A busy week and a monstrous weekend

This past week or so, I have...

...gone on board a huge and pretty ship.

...received a giveaway prize: a cute little planet by Kreativlink! If you haven't heard of Kreativlink before, you're missing out and must immediately check out her journals and other fun things. So there.

(The tiny owls are trying to figure out if anyone's home. They're not sure yet.)

...finished a whole bunch of hearts gone wild.

...harvested the first of my balcony garden's radishes! They are yum. =)

...also fiddled with other things in the balcony garden. This is how it currently looks.

...baked a blueberry pie with fresh blueberries. Another yum. =)

...and finally, made lots of monstrous scarves this weekend.

Rescue 911: Hedgehog Edition

One sunny day, Mamma and I had been out picking strawberries in my parents' field. We were already on our way indoors with a bowl full, when Mamma decided to show me some new trees they'd recently planted. A good thing she did, because next to these trees, on the other side of the fence, is the neighbours' strawberry field. In it we saw this:

A poor little baby hedgehog, stuck in the strawberry net!

We immediately called for Pappa and my brother and organized a rescue. The neighbours were away, so Pappa decided to go check things out closer and cleared the fence with haste (and style).

The strawberry net was attached tightly to the hoglet's spines, so Pappa cut him out...

...and handed the little one to me to get the rest of the net off.

The net turned out to be wound tightly around the poor guy's neck and had to be carefully cut off, with the help of my brother.

The baby hog was so tiny! And completely exhausted after fighting the net in the hot sun for who knows how long, he seemed to fall asleep in my hands as I was checking that we got all the net off. (The red sticky stuff on his fur is strawberry, by the way, nothing serious.)

The baby hedgehog is one of three that live in our yard with their mommy. We brought him (and a plate of water) near the nest and let him go. He was so shaky on his feet and had to take several breaks on the meter-long walk, but he made it home to the others.

The next day we could breathe out with relief, for we spotted all four hedgehogs alive and well, one of them bravely exploring the lawn. The rescue mission was a success!

(Thanks to Mamma for all the photos! She never forgets the camera.)

More photos! Of plants!

The balcony grows and thrives. Well, the plant life in it, that is.

The window box I showed to you earlier has developed quite nicely into what I had in mind. Once the ivy grows a bit bigger I'll be a happy girl. If only the weather would be more cooperative, haven't been able to sit outside and enjoy the pretties for too long.

The veggies in their green box are doing well too, it seems. The box seems rather small these days.


Yum yum yum!

(I have no idea if the radishes are supposed to show like that? Should I cover them up or leave them be?)

My Weekend by Morrgan

This weekend, it was time for a ladies' sauna evening. Off to a lakeside cabin a group of us fine ladies went and arrived after much (mis)adventure with missed buses, forgotten bags and car trouble.

What a pretty view awaited us upon arrival! After the enjoying the surroundings a bit, there was much sauna and swimming in the lake. Joy.

We even spotted a couple of lizards.

But oh noes! Rain!

Lots of rain! The most rain ever* poured down from the sky!

(Click on the photos for bigger versions, to see how the lake looked like it was boiling from all the rainfall.)

* This may or may not have been an exaggeration.

Fortunately we were inside the cabin by then, with much drink and foody delights such as this strawberry dessert. Mmm.

The only problem was that the conversation tended to turn into shouting, in order to hear and be heard over the rain and thunder.

Just as dinner was finished and we were ready to head out to the bus stop, the rain ended and we got to enjoy the setting sun on the opposite shore. A suitable finale for our little weekend excursion.

The Fishy Project continues

As is probably easy to guess, I have been busy with the new fish tank. It's fun work though. =) Here's the current view from what has already become my favourite spot on the sofa.

As you can see it's still quite unfinished, but it's getting better every day. (Excuse the thermometers here and there - there's a new heater in there and I want to be able to easily check that it's doing its job properly.) I thought I'd show these work-in-progress photos as well, to see how the aquarium develops.

For the tech-curious: the blue thing in the back left corner is the biological filter I built, a so-called Hamburg Mattenfilter according to these principles. It's basically a cylinder with a bottom, made of blue foam and containing a water pump. I made one for another tank 5 years ago and it's worked well, although for this I changed the design a bit.

The first few fishies were moved today: a twig catfish (Farlowella sp.), a red-finned or rainbow shark and a bunch of upside-down catfish.

This guy or gal, called Red-Eyes Jr, is the red-finned shark. There's only one because they get very territorial as adults, but s/he's still quite young and seems rather social - s/he's quite taken to the catfish and likes to swim along with them around the aquarium.

Here's a couple of the upside-down catfish. As the name says, the swim mostly upside down which looks awesome. :D They're also lively and really fast, they can swim from one end of the 160 cm long tank to the other in just a few seconds. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised that they have been happily swimming around even with the lights on, I didn't expect that. There's 8 of them now, but another 7 should arrive this weekend, making a decent-sized group of them.

That's all the photos for now, more coming later I bet!

(Aaaaand finally an obligatory fish safety bulletin: if you're setting up a fish tank from scratch, adding fish this soon is not a good idea. Fish produce nitrogen compounds that turn into ammonia/ammonium, which is poisonous to the fish. In a mature aquarium, the ammonia/ammonium is quickly changed into nitrite (a litte less dangerous), which in turn is changed to nitrate (fairly harmless). All this is done by certain bacteria, which need to be grown in the tank before fish can be added - this process is called "cycling". In this case, I moved over not only the fish from the old aquarium, but also the mature filter, some sand and decorations - all of which contain the "nice" bacteria that are mentioned above. I'll also be checking the nitrite & nitrate levels regularly just in case, so the fishies will be safe.)

IT IS HERE

It has arrived! My new aquarium is here, with its delicious 160x48x48 centimeters and 370 liters (that's about 63x19x19 inches and 98 US gallons for you non-metricians). Yum! =) It was custom-built with special measurements and a stand that goes with our bookshelf, and was brought into our livingroom on Friday (sooner than I expected) by the guy who made it and his son. A handmade aquarium and stand fits a crafter, I suppose?

The new tank is inspected by my giant knitted Pleko. He's quite interested in that big piece of wood, I think.

This is a dream-come-true type of thing. I've been planning and saving up for this for years, and now with the new apartment I'm finally able to get a nice big aquarium for my fishies. I'll combine fish from two of my old tanks into this one, but there should be room for one or two new species as well.

(By the way, the piece of wood in the left corner is heavy. It occured to me, as I was dragging it home through town from the fish shop, sweating and gritting my teeth in the hot sun and with passers-by looking rather amused, that I must really be some kind of an idiot. Why else would I not only do things like that, but pay money for this "pleasure" and be ridiculously happy about finally being able to get this expensive and heavy log? Yeah. Sounds like an idiot to me.)

It is almost as long as me. =)

The wood is scrubbed (ugh) and the sand is washed (UGH). I skipped the last 20 kg of sand and went for "only" 60 kg. The sand looks great, natural-looking with a reddish tint, but it is awful to wash. I've rinsed it at least a billion times and the water is still cloudy. I believe the result will be worth the back ache, though. The good news is, all the annoying labour is done and now it's on to decorating it and other such fun bits! Yay!

Current status: Half-filled and full of tiny dust. Not quite there yet.

FREEDOOOOOOM! Or, an interesting fishy tidbit.

While impatiently waiting for my new big tank to arrive (oh yes, it's on its way, all 160 cm of it), I have been amusing myself by looking up various fish species and planning what to put in said big tank. I came across this video while looking up info on hillstream loaches.

"Muahaha! Your silly glass boxes can't keep ME inside! FREEDOOOOOOOOM!"

As is often the case with seemingly baffling fish behaviour, it has its roots in the way the fish behave in the wild - in the case of this climbing action, it's how they travel past fast currents. Here's a neat article for those inclined to read more about this behaviour.

Hey ho, to the Medieval Market we go!

It's once again time for the Medieval Market here in Turku. I've gone to see it almost every year since I moved to Turku and it's all kinds of awesome.

This time Mr Morrgan and I went with friends - the more the merrier. The ladies went wild amongst ye olde market stands of all kinds, while the gentlemen seemed more at home at the "taverns", sampling the traditional Finnish beer sahti.

As a friend of fine beers, I had to try the drinks too though. In the first of these drinky places I preferred the honeyed mead, but in the second the sahti was excellent. This second place, advertising its drink with a guy shouting "there's not a more miserable sight than a thirsty person!", also demonstrated the different steps of of making sahti (pictured on the right here). This was the first time Mr Morrgan had tried sahti and I expect that any day now he will drag home some vats and juniper branches and start up his own sahti brewery.

Other handicrafts were both demonstrated and sold at the market, which was perfect for a crafty soul like me. I found a few things to take home too. I bought a wooden pendant from an Estonian lady and a really cool silver snake (or maybe dragon...?) ring from a Swedish lady.

The wooden pendant caught my eye with its stylized shape and was just too neat to pass by. More examples of the makers' work can be seen online.

The snake ring, which I had to name Edmund, was just perfect in that it's a more subtle design than the others I've seen. This one doesn't overdo it, plus I like the snake's little smile!

Things that grow and thrive. Plus a new creature!

There are chairs! And more flowers! And a box with planted radish and spinach seeds!

Project Wonderful Balcony goes forward. Next up will be a small table to put between the chairs and which will carry the smaller basket, now on the other chair in the photo.

The green window box, barely visible on the bottom right, was more a spur-of-the-moment kinda thing. I really, really wanted to plant some seeds. Like, really. So I got a box, some radish and spinach seeds, and did indeed plant some seeds. They have grown well, my little pretties. The speedy radishes showed themselves in just a few days (the photo on the right shows them the day they came up, the one on the left shows them a day later) and a few tiny spinach plants have made themselves known today.

(Seriously though, where do such absolute desires come from, anyway? "Today, I must plant some seeds! YES!" Is this entirely sane?)

Already I have spent several evenings in the beginnings of my little balcony garden. Mostly reading, but a few days ago I made this little guy, Edmund the Frog. As you can see on the right, he immediately approved of the flowers.

(Gardener-Morrgan's Hint of the Day: The Phlox he's hiding in has a lovely scent.)

Sunflowers, happy and grumpy

"Yay!" say the happy sunflowers. "There's sun and warmth and all is well in the world!"

"How suspicious", say the grumpy sunflowers. "No flower can be that happy all the time. It's unnatural. ¬¬"

"Yay, look!" say the happy ones. "Friends! Grumpy perhaps, but still friends! Yay!"

"Ack!" say the grumpy ones. "They've seen us! They'll be all positive at us!"


And so on. Will the happy ones ever see the icky side to rain? ("Yay! Drink for us thirsty ones!") Will the grumpy ones ever appreciate the joy of sun? ("We'll become TOAST if this keeps up. ¬¬") Get them for your fridge and perhaps you'll find out. Or get just a happy one to light up your day. Or a grumpy one, if you see to many smiles every day.

Happy Midsummer! With flowery musings

I have a dream of a green oasis of my own, filled with pretty flowers and yummy herbs and climbing vines and other botanical delights. I shall attempt to create this haven in the place I have dubbed The Wonderful Balcony.

To be honest, it isn't so wonderful yet. I have only taken the first step on the way: I have aqcuired a window box and have filled it with pretties. I'm going for blue, orange and white in various shades this year. (And I've already planned colour schemes for about 5 years onwards. A tad overexcited, perhaps? *sigh*)


This lot includes a dahlia, Lobelia, Impatiens, ivies and a couple whose English names I don't know. Plus a dark purple and white petunia, breaking the colour scheme, because Mr Morrgan fell in love with it. It'll be fun to see how it turns out once the plants have fully grown.

I imagine there will be more photos of Project Wonderful Balcony throughout the summer. Next up: chairs, to sit in and enjoy the view!

(Also, there will be photos of knitting projects posted soon. For once. Knitting in the shape of flowers, as it happens. May as well go fully along with the obsession.)

And finally,I wish a happy and sunny Midsummer to those who celebrate it!

Birthday Goodies!

Yay, I have a computer again! We've had internet at the new apartment since we moved a week ago, but the computer was left behind for a few days and was set up today. Only I don't have a desk for it yet. Oh well, a minor problem.

A few days ago I once again officially turned one year older and yesterday Mr Morrgan's birthday gift arrived in the mail: a whole bunch of neat t-shirts from Threadless! Yay again!

The one on the right here is called The Day The Fire Brigade Went On Strike and is just so wonderfully sweet. (There's a couple of elephants on the back too, waiting for their turn.) The other two designs I got were We Are Made of Carbon, perfect for work, and Fail, featuring the cutest little cows. Mr Morrgan got a funny one for himself too, Defend the Kingdom. I can't wait to wear these all summer. =)


One thing I don't get though is the American sizing system for clothes. I, a regular M here in the land of Finns, had to get XL of all things. Mr Morrgan, who is an S in any sane universe, had to get an L. Don't they run out of room for X:s on the labels real quick with that sizing system?

A Place to Call Home

The living room, with a silly door to the balcony.

The apartment hunting is over! Last wednesday we got the keys to our very own place. (I wonder, does this mean we now have to start acting like sensible adults? Oh dear.)

We're ridiculously happy about this place. It's got a Real Kitchen! It's got light fixtures that work! It's got a stove that also actually works! It won't turn into a big oven in summer! (Well, we're pretty sure it won't. We shall see!) It's got a balcony! It's got a whole small room for clothes! It's got, well, space. We're used to a tiny place with barely any room at all; this new place has a bedroom, living room, that little room for clothes, a nice wide hallway and a bathroom. I mean, we're going to get lost in there!

Mr Morrgan, checking out his favourite part of the new place:
the Real Kitchen.

Oh, plus the balcony! Wonderful, wonderful balcony, how I've longed for thee. I can't wait to fill it up with pretty flowers surrounding a couple of chairs, perfect for ice tea after work. (Well, once we figure out how the door works. We've opened it twice and both times had to spend 15 minutes trying to get it shut again. Not even having instructions thoughtfully left beside it by the previous owner helped.)

But do you know what I really enjoy about this apartment (in addition to the balcony and having no crappy linoleum floors)? It's in the middle of town, yet you can see trees from every window and barely hear any traffic noise at all. Such a huge change to what we've lived in so far.

Now, the only problem is which colours to choose for the bedroom and living room walls. Mr Morrgan has some silly notion about orange being a good idea. He can call it "ochre" all he wants, but it's still orange and a ridiculous colour for a wall, says I. Will we ever be able to decide? Only time will tell!

Zombie Fire Ants!

"Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.

Eventually their heads fall off, and they die."

Hot damn. I will never understand people who think biology is boring.

Fire ants are causing trouble in southern and southeastern USA. To control them biologically, parasitic phorid flies have been introduced. The flies lay eggs in the ants and the results have been quoted above. Read the whole grisly story of horror here.

"The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior."

Hot damn.


As it happens, I've been playing games like Left 4 Dead and Plants vs Zombies lately. And then life comes along and proves itself stranger than fiction. I love it.

May Day! Plus some fish

Yay, May Day! (No, not the distress signal kind, but this.) And what a fine May Day celebration it has been. We tried wine that was older than myself, got to wear silly headwear and had a nice picnic in warm sunshine. (Whilst listening to the, uhm, delightful tunes of the Rocky theme played on a melodica, courtesy of some other picnickers nearby. Again and again. Oh, and got to watch some playful puppies, which made all good.)

Alas, the camera was forgotten on all these occasions, so you will have to make do with a somewhat random couple of photos of some of my fish enjoying their (almost May) dinner. I have at least four different species of Pangio or kuhli loaches in there, but only two or three agreed to pose for these.



In other, knitting-related news, I'm working on a new knitting pattern for the shops and should have something ready this month. Stay tuned, if you feel so inclined.

Tuesday Finds: Spring is Here

A few days ago, Mr Morrgan and I went out for a walk. It seems spring has finally arrived - the sunshine feels warmer, the birds have begun to fill the air with their songs and there's even a bit of colour from a few brave flowers. I remembered my camera for once and took a few shots.

As I was editing these photos for the blog, I realized it's Tuesday and figured I could combine it with a Tuesday Finds post. Oh man, when was the last one of those? Time flies lately. Well, after all these photos you'll find a few picks of the week, inspired by this walk and its delights.



But before those, I have to show you my pride and joy for the moment. I finally got my hands on an Easter Cactus! *happy sigh* Just don't ask me what the scientific name is; according to one source it's a Hatiora, another says it's a Rhipsalidopsis, a third claims Schlumbergera... I give up. I'll just call it A Pretty.



Now, the finds! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves this time.

Meadow Bowl
$60, chocolatefrog.etsy.com

Set of 3 bangle bracelets
$9.99, craftychick101.etsy.com

Ornamental scarf with brooch
$35, tijusai.etsy.com

SURPRISE! MUAHAHAA

A mysterious envelope arrived yesterday and in it was this mysterious note! The small text says "Here you have a cd." And there was indeed a cd inside.

This must be one of the coolest envelopes I have ever received. The note alone has had me giggling like a silly person for a day and a half.

This mysterious package was sent by my brother, Man of Mystery and Muahahaa. He went to the release party of the CD in the envelope, How's the Heart by Sofie Björkgren-Näse - check out the artist's MySpace page for a few songs!

Bro, you're all kinds of awesome. <3

A day of crafty fun (and arty, and antique-y, and so on)

Yes, I still live! I've just been busy with, oh, lots of stuff. All sorts of stuff. *sigh* Mostly my day job, though, which is a bit tricky to combine with my knitting shops. *another sigh* But I'm not complaining, really, as I do like both. There's just not much time for anything else at times. ;)

I did manage to get some happy happy fun time in this weekend, with a visit to a big handicrafts fair here in Turku. It was combined with other themes as well, such as art, antiques and old toys. Mr Morrgan came along and his favourite bit was, surprisingly, the handicrafts part, although he also enjoyed the electric trains, which were set up and buzzing around on a big table, and a few neat veteran cars that were on display.

My main goal was of course yarn. However, I didn't bring a single ball of yarn home. I'm not sure how this happened. Something must have malfunctioned in my brain.

Mr Morrgan and I did find several neat things though, such as the ones shown in this photo here. The bath sponge ladybug is handmade, as is the lovely orange flower which is actually a felted ring. I'm not sure about the candies, but I understand it is a small company that makes them and at least the liquorice is organic. The other two flavours we got are ginger and sea-buckthorn. Both are really yummy, yummier perhaps than one might expect from the name alone, and the liquorice is just awesome!

As luck would have it, we also found the exact same jumbo coffee cups as the one I broke the day before from one of the antiques tables. Very lucky, as these are no longer available in stores but are too recent to be found in antiques shops very often. So now I can enjoy my half a liter of coffee every morning again and Mr Morrgan is no longer grumpy at me about the broken cup. We're a couple of lucky ducks, oh yes.

I'd like to say I'll be posting more often from now on, but really, I can't promise that'll happen. In addition to the work-related stuff, we're now looking at buying a place to live, so free time will be in short supply. Exciting times, though!

It's time for gloves! Again!

I have been knitting a lot of fingerless gloves again. The latest pairs have been for custom orders and won't be shown here, but I have also been listing a few pairs for sale that I made during my holiday break. I was trying out new materials - beautiful luxurious wool blends with silk and bamboo, mostly - and I'm loving them! I thought it was about time I showed off a few pairs here. After all, this is supposed to mainly be my showing-off-knitted-things blog, not a muffin-recipes-and-plants blog.

These are all gloves I made in December, but didn't get around to photograph until weeks later.

This red pair is one of my favourites. It's made from an oh so soft wool-bamboo blend (which i LOVE) and just look at that red! It's perfect for adding a bit of colour to an otherwise bleak winter season.




I listed these fingerless gloves just minutes ago in my Etsy shop. I have made pairs in a similar colour scheme for this cabled style in bamboo before, but this pair is made from an extra soft wool-silk blend. It's just delicious, if I can use such a word, both to knit with and to wear.


Last up today we have a pair of striped arm warmers in a bamboo-cotton blend. Comfortable to wear, fun to knit. These actually sold already, but keep an eye on my shop if you like what you see - I'm making another similar pair, with the colours inverted. They won't be finished until after the custom orders are done though, so be prepared to wait a week or two.

And that's enough shameless advertising for now. :D Enjoy the rest of your weekend!