life lately | KJ Sews

Well, hello! Apparently I haven’t written a blog post since April 2017 – whaaat?! Not sure how that happened. Well, maybe I have some idea – not long after that, Luke and I packed up our lives in Auckland, New Zealand and made the move to Turku, Finland, via Australia to spend some time with loved ones. Even though this is my third overseas move, I still underestimate how long it takes to get your life back in order afterwards. I actually bought a sewing machine (secondhand) within a week of arriving in Turku, even though I’d sent my beloved Pfaff via sea mail, because I needed to do some pattern testing! But after that was done, I didn’t touch the machine for some time. We were busy doing all the official stuff one needs to do to become a proper resident of Finland, finding a place to live more permanently than the student housing sub-let we got for the summer, and exploring our new home.

We eventually found a gorgeous apartment in an old puutalo (wooden house) built in the late 1800s. I have a sewing nook on the top floor, in the same room as our bedroom. It’s less space than I had in Auckland, but I’m making it work. Besides, it’s so cute!

After three looong months, my Pfaff (and most of my fabric stash) arrived in Finland! The bad news was, one of the few plastic parts on the machine, the hand wheel, broke during transit. I tried gluing it back together (successfully!) but then discovered the plastic screw that holds the wheel in place had broken, leaving the threaded part inside the machine. In my search to find a new screw, I found a seller on eBay in Germany selling some parts in a bundle, including a new hand wheel! So I bought those, and also a new metal screw to replace the plastic one. The new wheel arrived, I went to put it on…and the belt around the wheel snapped. So. Much. Rage. So again, German eBay sellers were my friend, and I purchased a new belt. Finally, finally, I got it all put together and secured with a shiny new screw, and it works like a dream. So now I have two vintage machines, and for the first time, no modern one.

During surgery…

Good as new!

The agent who handled the rental of our apartment loves sewing too, and she has lent me an overlocker for the duration of my stay – such a lovely woman! Apparently it belongs to her daughter, who hasn’t used it in years. So I’m basically all set up now, and ready to roll. It’s not like I haven’t sewn anything in the past six months, though – I made a pair of curtains, hemmed another pair from IKEA, made a shirt for Luke and the piece de resistance – a pair of slippers for him for Christmas! I’ll do a separate blog post on those, because I’m kind of proud of them 😀 I also did a spot of embroidery, and I’ve been really digging knitting lately.

Curtains…

Shirt for Luke – Simplicity 1544 again

Slippers!

Mushroom embroidery

First knitted sock! The other is still on the needles…

I’d really like to blog more this year – I use instagram a lot (I’m kirstyteacat there if you want to follow me) but the chronology of the timelines is all kinds of fucked up nowadays, and besides, I like reading blogs, and hopefully some of you like reading mine.

I will leave you with some snapshots of my last 6 months, because I also enjoy seeing peeks of peoples’ lives outside of sewing, so maybe you will enjoy it too!