Rag Pets

Midsummer

It's Midsummer (or Juhannus, as it's known here) now, although it feels like summer hasn't yet even begun. This weekend has been cloudy and rainy and all together rather drab, just like the whole summer so far. There was no midnight sun to be had n Midsummer's Eve, as there was no sun to be seen behind the heavy grey clouds during the day either. I'm sure many bonfires went unlit, since everything is still soggy after all the rain, and many Midsummer spells were left undone as the grey weather dampened festive spirits.

This holiday weekend hasn't all been gloomy and grey though. Today the sun made a brief appearance during the day, and it hasn't rained one drop yet. Also, J's parents popped by for a visit and brought wonderful, lush tomato and chili plants for us with them. Our balconies look so lovely and verdant now, and BooBoo is enjoying exploring the new jungle. I hope to get a good crop this year, since last year the tomatoes failed to bear any fruit due to the cold weather.
J's parents also brought us so much food that our fridge is nearly bursting at the seams now! There's rhubarb pie, new potatoes and freshly baked buns & cake among all the other yummy nosh, so luckily making some room in the fridge isn't very hard at all. :)

We've spent the whole weekend just loafing about at home, only venturing outside when necessary. The weather put a damper (literally) to my plans to have a Rag Pet photo shoot, since I doubt anything good would come out of trooping to the wet, muddy forest to snap photos. So, Summer the rag-rabbit will just have to wait for summer to finally make it's way here.

Summer plans

(Photo & New York pigeon feather souvenir by Alyssa Zygmunt/BROOKLYrehab)

After not having a proper summer holiday for years and years, we're finally taking a bit of time and we'll be jetting off to New York for a week in August! This will be our third visit to the Big Apple, and I'm super excited to be going there again. There's something about the city that feels... well, familiar, even though it's very different from any place I've been to before. And I have to admit, I have a big soft spot for the kitschy, touristy stuff: I've skated at Rockefeller Center, we've had a horse drawn carriage ride in Central Park, photographed pigeons and spent a day at Coney Island, eating Nathan's hot dogs. ..OK, the photographing pigeons bit might not be on every tourist's list of things to do. :)
Still, despite the feeling of familiarity, I'm still totally in awe of the city too; everything is so big and grand and there's so, so much to see and do!

We're eagerly making plans for our trip, although so far all we've decided is that we don't want to spend much time at the hotel and that we might make a day trip over to New Jersey, as our hotel is 2 blocks from Grand Central station.

And on that note, if anyone has any ideas for places to go and things to do in New York, we'd love to hear them! Also, suggestions for good fabric and craft stores to visit would be greatly appreciated (by me, I'm sure J. isn't as interested in them) as well.

Walpurgis Day & a rag-cat

Today was Vappu, or Walpurgis day. Here it's a big carnival-like celebration with people taking to the streets to party with balloons and streamers a plenty. Vappu is a celebration of spring coming, although I think most people seem to have forgotten that and tend to just use it as an excuse to go out and party. Since we're not much for partying and huge, wild crowds, we celebrated today by staying home, drinking Sima (sweet mead) and watching movies instead.

The Rag Pets celebrated the holiday too, with Polly taking care of the decorations.

Polly likes celebrations and parties of all sorts, and she's a champion at making balloon animals. She's also a really good party planner.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

Polly is made out of grey wool fabric and she's stuffed full of rags and batting and fun. Her nose is embroidered and her eyes are tiny little buttons. She has a grey plastic button as a belly button and sweet blushy cheeks.

Polly wears a fun lime-green bubble hemmed jumper skirt with big white buttons and stripy mismatched socks. The dress closes in the back with a hook and eye.

Happy Vappu to you all! :)

Happy Easter!

I made a special rag-rabbit to celebrate Easter.

This is Esther, and she's an Easter bunny.
Esther likes to paint eggs and to eat chocolate. Every spring she rises fluffy little chicks and grows beautiful daffodils and she's very good at both.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

Esther is made out of soft white wool fabric and she's filled with rags and a bit of cotton batting. Her eyes are tiny, dark red buttons, and her belly button is a lovely pearly button. Esther's nose is embroidered and she has cute blushy cheeks.

Esther is wearing a sweet green dress made out of Marimekko-print cotton fabric with a white collar. It closes in the back with a snap. She also has a fetching hare-bow made out of an old sheet and frilly apron made out of that same sheet and some Finlayson-print cotton fabric.

A very happy Easter to everyone! :)

Yarn Saturday

Now, I know it's not technically Saturday anymore, but for me, the day doesn't change until I've slept and it's morning again. And I'm sure it's still Saturday somewhere in the world.

Easter Saturday is called "Lanka Lauantai" in Finnish, which translates into "Yarn Saturday". Traditionally, the yarn produced during the winter was washed during Holy Saturday, hence the fun alliterative name for this particular day.
I had no yarn to wash, but I did sew all day today, which is also why I'm a bit late in posting this. I just got into that blissful sewing groove where there's nothing else but you and the sewing machine and the needle & thread doing their magic. I've been sewing pretty much all my life, and I am still amazed how a few pieces of fabric and some thread can turn into anything and everything you can imagine.

In this case, what those pieces of fabric and streams of thread have turned into is an Easter bunny, who will be properly introduced to you tomorrow when I've had time to take her photos. :)

Catching up

It's been a while since I last posted, despite a lot of things happening between then and now. I know I'm not the best at keeping a blog, so my updates are few and far between despite my best efforts to keep up. Any way, like I said, I've lots of things to post about!

Since I last posted over a month ago (such a long time!), there's been a few new arrivals: my Spoonflower test swatch came and The Terrific Trio returned home from their travels in Seattle. I hope to clobber together a proper post about both of these later.

I came down with a rather sudden case of tonsillitis that had me laid up for a while, and I still have a bit of a cough left over from that. J. was ill for a while too, but luckily he didn't catch the tonsillitis that struck me down, while BooBoo has been healthy and furry as ever. :)

I also started a new hobby, Chadô (literally translated into "The Way of Tea", you can learn more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chado), learning the art of Japanese tea. I've had two lessons so far, and it's all been lovely and exciting. I take pleasure in how the very simple and plain is made beautiful, how every action is thought out and performed with grace and how, in the end, it's really all about making a good bowl of tea.
I made a fukusabasami (a little pouch for the bits and pieces needed during the tea gathering) and while it took me a few hours to decide on what fabrics to use and at one point I even though I have too much fabric (that was a fleeting thought and it wasn't entertained for long at all), I'm very happy with it. It got lots of compliments from everyone at the tearoom too.

So, spring brings lots of new things with it as it comes, and I'm hoping that among it's gifts there will be a renewed enthusiasm for me to keep updating this poor neglected blog! :)

Happy Hinamatsuri!

Today is Hinamatsuri, which is also known as Doll Festival or Girl's Day. Hinamatsuri obviously isn't celebrated here in Finland, but I still like to keep it in my own way, because I love dolls. :)

In celebration, the rag-bears had a picnic in our entryway, since it's still very much winter outside, with even more snow falling today. Nelly (on the left in blue), Patty (on the right in pink) and Winnie (who's played by Noëlle, because I didn't have any toffee wool left, in the middle in green) had yummy muffins, berry pies, cookies and marshmallows with strawberry juice, while sitting on their picnic-blanket on the...um, astroturf.

I'm going to have a proper introduction for the rag-bear triplets once I get some more toffee wool to make a proper Winnie and maybe when we have real grass for the photoshoot. :)

Yummy craft loot!

I went to the Craft Fair today, and now my feet are aching, but I'm super happy! I really like this particular fair, there's always really great suppliers and crafters there and lots and lots of fabulous crafty goodies to splurge on.

I got some sorely needed air-erasable fabric markers, and I found brilliant big buttons! The biggest buttons are about 26 cm in circumference and I think they might become brooches and head-dresses in the future. The smaller ones will most likely end up as the same but for Rag Pets.

I found gorgeous, soft linen at the fair. I've been looking for linen like this for ages, and I'm so happy that I found a Finnish supplier with very reasonable prices. I had 10 meters of lovely un-dyed linen that I got from my gran (who got it in Tallinn), but I ran out of it some time back. I love working with linen, how it becomes soft when you handle it and even how pure, untreated linen smells.
I also got yummy printed quilting cottons from a shop I buy from every time I go to the craft fair.

New craft supplies always make me happy and inspired, and I already have lots of ideas for my new craft goodies. :)

A meme for a sunny day

I love memes (both the actual thing and the word itself) like BooBoo loves to sleep in the sun, and I have no idea why I've not posted any here before! So, to celebrate this lovely, lazy sunny Sunday, here's a meme I was tagged to do by Tania of Super Ninon.

- Diamonds or pearls: Diamonds, because pearls mean tears

- The last movie I saw: was so bad that I'm not going to admit what it was

- My favorite TV show: I like so many TV shows it's hard to pick just the one, but right now I'm really in to CSI... maybe because I'm watching it as I type this! :)

- My breakfast: Today I had crisps and chocolate for breakfast. I do eat real food for brekkie too, I just like to have candy for breakfast now and then simply because I can.

- My second first name: Eerika, I don't actually use my first name but go by my second name instead. This is a tradition in my family; my grandad, dad and brother go by their second names too.

- Food I don't like: Fish. I actually dislike fish so much I tell people that I'm allergic to it so I don't have to eat it.

- My favorite first name at the present time: hmmm... I'd say Matilda, it's one of my all time favourite names for both the way it sounds and it's meaning and it's also the name I gave the first ever proper Rag Pet I made. :)

- Character trait I don't like: I don't like people who are fake and shallow, who pretend to be something they're not.

- A place I would like to fly to: I have two, New York, because it's one of my most favourite places and Tokyo, because I'd love to go sightseeing and shopping there.

- Where I'd like to retire: Somewhere sunny and warm and beautiful

- Chocolate or vanilla: Both!

- The last person I talked to on the phone: Mum, we're arranging a trip to my grandparents to celebrate their wedding anniversary at the end of this month.

- Sweet or salty: Sweet

- My favorite day of the week: Tuesday. Tuesday became my favourite day when I was in high school and for one semester, I had 6 hours of art every Tuesday (if I remember right, the other two hours were geography, which I also liked). Since then, I've always liked Tuesdays. :)

In turn, I tag Lou Lou & Oscar and Two Cheese Please.

Something different

I'm working on something new and it's all rather exhilarating! It's fun to get to stretch your creative muscles and to do something different every now and then. And what better time for new things than spring!

Spring always gets my energy up and sparkling. It's how everything is new again, and how there's so, so much more light than during the dark, drab winter. There's still snow on the ground here, but that doesn't matter since we had no snow last winter and this year winter actually feels like winter with snow and bitterly cold days and all. The snow makes the air sparkle during brilliant, cold days and it's a bit like living inside a giant crystal.
Still, I'm eager for spring to come. I've missed the sun during the winter (it would hardly rise at all before it already begun to set), and as I'm prone to come down with SAD in the dark months, it's like I'm now beginning to wake after a long sleep. I've come to the conclusion that I must be solar powered! :)

Any ways, I'm working on a new kind of Rag Pet, something a little different that I've taken to calling "Print Pets". I designed and drew and PhotoShopped all of yesterday and now I'm waiting for my test swatch to come from Spoonflower (if you're not familiar with them, it's a brilliant service that lets you design & print your own fabrics), eager to see how everything will turn out. It's nice to have a new project in the works! :)