vintage fabric in a romantic old tin from Australia

It felt like Christmas came early when this beautiful treasure tin got delivered to me after a long journey all the way from down under.

A while ago I was the lucky reader in Rebecca's giveaway. Rebecca blogs over at Naughty Shorts - about her life and small business, vintage cotton prints and the beautiful dresses she designs and makes out of them. Her home, which is filled to the brim with envy-inducing vintage finds, is often featured on her blog too.

I was very lucky to receive a bundle of fat quarters of vintage printed cottons, and some other goodies that'd make any girl jump for joy.

 

Looking at these fabrics together inspire me to make a quilt of some kind - I have never tried my hand at quilting before but I think I'd really enjoy the hand-stitching aspect of it. I'll mull over the idea, but in the meantime if you have any suggestions or even quilting tips for me, I'd love to hear them!

winter solstice and banana bread (with recipe)

Happy winter solstice, everybody!

The thought of slowly lengthening days and more natural light from now on is filling me with warmth and makes me want to dance around the room. I still wish for quietly tumbling fluffy snowflakes to carpet the earth first - because without the white sparkle of snow the winter landscape is as dark and lightless as a black hole. Currently the only snowflakes in sight are tumbling from the ceiling in my kitchen, in a form of a wooden mobile (plus these snowflakes in the social media). So I celebrate the promise of spring and summer in this longest night / shortest day of the year.

We are not going to spend Christmas in our home, but we still felt like decorating a little bit. And we baked a warming, yummy banana bread too. It is a really nice cake, and goes superbly with afternoon coffee - find the recipe right after the pictures!

Banana bread

with cardamom and dates

150g butter (or coconut oil) softened

225g granulated sugar

2 eggs

275g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds

3 ripe bananas

a handful of pitted dates (chopped into small cubes)

a little butter (or coconut oil) to grease the tin

a small amount of breadcrumbs

1.) Pre-heat the oven to 170 C. Grease a loaf-shaped cake tin with a little butter (or coconut oil) and dust the greasing with a small amount of breadcrumbs.

2.) In a large mixing bowl whisk the butter (or coconut oil) together with the sugar. Add the eggs one by one and mix well.

3.) In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and cardamom.

4.) In a third dish, mush the bananas with a fork, and stir in the chopped dates.

5.) Now start adding the flower mix and the banana mix into the butter/egg mixture bit by bit, in an alternating fashion - like 3 tablespoons of flour mix, whisk together, 2 tablespoons of banana mix, whisk together, 3 tablespoons of flour mix again, whisk well, and so on until both the flour mix and the banana mix runs out.

6.) When all the ingredients are well mixed together, pour the mixture into the greased-breadcrumbed loaf tin, smooth down the top and bake it in the middle of the oven at 170 C for 50-60 mins. If baking in a fan oven, reduce the baking time. At about 50 minutes, check the cake by sticking a long thin needle into it (I use one of my thin knitting needles) to see if the cake is cooked through. If the needle comes out without any cake sticking onto it, then your cake is done. Tip the cake out of its tin,and let it cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy! This cake keeps well for 3-4 days in an airtight container.

a warm shawl, an old lampshade, and a festive runner

Hello again! Let's kick off December with some warming, seasonal finds.

Do you remember the vintage Finnish wool blanket that I had thrifted a while ago? I have been dreaming about a smaller version of it ever since, so I could wrap the snug warm woolliness around my neck as a scarf when I go out into the everyday winter wonderland of the Finnish cold season.

Well, what do you know, dreams do come true and I did find a vintage woollen shawl from the same designer in the fleas just recently. It's in the nicest shades of hot pinks, and is in impeccable condition. Now I'm almost always looking forward to braving the blizzard and hail every time I need to walk to the grocery store.

This time around last year, I found my first vintage scandinavian Christmas table runner. This year is luckily no different: my current (barkcloth?) find has really cute elves on it, and the colours are super crisp. 

Could it be that a seasonal thrifting tradition is starting? Well, if every year I find a nice table runner like these, it would be quite alright! 

Sometimes I pick up things from the thrifts that first I have no idea what to do with. One of those things was this old glass lampshade with an intriguing bumpy design. It cost next to nothing, something like 5 cents, so I wasn't too torn between getting it or not. I thought it would make a nice random ornament or a pencil holder as long as we won't lift it...

Well now I'm thinking LED tealights! This particular lampshade won't take a real candle because its plain glass surface is painted red from the inside, and exposed to a flame it would quite possibly melt or even catch fire. However, a battery one will light it very nicely for the festive season.

How is the festive thrifting situation where you live? Have you find some nice things for the holiday sea

soft focus morning

A lovely morning of sleeping in and then knocking about in the softly lit flat, while waiting for the sun to rise (which is a bit after 9am at the moment). Crafting too, in fact putting the finishing touches to a project, which is good news for those of you who have been waiting for your Craft It Forward packages...!

I put together a playlist of soft sounds to share this mellow morning with you lovely readers. Wishing all of you a softly Sunday, and a relaxed first day of a hectic month!

little lights

Still fascinated with the dramatic change in light conditions in this country. I feel I'm a little better armed this winter than last year.

I finally joined in with the tradition and obsession of lighting candles on the dark balcony at 4pm, and letting them burn in their jar as long as the wick is. In the kitchen the oil lamp is on, and we started to make room on the wall for the string lights. Of course we use our normal electric light fittings, but it's somehow different in effect. Darkness already begins just after 4pm and lasts til 9 in the morning. Its presence seeps thickly into the rooms whether you keep the shutters closed or open. Either way it is quite heavy on the mind. It's really soothing to light little fires outside and in the kitchen in a way that we see it from the living room.

I went to an interesting exhibition recently, and there was a neon installation that captured me with its glow. The two words mean 'I am' in Finnish.

Neon art by Marja Pirilä (I AM/LIGHT)

in two minds

I like being close to nature. In natural nature more, than in a museum.

I like animals better alive. Seeing them stuffed in a Museum of Nature is convenient (for personal safety), interesting and saddening in the same time. We were assured by the staff that they arrived here naturally dead or dead by regulation. Some were donated by a zoo, after the death of an old or a terminally ill animal. Some were donated by a forester whose job is to survey the forests and the seashore, and to cull certain species according to law.

So there. Feeling conflicted, interested, controversed and intrigued, I examined the exhibits in the still life set-ups like a good museum punter, respecting their fragile beauty and deadness by resisting to pat their fur, boop their nose or tickle their paw. Looking at the beautifully preserved dead animals, I couldn't help but wish that all the taxidermy was still alive running around unseen by me in the wild. I got out of there just before those silent, life-like glass eyes started to seem too alive.

No beauty without pain, no rose without a thorn, no museums of nature without dead animals... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to get back home to the little plastic zoo that I keep in a jar.

mary mary quite contrary, how did our balcony do?

Now that flora is in decline and fauna is withdrawing to warmer places in anticipation of winter, I thought it'd be a good time to have a look at what our little balcony produced over the summer months.

I think we were a bit pessimistic about what a 1.5m x 3m east-facing balcony is able to turn over in the spring and summer, so we didn't plant very ambitiously and stuck to basic types of herbs and veg. We planted spinach, chards and some cavolo nero kale for green smoothies; lettuces,radishes and tomatoes for salads; kitchen herbs for general use: parsley, mint, chives, coriander. I added into the mix some rescue plants which were to decorate with their flowers and foliage.

The lushness of the summer growth was lovely. It really made a difference to our small concrete- and dark wood- clad outside space. Any amount of garden is a real garden, with living plants to tend to, therefore to learn about. I believe it's important to know how to care for and raise plants that are able to feed you - even if it's done in an amount of space so small it can barely be called a garden.

I like plants a lot, I like their quiet ways of responding and their colourful, winding, blooming, pollinating, fruiting communications. It's therapeutic to interact with a pot of earth and the magic in it on a daily basis, and to wonder about the sun-fed, root bound, leafy and petaled beings it nurtures which then will nurture us. I could gush on about plants and get lost in ponderings about how they work and how undeniably conscious they seem in their doings.... but let me trade in words for pictures that I'd collected about our mini garden and its edible residents over the summer.

Can you taste those sweet tomatoes? We had plenty of green smoothies too, of chards and spinach. Mint was enjoyed in a refreshing watermelon mint and rocket salad with a hoisin dressing, and in many a cup of fresh mint tea.

There were tender green beans too. We had a couple of good dinners and supplemented salads from a few bushes of low-growing, low-maintenance french green beans. 

The chards are still standing despite having been frozen by a few nights of -5 C. They are waiting to become smoothies a couple more times, then they will stay outside for the coming Narnia. I wonder if they will rise again in the spring for their bolting year as they should. We'll see!

Have you had any gardening joy this year? What do you think of raising plants in small spaces?

the colours of october

The allocated colour for October is chocolate brown - as declared on Colour Me Happy.

I see the connection. Chestnuts, tree bark, the supple suede of gloves, the velvety brown of espresso on a sleepy October morning.

But there is so many other colours to this month, I cannot help but show what comes before the colour of bare tree trunks and mulch takes over.

This is the view that greets me every time I emerge from my street - I love how the flaming blood red of that trailing plant beautifies the bleak boxy building, don't you?

This time last year there were already lots of snow on the ground. I'm enjoying the colours this year while they last - the unifying white is sure to come soon!

the best granny cushion ever and some other roaring finds

Hello again, nice to be back from the autumnal hiatus with some finds in tow that I'm quite excited to show off.

Every time I see this cushion I just want to hug it, it's so nice in the most brilliant way. I've been sort of fancying these types of chunky crosstitch cushions for ages, but to be honest not really a fan of florals or pixelated scenes (except for this one that I've seen here).

Well, this granny cushion is on a different level! There is a lot going for it: the chunky wool texture; that geometric pattern, all random and asymmetric; the freely combined, awesome colours. I even like that a trio of these colours look like the Hungarian flag... Can you spot it?

It was in the end of summer sale for a single euro in the local hospice shop. It found its cozy spot on the vintage leather recliner that my boyfriend bought in the thrifts this summer - I think it softens the sternness of the black leather rather nicely.

Then, a few objects of useful purpose - these could not be resisted and had to be given a new home.

Here they are. An alpacca ashtray - a bit rubbed but wonderful in its mid century modern shape. It was made in a nearby silverware factory which does not exist any more. Furthermore - and the objects I myself find most useful - an Arabia Birka coffee cup and saucer, and a Poland-made enamel mug with a sweet apple on it. How very nice. I do enjoy sipping my morning coffee from a quality stoneware cup that was bought for less than the price of a kiosk coffee... oh the joys of thrifting!

Lastly, an old illustrated book... of dinosaurs! I believe that the red binding whispered a roar to me from the jumble sale shelf with its golden writing on the spine. I was not disappointed when I looked inside. It's from 1957, and translated to Finnish from a Danish original. Beautiful illustrations every turn, and the end papers are simply gorgeous. I'm a total kid when it comes to old books - can you blame me?

hello! still here...

Hi there!

Idle Needle has been idle. Life and quiet pondering moods took over a bit, and the blog took place on the back burner, hence the near-month-long radio silence...

Updates coming soon on thrifting, crafting and the weather!

PS. Those dusky pink coloured roses were found by our friend on the way to our home, they were lying on the pavement cast away in their cellophane wrapper, kept company by a few empty pea pods and an apple core. They delighted us on the kitchen table for a night and a day before they inevitably shed their papersilk-like petals. I don't usually fall for pinky tones, but these roses made my heart ache with their delicate pink hues, on the verge of decay, yet still so sublimely beautiful... I won't brood over it too much I promise, but does autumn makes you melancholic too?