Knitted dish rag

We went to a spa this weekend. I wont show you any pictures of that trip, but I will show what I made during that trip. The spa is approx two hour drive from our home and time spent in a car should not go to waste. I often knit while traveling (unless I'm driving of course). I did not have any knit work under way so I had to come up with something to make in matter of minutes just before we left. 

I had bamboo yarn at home and decided to make a dish rag. Exciting, right? To make a dish rag I was inspired by Hupsistarallaa and the pattern was inspired by Piipadoo. The pattern is not exactly what Piipadoo had used in their pillow, I just had a vague memory about the pattern and did my own version.

The phase of the boat cushions

The re upholstery of the boat cushions, which I mentioned in this post, is moving forward, slowly but surely. We have washed most of the mattresses. Washing them is like grape stomping, not that I've ever done that, but I imagine it would feel similar. I ordered new shank buttons covered with the upholstery fabric from a professional. There are kits also available so I could have covered them myself, but I trust that the professionally made ones are more long-lasting. Then I have made the cover for one (smallest) cushion. It's not my best work, but I used the smallest one to familiarize myself with the new fabric and how it behaves. Few more cushions to do still.

Yet another pair of baby mittens

I needed to knit something so I made a pair of mittens for Likka. Because of the horizontal stripes with purl knit these would be in Finnish called train mittens, I guess because the stripes remind of tracks, not sure though. But anyway these stripes for some odd reason help keep the mittens on. The knit makes these flexible like an accordion and also the cuffs are long so even when Likka tries to pull these off, she wont manage to fully do so.

The palm side of the mittens is straight, no stripes. If you are real pro like me (heh), you can knit similar just by looking at the pictures, but in case you are not here are the instructions. Although these instructions are not most detailed, so not for a beginner.

Using superfine yarn create 30 stitches with 3,5 mm needles. Divide on three needles.
*knit, purl*  *_*repeat for 15 rows
*knit five rows, purl five rows*  *_*repeat four times
knit five rows
*knit, purl*  *_*repeat for 10 rows
^knit four rows
*purl 15 stitches, knit 15*  *_*repeat four rows*^  ^_^ repeat three times
Knit making a decrease on every needle until four stitches are left per needle. Cut yarn and pull through all sixteen twelve stitches. 

Warm feet

My periferic blood flow seems to be nonexistent and so my feet are cold all the time, especially on winter. I got a heating pad for my cold feet as a birthday present (two and a half months ago). I keep it in the bed all the time and then I can switch it on when ever I need it. It's electric and therefore it has a cable that needs to run from the socket to the foot of the bed.

The cable of the heating pad was just loosely hanging on the side of the bed. It looked ugly and the controller of the heating pad was not easily accessible. But I made a cable holder from a white sheet fabric and now I don't have to reach for the controller and the cable is not hanging loosely anymore.

I made slots for the cable, but left an opening for the controller. The slots are wide because the controller and the plug needs to be pulled through the first slot and the plug through the further slot. The fabric cable holder is attached with safety pins under the mattress pad. In the last photo I've drawn where the heating pad is positioned and how the cable runs under the sheet. I think this holder looks very good (read: it does not really show much at all) and I think it's pretty clever. But the main thing is that the heating pad is now super easy to put on and off.

Replacement bathrobes

You might remember that I mentioned that I have replaced some of the items I got rid off on the Minimalist game. Two of those items were bathrobes. In theory there was nothing wrong with those robes, but the only occasion where it ever occurred to us to use the robes was after sauna. I'm not sure you know but after sauna you will get sweaty really easily if you feel even a bit too warm. That is what we call after sweat in Finnish. But after having sauna it's nice to hang out and relax and it's preferably done in a bathrobe, but our robes were just way too hot. Once you put them on you were sure to have after sweat issues.

For years I have been thinking of replacing the robes with Japanese yukata. Yukata is similar to a kimono, but it's made from cotton and is way more casual than the kimono. Yukata is also very simple to sew and so I assumed I could make ones for us, but I've postponed making those for years now and so I felt that it's very unlikely I will ever be inspired to start those and decided to buy them.

 
I bought two similar yukatas, both were from the men's section of the online store, there were nice patterns on the women's side too, but I preferred to have both the same and I like the simple stripe pattern which was only sold on the men's side. With the yukata also came belt on the same pattern, it's standard that the belt is not attached to the yukata robe in any way, but I think I will make some sort of belt loop for it, just so that it is easier to use.

I know the yukata is nothing as fancy as a silk kimono, but I would love if we had one wall in the bathroom where I could keep one of the yukatas hanging from a bar as shown in the first picture. It would just look so good.

And no after sweat problems anymore. Yay.

(I'm not getting payed to link to the Kimono shop, I just bought mine there, and I'm happy with them, but I'm sure there are many more online shops similar to the one I've linked here)

Rabbits... sigh

Those little buggers, rabbits. They have eaten my Christmas roses and I think they've eaten bit of my pine bonsai too. So annoying!

I find it odd the rabbits have decided to eat all the Christmas roses, those are poisonous after all. I wish the rabbit got at least some bellyache from those.

Here is what the Christmas roses looked like in December.

~ ~ ~ ~

But on a more joyful note, because we had a quite warm winter the spring is here really early. The snowdrops are already blooming. Yay, spring is here!

Pile of mattresses (no pea just other green stuff)

You might remember we bought a sail boat last summer. Last year we did not do much maintenance to it, besides some work on the engine for the winter. This spring there will be some more work to be done for the hull, electrics, genoa sail, the motor and for the cabin. 

Last summer the textiles looked like in the following picture. The cushion covers are faded, stained, missing buttons and even broken from some parts. The curtains are faded and well just ugly.

The cushions also have moldy spots under them and they stink. Also the matresses on the rear which we mainly use for sleeping are too thin and at least for me those are not comfortable for sleeping. So not only do all cushions need new covers, they also need to be either totally replaced or washed.

And there are a few of those cushions. To change the covers for these we needed to buy almost 20 meters (22 yards) of fabric. That is, sorry for the language, a shit load of fabric. I had to order most of the fabric. The colour I chose is called Gargoyle, but I almost ordered the wrong one. On the samples there was also a colour called Charcoal. The pronunciation is fairly similar and I did not notice difference until I got home and looked through the receipt again. Ups, lucky I noticed that, it would have been embarrassing to get the wrong colour.

I'm planning to recover the cushions only a few at a time since I do not know how many of these I can get done and how fast because of Likka. She might not co-operate with me or then she will. So in case I wont get all these done, then those are not all unusable, but some will be finished and some not started at all, or at least so I hope.

Minimalistic game - the outcome

The minimalist game I did with Christina was a huge success! I wrote about starting the game in here and then wrote about the progress here. Already in the post about the progress I mentioned how easy it was to find items from our home which to get rid of. It did get harder towards the end but it was still never difficult. At first I could brainstorm places where to look for those items and did not have to even open cabinet doors to know that I have this and that there which to discard. In the last few days I was not able to do that, but once I did open a cabinet door and started going through some items I found all sorts of things. Towards the end of the game I was not able to find as much items from my own stuff, but also had to rely on some of our common items and A's items too. All the items I got rid of can be found from my Minimalist game page and also from Google+ page where you can also see items from Christina and Maryanne.

All in all we got rid of 406 items each! That is so amazing. It is big both mentally and physically. I can see an impact from this game in our home, but in order to have a very big impact I would need to have A more involved in such a game. Mentally I feel so much better when I know that I have made some room in some cabinets and I do not have to cram everything in there anymore.

Most of the things I decided to get rid of are already out from our home. I gave most of the items to charity, to the Red Cross more specifically. There are a few items which I will sell, like one of the wrist watches. Also there were a few items I decided to replace with better ones. But there where only a few of those.

Christina is having the game open at Google+ for March too, so join the game, it's not too late (it never is). I'm having a brake from the game, but I could do it again, just bit later.

Good riddance I say!