cancel christmas

warning. an image-heavy post follows.

so i made a rather impressive performance at a handicrafts fair last sunday. in terms of buying stuff anyway. screw christmas. consider my presents opened.

the fair was 150 miles away from me so mom came along and we staid overnight at a hotel. ate bad burgers, farted, giggled, farted again. like any other normal mother-daugther pair would do.

the fair seems to get bigger and bigger each year and this time there were almost 600 exhibitors trying to lure me to the dark side. an alarming number succeeded. oh well. i may be a servant of satan now but at least i've got stuff. much, much stuff.

and i really made a point to only buy stuff that's ecological, domestic or otherwise inherently good as far as consumer conscience goes. this awesome necklace from intoa is made out of old carpet rags. look at the scrumptuous color! look at it!

it obviously calls for a matching set of earrings. because sometimes i like to dress up and feel like a girly girl. these enameled beauties are from pauliina rundgren.

filling up my needle stash. i never knew knitpicks needles come in packs of 6. now i can break one just for the hell of it! oh snap!

then i found some gorgeous undyed dk weight lamb's wool from honkarinteen lammastila, which is an organic farm in southwest finland. the yarn's so gorgeous and soft that i want to wrap myself in it. sleep in it. make love to it. can't live without it.

i met the farm owner too, which is absolutely the best thing about these fairs. what an amazingly nice person. it's one thing to buy mass-produced yarn at a department store, and a completely different thing to buy yarn from someone who's fed and sheared the sheep herself and then spun the yarn with her own hands.

some hand-dyed sock yarn from hopeasäie...

some ridiculously soft, i-have-no-idea-what-i'm-gonna-do-with-this-but-i-had-to-buy-it-anyway merino from kirkkomäki...

a set of sock blockers from succaplokki... although in my shopping craze bought the small size instead of medium. rendering them somewhat useless. oh well. they're pretty and i supported eco-friendly production. so money well spent i guess.

and finally i found the most perfect bag ever. it's exactly the right size, opens with one hand, works both as handbag and shoulder bag, and fits an amazing amount of stuff in it. and it's made out of recycled army materials. globe hope, please allow me to build you an altar where i shall worship you for hours on end. naked if necessary.

what a fruitful sunday it was. same time next year, folks!

oh and you may have noticed that the art of photography is getting increasingly crappy here. choosing to live in arctic latitudes means having zero natural light this time of year. but fear not. only five more months of fumbling in the dark. it's not that long, right?

...right?

growing up

i've been hostessing* this blog for some time now and looks like my baby's growing up. the lovely becca at nook just gave me my first blog award!

keep 'em coming, people.

as for the award rules, i'm supposed to state seven interesting things about myself and then play the honor forward.

well, you'd be dead wrong to think i'd conform to such conformist conformity that easily. i need to bend the rules somehow.

i'm giving the award to hunter at violently domestic because both her parlance and the stuff she makes is awesome. period.

and here are five carefully selected and completely non-random facts about me. take that, conformity.

1. i can cross my toes. a great conversation-opener too.

2. my all-time favorite treat is potato chips mixed with vanilla ice cream into a heaping pile of sweet'n'salty goodness. oh god how much i want it. now. seriously. RIGHT N--

3. i love aeroplanes. looking at them, that is. not flying with them. i hate flying. being paralyzed with some kind of primitive death-fear is not my thing. but i could watch planes all day long from now until.. well, the day i die. in a burning flaming fireball of a mid-air collision, preferably. taxiing planes, landing planes, parked planes, i don't care. planes.

4. i once washed the bathroom sink with my flatmate's toothbrush. what can i say. i was disgruntled. marika, if you're out there.. well, you should've been nicer.

5. i secretly hope that the correct answer is, in fact, mormons. because that would be funny.

*yes it's a real word

oh, and...

have you ever noticed.. that bob.. is bob.. spelled backwards?

spinning is hard

metal on metal

let me tell you about my brother.

he's kind. he's pretty. he takes me to heavy metal gigs and refuses to let me pay for anything. in fact, he's just so freakin' awesome that it transcends all of my usual pseudo-witty commentary. so without any further gimmicky introduction i'm just gonna blurt it out that he wanted a grey chunky modern-looking scarf, and i made him one.

anvil scarf by me

ravelry link

size 17 x 160cm

lana grossa alta moda cashmere (150g / 6mm)

the name comes from the kick-ass documentary anvil! the story of anvil which served as some sort of inspiration when i was designing and swatching the scarf. check out the woolly headgear of the uncompromising canadian metal heroes and you'll see what i mean.

i love the finished diagonal (and reversible!) look and apparently the dear bro likes it too. for once i totally nailed a custom order!

i decided not to block it to keep it as rustic and unpolished as possible, and to make sure the yarn retains its volume. again it would've smoothened some of the unevenness of the stitches, but i think the rough and bulky look works better here.

it was a super fast knit too, only took two nights with 6mm needles. the yarn is really soft and the chain structure makes for an interesting texture, but for some reason it feels like acrylic to me even though it's supposed to be 80% merino and 20% cashmere. i'm thinking the infamous debbie bliss scam here. surely the germans wouldn't lie..?

the pattern is available if anyone wants it, so leave a comment if you're interested.

otherwise he will come and EAT YOUR BRAIN

workin' in a coal mine

so they just gave me a job at the local yarn store.

me. a job. at the local yarn store.

they didn't have to. but they did. because they're awesome. and now i get to spend all day sticking my fingers into the enchanting little orifices at each side of the lovely balls of yarn, you know, the thing yarnaholics do when they want to feel the texture properly - a finger or two just fits there so nicely - which to the untrained eye may seem like an exercise in some kind of warped sexual expression, but really, it's not.

it's not.

oh and the customer service part, i'll probably have to do that too, but only if my hands are free.

anyway. i got a job. at the local yarn store.

which is just about as awesome as things can get right now. so for this one time, and i promise i shall never ask for this again, please allow me to say..

WOOT WOOT