DIY Christmas Decorations

I can’t believe that Christmas is so near now! Where did the time go? I had so many Christmas related plans and I only had time to do half of them. These Christmas decorations where among the few. Browsing around Pinterest I came across quite a few similar kind of decorations to, mostly made out of felt. I made mine out of cotton fabric and embroidered the pattern with a cotton yarn. It’s been years sense I’ve done any embroidery and I did feel a bit Jane Austin like. The whole proses was quite fun and I wish I would have had time for more. I wanted some very simple red and white decorations to make things more Christmassy around and they did.

I also hung some of the crochet snowflakes from last year to my bedroom window. I have hoped for white Christmas and looks like my wish will come true. The snow arrived yesterday and covered the ground, now it’s really beginning to look like Christmas. I wish you a lovely Christmas time, where ever you are in the world and however you are going to spend it. Hyvää Joulua!

DIY Scented Candles

This was not the first time I’ve made candles, but this was the first time I did it by myself in my own home. For some reason I thought that making candles is difficult. It really isn’t! That said this experiment was not entirely successful. My life at the moment is filled with candles as through my job I work with them almost daily.  Naturally I have gain interest in the materials and the making of candles. I read this blog post in the Hello Natural blog and I thought that I’ll have to try to make scented candles myself. I’ve had these metallic muffin tins in my cupboard for years and I thought they would make lovely candles as I never use them in cooking anyway.

Another reason I wanted to make candles was the fact that I have wanted to try out soy candles for a long time. I was curious to know are they any different from paraffin or stearin. I like the idea of all natural candles, so I ordered some soy wax online.

I boiled some water in a pot and melted the wax in a separate bowl that I put inside the pot.

If there is something I have learned about candles it is that it’s very important to have a right sized wick.  If the wick is too thin the flame will melt more wax than it can burn and the candle will drip. If the wick is too thick the flame is going to be too big and the candle will release smoke. The thickness of the wick should be chosen in relation to the size of the candle. The cotton wick that I chose was meant for 60-70mm wide candles. I also bought some metal wick taps for the wicks. I put a little bit of hot glue to the bottom of the wick tap a glued the wick to the muffin tin. I used wooden grill sticks to keep the wick straight.

The blog post that I mentioned earlier was for chai scented candles and for the scent was used ordinary spices. I used cinnamon, ginger and cardamom.

Now this is where I think I went wrong as I didn’t really manage to get the scent to work. Later on I read that the temperature of the wax is very important when you are adding scents. I did two separate tries. First time I didn’t think about the temperature at all and there were actually very nice smells floating around the kitchen, but the candle itself didn’t work. Then I read that you might end up burning the scents off if you use temperatures that are too hot. During my second try I was a bit scared of making the wax too hot and I think that the spices didn’t mix with the wax very well. I even added some extra spice to get a stronger scent. It didn’t really work though. What is the right temperature for this? I read that you should keep the wax under 80 °C I think mine was around 60 to 70 °C.

After that I poured the wax to the containers. I also tried some glass baby food jars. During my second try I read that the containers should be warm so I put them in the oven for a little while before poring the wax in. I don’t know if it made any difference.

And then I let the candles set and cool off.

Here are the ready made candles. I also did two small paraffin candles. I used leftovers from a paraffin candle I’ve been burning lately. I melted the wax and added some spices. Because I like experimenting I wanted to test how soy wax and paraffin wax really act differently.

I must say that the paraffin candle had a better and bigger flame (on the left) put it also burned a lot faster. The soy candle (on the right) lasted a lot longer. The melted wax acts also very differently. Paraffin wax is a petroleum by-product created when crude oil is refined into gasoline. Soy wax is made from soybeans. The paraffin wax sets and cools off a lot faster than soy wax. Soy wax is very buttery when melted and it’s quite soft even when it’s solid. Paraffin sets very quickly into plastic-like consistency. Makes total sense when you think about the origins of the two materials.

Although my my first experiment in the candle making was not completely successful, I really like the candles even without the scent. I might have a another try in the future, maybe with some essential oils. I don’t think I will have any candle shortage for a little while. Do you have any candle making tips for me?

DIY Christmas Wreath

It’s almost December, so now I can officially go nuts about Christmas. I’ve had so many Christmas related ideas for months. I had never done a Christmas wreath myself before but luckily my friend and flatmate Riikka had. We dedicated an evening for crafting a wreath for kitchen window, whilst listening Christmas songs, obviously . I’m very proud of our collaboration project. The wreath turned out so pretty!

So how to make a Christmas wreath? First you need some fresh and springy willow branches that you start twisting around each other. Attach them together with wire.

Then find the right size for the wreath and close the circle.

Continue twisting more willow branches around the circle until the base is sturdy enough.

We used a quite a wide arrange of different things to our wreath; spruce twigs , heather, thuja twigs and twigs that are either lingonberry or northern bilberry (I’m not sure). For decoration we added some rowan berries and pine cones.

First you start making little bunches of twigs and securing them with wire.

Then start attaching them to the willow base with wire. This is the phase where you get to be creative.

Eetu was begin very helpful through the whole process. Such a curious cat, he also wanted to take part in this project.

Finally we did some trimming and final touches. We also added some fairy lights. The wreath was very beautiful by itself, but because we were going to hang it to our kitchen window, which this time of year is most of the time pitch black, we needed some light.

Little by little it’s starting to look like Christmas here. Thanks for Riikka for teaching me how to do a Christmas wreath and helping with the photos.

Experiments and Woolen Socks

I have been interested in the lightfastness of natural dyes for a while. I have understood that all natural dyes are somewhat fugitive but that some are more than others. And with fugitive I mean that time and light will fade the colours. I wanted to see this with my own eyes, so I did a little experiment. Now this experiment is not the most scientific and I probably should have done it in summer time when there is actually natural light in Finland. In the end of September I collected some samples of the yarns I had dyed naturally. I covered half of the yarn stripes with cardboard and left the other half bare. The samples have been facing “the sun” (there is not a lot of sun at the moment here) on our balcony for about two months now.

And these are the results here. I’m not sure how much you will be able to tell from these photos, but basically the left side is the one that has been covered. Black beans and beet root are the ones where you can really see the difference. Lupine, birch leaves, heather, onion skins and lichen have not faded away. Surprisingly also red cabbage is pretty much the same as before after two months. I thought that it would be the first one to fade away.  Other than that the results are pretty much what I expected. I’m a little sad about the fact that the colour from the black beans fades so quickly. I should probably repeat this experiment again in summer time when the conditions are more “extreme”.

In other news I knitted my first pair of woollen socks in over ten years. I discovered that knitting a heel is not like riding a bike. I think that the pattern I used is different from the way I learned to knit a heel in school (also I’m not very good at following instructions, I tend to do thing my way which is not always the right way.)  I had some struggles with these socks, but I feel like I have now done all the mistakes and the next pair will be  an improvement.

I used the yarn that I dyed with lupine in the beginning of the summer to knit this pair. I really like the colour and these socks are warm and cosy just in time for winter. I went for a really simple striped pattern. For my next pair I want to do something a little bit more creative, I’m thinking of some kind of fair Isle pattern and I still need to properly tackle that that bloody heel!

(I modified the pattern a little bit but the original pattern for these socks is from a Finnish sewing/knitting magazine. Suuri Käsityö Lehti Marras-joulukuu 2004)

Let it snow: crochet snowflakes

I started this project a year ago in November. I love Christmas and I usually start thinking about it during November. Last year it occurred to me that in my family we have used the same Christmas tree decorations for over 20 years. I felt that change would be good and got really excited about crocheting snowflakes. I started in November and continued crocheting until Christmas so that I would have enough of snowflakes to fill the tree. I didn’t get the white Christmas I wanted but at least there were snowflakes in our living room. I really liked the simplicity of the Christmas tree with the white snowflakes and electric candles.  Now I’m wondering if should I stick with just the snowflakes or add something else as well? I have a few ideas floating around.

I found the process of crocheting these snowflakes really therapeutic. As a technique I actually prefer crocheting to hand knitting because of the freedom it gives you. I found the patterns online, most of them from this website. I started out with this very informative and easy tutorial on Youtube, so I could get myself acquainted with the English crocheting vocabulary and follow the patterns. I used white cotton yarn and stiffened the snowflakes with a water and glue mix.

Pattern in Finnish. 

Bamboo snowflake pattern.

Snowflake for Marikamum pattern.

Crochet snowflake tutorial on Youtube.

Irish hearts snowflake pattern (on the right).

Jacquard knits

Two years ago I was as an exchange student at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, Sweden. It’s a wonderful school and I learned a lot about textiles and especially about knitted textiles. I was very lucky to be able to try out the industrial jacquard knitting machine they have there. I knitted a little collection of fabrics as part of a sustainable textiles course, using materials like wool, linen and tensel. I like the fact that from the distance these fabrics look like they are printed, until you go close and you see the texture and then the feel of the fabric is very different. I was very excited about the project and  I had a vision of the kind of clothes I would like to sew from these fabrics.

Two very busy years went by and the fabrics were hidden away in my closet, until this summer I finally had time to tackle the project I had started. The clothes that I visualised in my head were very simple in style so that they would complement the patterns. Once I but my mind into it, the clothes came together quite quickly and couple of weeks ago we had really fun photo shoot. The photos were taken by my very talented friend Riikka and the lovely model Marianna did a wonderful job. Thank you girls! I’m really happy the way the photos turned out. It’s so great to see the vision I had two years ago come to life finally.

I should also mention that the beautiful wooden necklace featured in the photos is by a British jewellery designer Kristy Frasier. I bought this honeycomb necklace when I was in Edinburgh and it’s my absolute favourite neckless at the moment. Check her website here.

Knitting with the colours of nature

During the past few months I have collected quite a versatile collection of different coloured yarns, that I have dyed naturally. I find these colours very inspiring and I think they go so well together.  I think that’s part of the charm of the natural dyed yarns, the way they match so well. The autumn is here. I can’t believe September is almost gone already! The weather is getting colder here in Finland and because of that and these yarns I feel like knitting.

I started out with this knitted beanie. This wool yarn use to be grey before I dyed it with heather. I wanted a simple cable pattern beanie with a pompom on top. This pattern is not from anywhere, I just made it up as I knitted it. It’s not perfect, but I still quite like it. These photos with the beanie were taken by a friend of mine Riikka with a lovely Marianna as model. These photos are a little sneak peek into a project that I have been working on during the past few months. This week we had a really nice photo shoot, I can’t wait to share that soon.

 

Sewing time

I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. I was cleaning up my closets one day and found some swatches that I designed and weaved with a computer aided loom a couple of years ago. I quite like these designs and I thought it’s a shame that they are hidden away in some folder. I decided I will sew them into little purses that I can keep with me. So know these little swatches have a useful purpose and I can enjoy them.