Miscellanea

Now that all my current projects are sitting in the freezer things could have turned out badly for me. Isn't it so that idle hands are the devil's tools in the English speaking world? Fortunately for me, Ann and Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting came to the rescue and I am immensely grateful to them. I would never have gotten the idea to knit something from cotton if it hadn't been for them, who needs cotton in this northern corner of the world? (I admit that about 90% of my clothes are made of cotton, as I discovered in my bug killing escapades.)

Last Saturday I strolled over to my extremely local yarn shop. Just next door to my apartment building there is a market hall (Hakaniemen halli) and on the upper floor are these small booths where they sell all kinds of things, buttons, ribbons, handmade soaps and jewellery, and most importantly there is a lovely lady there selling yarn. I sometimes shop there because I like supporting small businesses. Well, that and the fact that it is 200 meters from my doorstep. On that particular Saturday I had the urge to buy some cotton for a Mason-Dixon washcloth. Since the lady only sells high quality Egyptian cotton, it became a pretty fancy washcloth, all shiny and soft. It was really quick and fun to knit so I foresee more washcloths in my near future. On monday I went to the less local yarn shop and bought a whole bag of cotton which is more in the style of Ann and Kay. Down to earth cotton for the common people, like myself. Since then I've made a baby burp cloth and a bib. I'm really getting into this small project wibe, it goes so fast and you feel like you're really getting a lot done.

After making a few more of these I'm planning to make the dishcloth pattern from their book. Then maybe some more washcloths and perhaps a towel while I'm at it.

People here seem to think I'm overreacting to the bug issue. My friend Markus said, and I quote: "After all, it's only bugs". How could he say such a mean thing when wool might get hurt? I did a most unscientific thing and used scare tactics to make him understand. I told him to imagine wearing the most beautiful wool sweater… with freaking larvae crawling around in it! Not that it's likely to happen, but hey, it made him rethink his opinion. Then my supervisor Ari told me that people just live with the bugs. How is that even possible? Do they burn all wooley goodness and get electrocuted by polyester on a regular basis, or what? Me no understand.

On a more positive note, I am doing a seriously kick-ass spring cleaning. My life's most ambitious cleaning undertaking. I should get a medal, really! I spent 12 hours cleaning yesterday, culminating in ferocious spraying of insecticide. It felt damn good I tell you.

On Wednesday I innocently went browsing on amazon.de but lost all self-control. Now Deutsche Post is bringing me four books. I have discovered a serious problem with this compulsive collecting of knitting books. So you buy a book and you're all happy about it and browse it many times (especially when going to bed). Then you reach the point where you've pretty much charted the whole book, read all the non-pattern text and decided which designs you like and all that's left is to read the pattern instructions. But that's not much fun unless you're actually knitting the thing. So a new book has to be bought and the process begins again. This means that the list of things to knit gets longer and longer, but you're knitting speed can by no means keep up with the rate at which the project list grows. This stresses me out, because I start feeling there is so much work undone, and I'll never have time to do it all. Does anyone have the same experience?

News and pics of the Mason-Dixon and Yarn Harlot book toors are all over blogland now. May I admit that I am seriously envying people living across the ocean? I want my books signed too. I wanna meet famous knitters. They're funny, I wanna see them being funny in person. Can anyone organize a trip for them to Finland, please? They can stay at my place, if someone else pays the flight tickets. Is it a deal, yes? (Tallinn is a 40 minute boat ride away, doesn't everyone love Estonian folk knitting? And Helsinki is a pretty nice city in the summertime.)

Actually I'd appreciate getting any knitters over here, I'm feeling a bit lonely since I don't know any knitters in Finland. Boohoo, I don't have anyone to knit with! My friend Sigurlaug is coming for a two day visit in May, but come on, two measly days.

Oh, the mosquitos are back in town. I happen to have a serious allergy to mosquito bites and I completely forgot to go to the doctor and get my antihistamine prescription in time. There was one mosquito hovering outside my office window for quite a while last week. I know it could smell the sweet scent of virgin Icelandic blood. Virgin in the sense that we don't have real mosquitos in Iceland and are thus not exposed to their poisonous bite. They really like that. Have you realized yet what a magical and bugfree place Iceland really is? Never mind the crappy weather, it keeps the bugs away.

I admit, I couldn't be without wool this long. Yesterday I visited my local yarnstore and bought some. Mind you I have some zip-lock bags now and that's where it all went. Except for one skein which I'm knitting a swatch from, but I am really careful. Everytime I went to the balcony for some nicotine I took it with me. A bug doesn't dare to eat it in front of my very eyes, right? At the end of the night I locked it up, and since the zip-lock bags are rather small (1 liter) I had to be inventive

Oh my poor little skein. I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but you'll see, I'm only trying to protect you.