I heart plants.

Since I happen to live in an apartment with zero ventilation, I have to open the window several times a day, even when it's cold outside. I don't mind the cold, but my plants do. So they don't survive or they simply suffer.

Which is why I adore my aquarium plants. I need plants to take care of, to give some green lushness to my winter days. I love seeing plants grow and prosper.

Back when I still had my Rainbow cichlids, I couldn't grow any plants in the tank because those terrorists would eat them within a week. That's the main reason I got rid of them and got some new cute fishes (check them out in this post).

I had an algae problem initially, but ever since the aquarium shopkeeper told me I probably change the water too much and too often and don't fertilize enough, and then acted in the opposite manner to salvage the situation, my plants have been positively thriving.

Look!

It's full of plants! The fish can barely swim around! Such a happy sight.

These plants, whatever they are, like to grow out of the tank towards the lamp:

Ever since I bought these lamps six years ago, I've been wanting to get plants that grow out of the tank. With regular aquarium lamps, that's impossible. But it was only now that I accidentally managed to choose a plant that to my surprise likes to grow up up and away!

Those small spots are Lemna minor, or common duckweed. Aquarists usually hate them because they multiply really fast and look kind of untidy. It's hard to avoid getting them along with other plants that you buy and it's hard to get rid of them as well. As for myself, I didn't mind at all getting these plants for free. I like how they complement the overall lush verdancy (I hope that's a real word), plus they were helpful in overthrowing those nasty algae. Fast-growing plants are essential in harvesting extra nutrients from the water, so they won't be utilized by algae instead. They did their job and now I keep only a small smattering of duckweed to give some variety to the mix of plants.

I also have these Pistia stratiotes growing on the surface. I like how they create some shadowy areas for the fish to feel safe in, and they just look pretty. Their leaves are covered with white hair, which helps keep them from getting submerged.

They are still fairly small - they can grow even five times this large over time with good lighting and fertilization! I hope they will. I like seeing plants grow BIG.

Elina in the wonderland of knit and crochet.

I've been thinking about knitting and crocheting a lot lately. It's more fascinating the more you learn about it! For instance, all these terms in English - single, double, bobble crochet, garter, stockinette and rib stitch - sound so cool and complicated. I still mix them up, I keep forgetting which is which, but I like them all. Why do some people not like purling? Unless your knitting style is very tight and the yarn is very fuzzy or just a biatch, I don't see how it's any less fun than knitting.

I've been pondering which I like more, knitting or crocheting. Knitting is definitely harder: I always drop stitches and don't know how to pick them up right, I increase stiches or decrease them unintentionally, or something else always happens. If all goes well, though, it's worth all the fiddling.

With crocheting it's hard to drop stitches, but it may be fiddly if you tend to crochet too tight. Especially with bulky yarn it truly demands attention to the work. If the yarn and the hook are just right, however, it's such a pleasure to crochet away while watching tv or even reading.

There are so many methods, too, to both knitting and crocheting. Different ways of casting on your loops, making a slip knot, crocheting from under different loops of a stitch...! I still don't know which side of a crochet work is supposed to be the right side and which the "purl" side. It makes me wonder who had so much time in their hands that they invented all that.

I also realized recently why there are so many different sizes of needles and hooks. Before I knew anything about knitting or crocheting, I was completely confused with all that variety. But now my collection of hooks and needles is starting to look moderately impressive! Thick needles and hooks have their appeal because I've grown fond of bulky yarn. Circular needles are one thing I haven't tried yet, in fact I'm not sure which kind of project would require them.

I remember back when Amoena got interested in crocheting and later knitting, I couldn't really understand the whole world of the craft. I could understand that she liked the colours of the yarns and making something by hand, but I had no idea how rewarding it would be to make something with your own hands. It's so cool to start thinking of a project, then finding a good pattern and realizing it. There's something very creative about it, because once you understand why things are done a certain way, you can deviate from the patterns according to your own taste and your needle/hook and yarn stash.

Once I noticed that I can really knit and crochet, at least decently, I've been flooded with ideas about what I want to do. I wonder if I'll ever run out of ideas for projects. At times I get an overload of crocheting/knitting, so I take a break, but I always go back to it after a couple of days at most. Even when I have to frog a project, I'm not discouraged to go on. I just unravel my work as necessary and get right back to it. I'm resilient like that with many other things as well because I don't like admitting defeat. I'm completely hooked to my new hobby!

Newness.

Mum visited last week and we went winter coat/jacket shopping. Behold the results.

A jacket with nice fringes on the collar, and a minibelt to tie it. I'm going to add more buttons as soon as I figure out how to use my sewing machine. I want to be able to wrap it tighter around my body when it gets colder so the wind can't get in.


And a bright red winter coat with black buttons and a high collar that you could button up. Those two buttons on the collar sleeve were originally on the other side, so they would be visible when you button up the collar. There were two versions of the coat in the shop (H&M): one with the buttons on the inside, one with the buttons on the outside - depending on if you like to button up the collar, or leave it down and wear a scarf instead. The point is to keep the black buttons visible. I had to get the wrong version for my taste though and sew the buttons on the other side. The colour is truly lovely!


I love having two very different coats/jackets. The shorter will be good for warmer winter days; the red and long coat will be warm in colder days. I also got a Sexy Librarian skirt to go with the shorter jacket. It's too warm if the temperature is anything above 0 celsius, so it's a true winter skirt!

(No, that's not my cellphone in the corner..)

Now that it's colder, I've also started using the boots I bought in Liverpool in the summer, when I attended the Corpus Linguistics conference there. They have 5cm heels and they're really comfortable!

Mum had also bought me a tri-layered sports underwear set to keep me warm in the winter when I go jogging.

It's not the sexiest outfit to wear, but it's warm and dry. It's actually very difficult to dress right for jogging in the winter if you don't have this kind of functional sports wear with special qualities.

Finally, I bought myself two skeins of the new Teetee Pallas yarn because the colours were so pretty. I thought I would make a Baktus scarf from them, but I'm not sure yet. I wasn't actually supposed to buy any yarn, but since I met Heidi that day and we both love knitting and yarn, we ended up going through all yarn shops in Tampere! That's a bad, bad combination if you're trying not to buy yarn..

I started a new crochet project last night (as if I need more of them), a vertical stripe scarf, and I'm going to use the Red Heart Lisa yarns I bought in the summer, plus some oddball skeins of Novita 7 Veljestä and Gjestal Superwash Sport. Here are the colours:

(The red skein is just about to fall off the picture, that's why it's blurry..)

I'm going to make fairly thin stripes. I started by crocheting a long chain of chain stitches, then I started working back with single crochet. I left long loops at both ends to make a fringe. I'm excited about this because I was able to figure out how to make the scarf all by myself! It may sound very simple to someone who's been crocheting and knitting for a long time, but for a newbie like me it's very cool. Besides, I used to think of myself as completely hopeless with handcrafts, so this is definitely exciting.

I've noticed that my personality applies to my knitting and crocheting style as well. As usual, I like to start several projects before I've even finished the last ones! I am strongly determined to finish them all, I just don't know when...

My current projects are the following:

1) My first mittens, the second one of which should be unraveled and started all over again with a bigger needle! You can guess why it's still unfinished..

2) The hexagon blanket for mum. I'm in the process of making double crochets around the rim with white yarn. Then I have to cut the darning ends on the other side a little shorter and tuck them inside so it won't unravel. Boring, but I'm making progress slowly.

3) A regular scarf which I figured would look good with my new jacket, because my old scarves don't have suitable colours. But I managed to eff it up already! It's simple knit-purl-knit-purl, but it went awry still! I was angry and I didn't unravel the wrong parts, so it's less than pretty now. I'll finish it anyway and use it myself, it's not like I'm going to stare at it when I'm outdoors.

4) Pikachu, whose head I started to crochet and while I was at it, I realized there are three different ways of crocheting!! I have to start from scratch again, but I didn't get very far.

I'd also like to knit socks for my best cousin from the light blue Isoveli skein that I have. I hate the colour myself, but my cousin likes it a lot. I'm not sure if I can do it in time for Christmas, though. For my second best cousin, I'd like to knit mittens from my extra two skeins of fuchsia/purple Gjestal Superwash Sport yarn, because I think she might like that colour. Originally I bought that yarn for the hexagon blanket, but the colour didn't fit with the others.

I'm also thinking of making third scarf from Novita Kaarna, because it's so soft and bulky. It's also expensive and I have enough projects already, so I think I'll leave it till later.

On a final note, please note that I added links to my Ravelry projects on both my blogs with a little help from Amoena and JR. Looks so nice!