lessons in finnish

christmas came. and went. with some scattered fun in between. i'm supposed to be at work right now, tackling rabid bargain-hunting yarnbuyers with all sorts of pointy sticks, but i've been sick with flu since dec 20. so i'm not.

instead, i'm at home taking these pseudoartistic pictures
of random christmas decorations and our crappy christmas weather

most of the presents i gave this year consisted of these reflectors, because i'm poor and lazy. i crocheted them (poorly and lazily) with 1.5mm reflecting tape, a whole bunch of mouline yarns, and the occasional glitter thread, because life instantly gets better once glitter is involved.

as such.

to my astonishment i've been hearing most people outside finland don't even know what a reflector is. to all of you still in the dark, literally, i reply with a popular finnish colloquialism, "kato vittu googlesta". (you probably won't find it in your regular dictionary.) and point you towards my etsy shop, where they shall be yours to buy after the new year. ish.

i also made a pair of stripey-noro-ripoff socks for my brother, but the receiving end made like a banana and split before i had a chance to photograph them. an elusive fella, he is.

speaking of photographs, you know the word my dad uses instead of "photographing" in finnish? "ikuistaa". which translates roughly as "foreverize". how darling is that?

plus i've finally been able to finish a certain knitting nightmare that's haunted me since july. believe me when i say there's a definite (and often inevitable) point at which an enjoyable, therapeutic project becomes a poe-esque tangle of gore and horror that makes you lose sleep, hair and all the other things you value most (although besides sleep and hair i can't think of any). but it's over now. just that getting someone to photograph it for me may well take another six months. so i should return with a FO post sometime next summer. but in the meantime, have a foreverization of said piece doing a nice relaxing soak in my bathroom sink.

is that the squirmy sound of anticipation i hear?