life as we know it. Anyway, while reading about transposons, I quickly wanted to confirm something on Wikipedia. Which, naturally, lead to some wiki jumping (I have no idea if that's the correct term;  it just means that you jump from one Wikipedia article to another, sometimes not even finishing the current before skipping on to the next). I jumped from DNA transposons, to DNA, to TNA (threose nucleic acid), to abiogenesis, to the Gaia theory . For those of you yet unfamiliar with the concept, the Gaia theory (originally by James Lovelock in the 1960s) proposes that the Earth is one big organism, where the biosphere and the biota (biomass) as a whole regulates the Earth to sustain life as we know it...

Since I went so long about tea in my previous post, I guess it's okay to post this separately. The knitted circle cape "Karolina", from the book "Sticka i romantisk lantstil", is finally done. It's not that it was hard to make - the opposite in fact! - it was just that I didn't spend all my available "knitting time" on this project. You can read the info about it here . It falls real nicely from your shoulders, and I guess it would have harmed to make it perhaps a tad bit larger. It really depends on how much yarn you have available, and if you want it to cover your back a bit more. I'm using a flower brooch I made myself, to keep the thing together. A brooch/big nice safety pin is a must for this cape.

"Teas, where small talk dies in agonies." Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) "When the end of the world is near, drink tea." Anonymous (and if you want to see more tea-quotes, go to Wikiquote ) I distress, sometimes I'm a mess, but I have to agree with the saying that drinking tea will help you in many situations. Oh, don't get me wrong, I like lots of other beverages, but there is a ... simple joy to be found in the fact that tea actually will make you feel better. (Said the addict to her teapot). My stomach has been a bit upset since yesterday (nothing terrible, but I have no idea why), so I've been drinking tea to calm it down. Tea is great that way: since it's sour (pH between 4-6) , and the milk (if you take it with milk) helps to buffer it (cow milk balances it to the higher pH, close to 6) , your stomach's pH will actually get a bit higher (from it's pH of 1-3) and thus make you feel a bit better. Not so acidic. It's the sa...

E once said, and I quote "Why must grown-ups clothes be so boring? Why don't people use more color?". Well, I'm doing my part to color the world, while at the same trying to come up with something knitted or crocheted that Micke might consider OK to use. This is mainly because I still have a lot of yarn inherited from both my maternal, my paternal grandmother, my mom and one of her sisters. Some of this yarn is white or really light beige, and some of it is in really pale pastel colors. And thus not... terribly exciting to either use or plan to use. Hence the reason behind my interest in learning how to dye yarn, preferably as cheaply as possible. On one of  the blog-sites I subscribe to, Fiber Star , I've read about how to dye with natural things like avocado pits , onion skins and flowers . There's also books about dyeing that I borrowed from the library. But like any good chemists, it really itches in your fingers to try it out yourself. But, I distres...

Nearly every year it's the same. You get one year older, and suddenly you don't want to make a big fuss out of it, and so you decide NOT to celebrate it. Which is exactly what my beloved boyfriend really didn't want to do: celebrate his 29th. Despite this let down, I charged in like a house on fire, and invited a few people over for "a quick cup of birthday-coffee" yesterday. Now, as you might know, me and Micke eat paleo, so I was a little unsure of how to make a birthday cake that didn't contain flour didn't contain 'normal' sugar still was good to eat is cheap and fast to make And then I had the perfect solution: paleo panna cotta! If you use ground vanilla powder, and use honey instead of sugar, then the panna cotta itself is paleo. I know some of you paleo-people don't like using milk, but we do. And, since panna cotta need something else that's also 'sweet' to go with it, I took and put cut fruits in the glasses I mad...

I had borrowed this book, called " Fast Knits Fat Needles " written by Sally Harding, from the library. The theme of the book is to get to try out knitting project  where you get to use knitting needles larger than 10 mm. I only happened to have a pair of 9 mm, since I've inherited most of my needles from Mom and her sisters, but nevertheless I thought I'd try my hands on something simple from all the projects in this lovely book. Since, you know, I'm not that great a knitter. The simplest project in the book is one where you use long strips of rags to knit a rag rug. I happened to have some rags I cut from some of my Mom's old T-shirts not long ago, and they seemed perfect for the this project. It didn't hurt that you only had to knit for this project (I still get a bit confused when I have to purl), either. Needed : pair of BIG knitting needles strips of rags Project notes: size nr 9 mm knitting needles were a bit small, next time I do this I...

... studies English. So if I would -ever- need someone to talk to about either English literature or the etymology of any English word, she'd probably be the one. But I wonder if she knows the meaning of this word: frogging Naaah, no cheating using any online dictionary. No answer to be found there. I would still be searching for the meaning and how/why of the word, if I hadn't come across the explanation in a book I borrowed from the library. You see, when knitting/crocheting, you might by mistake create something (*gasp!*) that you think looks awful. If giving it away is not an option, and you want to reuse the yarn... what do you do? Of course, you de-construct it. How? Well... you take hold of the end of the yarn, and start to rip it, rip it, rip it, rip it .... Hence the word frogging. So, I have this other acquaintance, who posts on her Facebook account photos taken of thing she has found at yard sales/second hand stores etc. Last thing she posted was of the ...

... an umbrella doesn't help you much. The rain is blowing ever which way, even downwards up, so you get soaked nearly instantly. It's more like walking into a wall of water, instead of it raining. Why, oh whyyy, didn't I put on my rain coat and pants? No matter now, as I got home and could change into something dry immediately. Micke still has the flu, and has been both coughing and blowing his nose like crazy. He actually woke me up at 3 a.m., because his cough sounded like him dying. Horrible. Thanks to the rain though, lots of different mushrooms are growing splendidly. The ones on the photo above is from the lawn on the other side of the green fence. In swedish, these mushrooms are called "bläcksvamp", lit. translated as ink mushrooms. Did people really use them to make ink, I wonder? But, now I'm going to go and lie down, and enjoy as much orange juice and Daim-chocolate as I can. The chocolate has to be shared with Micke, but since he was so s...

Today, it's been raining a little like crazy. In fact, it's been raining all day. *listens to the drip drip drip on the windows* Rain brings out both the best - and the worst - in people. Since everyone can be both a rain-lover and a rain-hater simultaneously, I'll just share a few personal things about rain. For starters, me and Micke only have one umbrella. A cheap one we bought from IKEA. A long time ago, we had at least three, but they broke or were lost one at a time. Sadly. We do have two perfectly okay rain-coveralls. One banana yellow, and one green/blue outfit. I think they're terribly practical and very nice (even though they are man-repelling). Naturally, Micke hate them both. He will rather be miserable under an umbrella, than happy and dry in a banana yellow raincoat with matching banana yellow pants. I think he's being just a tad bit silly :P But I still let him have the umbrella, because I don't have any qualms about going out in public...

This weekend was a bit hectic, as I had made my (our) Saturday as busy as possible. First, shopping at the open air market, then off to Wiklund to buy a pair of nylon-stockings, then the Ravelry-knitalong at Kerttu, and finally a trip out to the Turku Fair center to see a bit of this year's Erotics Fair. I'm so glad that they put in extra busses when there are fairs at the center, because otherwise every bus 'normal' bus would be filled. I didn't want to bring my "horrible" knitting project with me to Kerttu, so I instead started on this small "rag rug"-project. Since I didn't have that many skeins of rags, it was a reeeally small project. I think though that I might actually do something out the rest of the rags I've cut, because knitting with huge needles was really nice. It's fast! And I like fast results :) So, about this year's Erotics fair. Me, Micke and Mimi went, and I think S and D would have liked to come to, but ...

So, yesterday I noticed there's some birthdays and the like coming up, and since I don't like buying ready-made cards, I spent 2 h on making some. materials: cardboard colored (hard) paper paper glue random things to decorate with marker pens in different colors inspiration: the random things to decorate with the book " The Complete Book of Papercrafts " I made both gift-tags and some birthday/other occasion cards. Next time I go to Tiimari though, I think I'll buy some glossy paper and more glue. I'm not that happy with how every card turned out, so I have to get some more things to decorate with. Some people make really amazing (and expensive!) cards . Gift tags etc. Birthday/Occasion cards

A few weekends back, while visiting Micke's brother in Helsinki, we managed to squeeze in a quick visit to where my family's summer cottage is located. There's a few trails you can take a walk on in the forrest, so I forced Micke to borrow some boots, and then we went exploring. Look at all the leaves that have already fallen. My borrowed red boots, and the ground. Already, some (but mostly non-edible) mushrooms are growing. Micke, coming out of the forrest. I think this photo is one of the best I've ever taken of him :)

"The net is truly vast and infinite." While I was searching for patterns for both knitting and crocheting, I stumbled upon Ravelry.com . It's a site intended for those around the globe who want to both be a part of, and contribute to, the (apparently) growing interest in knitting/crocheting. Since I'm all for (smart!) social online platforms, I really like the site. Since the -reason- behind any such platform is to bring people together and allow them to interact via common interests, I must say that during this past month I've learned a lot. This is thanks to all the persons (mostly women) who I've met during a few knit-alongs here in Turku. Most of you know I speak swedish, but since finnish is the language of the majority, I suddenly realized that I really need to practice speaking it. And during the first of these knit-alongs I found out how terribly degraded my knowledge of finnish has become. But no more! About three times a month now, I'll be att...

All hail the Queen of the Losers! For the third time this summer/beginning of fall she has fallen off her bike! But, luckily nothing more bad happened than two scraped knees, one scraped hand, and a lot of bruises. It could have been much worse.

...I dreamt three nightmares in a row. Or at least, three that I know I've dreamt. First one was something that ended with me being bitten in my right index finger by a rat. It really hurt, and when I woke I was SO sure we had a rat in out bed. Luckily we didn't. Second dream I don't remember all that well, but the third one was one where I just HAD to get an acute appointment with the dentist, because my teeth were.... iuh! They were both rotting and falling off at the same time. I woke at 1 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am, 6 am and finally: at 7 am when I woke I was finally READY to really sleep. Poor Micke. His night was as bad as mine.

... but I swear this weekend's been straight out of a soap opera. With me and Micke as suprised spectators. Micke's younger brother Patrik has moved to Helsinki this fall, because he's going to start his studies to become a sport instructor. He'd managed to get an apartment perhaps 5-10 km from the center of Helsinki, and we were going to visit him this weekend. Mainly to show him around so he'll find places, and also for him to show us where he'll live and go to school. So far so good - or at least: THAT part of the trip went okay. Borrowing the car and sleeping at my parents house went okay too. We got to see Emmis brand new and painted apartment, and I got to discuss art&interior decorating with her while Micke happily snoozed on her couch.  She, me and E even got to visit my Mom's favourite yarn store . And me and Micke even got to stay for Sunday lunch with my parents, aunt and uncle, and take a not-too-lately-arriveing train back to Turku. But...

... that some might want to see some photos of the 6 pairs of shoes I bought for 30 euros. Now, these are from Citymarket (It's like Target or WalMart in Finland). Yes, go ahead and laugh, it'll do you good. And no, I don't care if you laugh, because they all feel nice on, and you just couldn't argue with the price. First, the sexy shoes. Same size, same cut, same "Hi, I'm a little plastic, but not too much". These -might- actually be a little embellished in the future. And yes, I've already managed to scruff the black ones. Go me. Then, the sensible old lady shoes, for when you just can't get away with high heels. Yes, the beige ones are fugugly, but remember what I said about comfy and not caring if you laugh. And last, the worst....  the sandals you only dare to wear to the beach when it's too hot for anything else :P

My dear friend Kaisa, together with her Jussi, threw a home-warming party last Saturday. This time, we actually had time to attend. It's annoying when you have friends you want to stay close to, but can't because of logistics. traveling by train is NOT cheap, no matter how ecological it's supposed to be. Anyway, for a house-warming present, we gave then the traditional bread & salt. This was accompanied by a small present for Kaisa (a shawl + matching brooch), and one for Jussi (8 wine glass tokens). The shawl, made from a real simple pattern (scroll down to the bottom!). This is the actual color of the yarn, I don't know why the next picture got so lilac. The trim, one I came up with myself (scroll down for the pattern). Jussi's wine glass tokens are on the right. The crocheted flower is the brooch. Like always when leaving for a trip in the last minute *cough* I had ample time to wrap the presents.... that is, I had to bring paper+tape+scissors+gift bo...