Pretty gloves

I am trying out this new program for my iBook that my good friend Markus told me about. It’s called Journler and from my first impression it is simply excellent. Apparently I can write my blog stuff in it and publish, all without ever visiting my actual blog, now that’s cool! Let’s see if it works, maybe it’ll make me write more frequently.

My life is finally back to normal, since returning to Helsinki. The day after I came from Iceland, I moved with an un-unpacked suitcase over to Frank’s place and stayed there for 10 days. His parents and sister were visiting and since his apartment is basically an open space, and my apartment has rooms and is bigger, we swapped. It was a fine swap, but it was good to get back home, as there’s nothing like home.

Then on the day I returned to my apartment it was invaded by houseguests of the feline kind, Pörrö and Hellä:



They are Markus’s and Tuija’s cats who needed a home until yesterday as the parents where out of town. We had a lot of fun together, but I wondered if I could ever have kids. All this responsibility you know, having to feed them at proper times and making them take their vitamins, something I don’t even do for myself. Also, it’s quite tiresome to be strict and say “EI!” (no) all the time, along with any one of “get off the table”, “don’t eat the plants”, “don’t jump on me unexpectedly with claws wide open”. That sort of stuff. Of course with kids it might be easier, at least they at some point understand spoken language. I make it sound bad, but really it wasn’t – they’re very sweet and loving most of the time and I enjoyed having them around.

Last week I finished the wedding gloves so now you can all go ahead and invite me to your weddings. They’re so fine and pretty, please winter, come soon.



All those teeny tiny stitches give me immense (or perverse) pleasure. I am getting obsessed with smaller and smaller needles and I fear it’s going to end badly. After knitting these on 1.5 mm needles (US 000) I knitted a bit on 2 mm ones (US 0) and thought the stitches looked so big and grotesque. That feeling does wear off after a while, fortunately.

Through the process of knitting such tiny stitches I discovered that I have favorite knitting needles. I found them in Weaving Works in Seattle and they’re made by Inox, but not the boring gray needles we get over here, no, they’re steel (I think), and they shine and sparkle. Which is nice, but the nicest part is that they don’t bend. Saying that I have a firm grip is probably an understatement



here you can see the 1.5 mm (US 000) Susan Bates needles (top, blue) with which the first wedding glove was knitted and below it are the steel ones on which the second glove was made. Lowest on the picture are the grey 2 mm Inox needles, slightly bent.