Acquisitions

I went on an internet shopping spree a couple of weeks ago (22.5. to be exact). It began by searching for cheap, small stitch markers. I already bought a package from a local yarn store that contained a bunch of two(?) different sized markers that are soft (those green and purple ones, don't know the manufacturer) but I found that I need more of the small ones. And the price is just awful (was around 6,5-7 € for the package that had 10 small + 10 larger ones), so I wanted to see if I could find the same things from the amazing internet with free shipping.

I found something on the Amazon (.com) but got extremely annoyed, like I usually do with Amazon. It's fine if you want to order 1 specific item, like a book, but if you'd just like to shop around and gather items, it's just near impossible. Every store has its own shipping policies and the site doesn't even filter those shops that don't ship to Finland, and all advertisements about free shipping only applies to the certain states of USA. Even if I'm logged in and have told the site where I live...

I stumbled across Aliexpress.com to which I've chuckled on multiple occasions, or mostly to its mother site alibaba.com. Because of the name, and because alibaba is a wholesale store so when you're looking for something you go oh, that's cheap, if I order 3000 of those items at once... Aliexpress.com is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of Amazon. Anyways, peculiarly I didn't manage to find the sort of stitch markers that I was looking for on Ali, but boy did I find all sorts of other things I had in mind. And after the Amazon frustration, I just loved all the filters on aliexpress. It's still a bit annoying to browse through some categories, but majorly better than Amazon.

So I purchased:

• Those safety-pin looking stitch markers (or small stitch holders) packs of multicolored ones, I'm planning on giving some of them to my mother :)
• Plastic cable needles (different shape/size) 3 sets = 10 pcs 
• Pin cushions x3 that have a strap to attach it to your wrist. (I've made a hedgehog before, but it's difficult to tie around your wrist tightly and it's quite big, I must admit I just got these because they were cute)
• Some wires, crimp beads, alphabetic/number beads and jump rings to make my own stitch markers, inspired by this post and some other tutorials there are. I'll be able to make quite many...
• Foam mats for blocking. Stupidly expensive around here. I was contemplating between colored and plain beige color, and decided that while colored would be more fun, I shouldn't spend extra money on that, plus the color might bleed to blocked garments (though KnitPro mats are colored as well) so better safe than sorry. Free shipping was quite an essential filter. 
• A yarn winder! My mother laughed out loud when I asked if she had a yarn winder. They're not at all common here, though I don't know if they are elsewhere either. Anyways, this one had postages but it was cheaper in total than the ones that had free shipping, so sometimes it's worth checking that too. Also, it seems that it's exactly what people have ordered from Amazon, and if you order it directly from China, you get it for less money. It's going to be made in China anyways.

The foam mats and the winder were obviously the most expensive items on my shopping list. I probably wouldn't purchase "quality" items from there, but the things that I did order were on the category that no matter what the label is, they are going to be the same items anyways, but with just a random retailer and "label manufacturer" in between. 

It was nice to see that there is a time limit (different for different shops) to how long it can take before the shop has to process my order, and so all my in total 8 different orders were processed within 2 days. Buyer's protection was  ~40 days for all orders and I can ask for extension if the item doesn't arrive on that time (shipment could take up to 60 days), or open a dispute. Also a messaging option for the shop. and a button to confirm that I've received the order so the shop/site can too keep track of how long it took. Everything was shipped via China Post Air Mail and I got tracking codes for all but one order (that one was a 0.99$ order). The first one has arrived on our local post office 30.5. so it only took 8 days! And I noticed that by inserting the tracking codes to the local mail tracking, 2 others are currently in Finland also (cable needles and pin cushions). Tracking the China Post Air Mail code from the Chines point-of-view isn't that informative, but better than nothing.

There are two issues currently though. First one I noticed was that the destination country for the foam mats was Poland. I'm not sure if that one will make it to Finland, but at least Poland's in Europe, so there's still hope? I can also see it in Poland's post tracking but it's an "economy registered letter" and for those only dispatch & delivery dates are displayed, no tracking info. I sent a message to the shop asking about this. And in the worst case scenario I open a dispute. 

Second one was that two of my orders had the same tracking code. And actually the first that arrived was with that code, so I don't know yet which one actually arrived. I'll send a message to the other shop once I get around going to the mail office. They were separate shops at least on paper, but the orders were very similar so I don't know if there's a connection between the shops (in that they are identical) and one order hasn't been sent at all. I don't know if I've been lucky, but I haven't had problems with internet orders before, so I'm quite optimistic that everything will turn out ok.

In terms of knitting, I finished the cardigan I was knitting to my 2-year-old niece as a birthday present. Are those blueberries she's eating?

First things out of the way

Last Sunday we had a cleaning day. We didn't really get everything sorted out, but at least we got some things on the walls at last. We moved to this flat in the beginning of February? March? (can't even remember), so it's still a work in "where-do-all-these-things-go" progress. This flat is 9 m^2 smaller than our previous flat, but differently organized, so we have a lot of stuff on our kitchen table that don't seem to fit anywhere, but also empty kitchen cupboards, which is really weird.

First object is a 80 cm GRUNDTAL rail  from IKEA with some hooks and two "flatware caddies" that act as flower/herb pots (there's a grate(?) at the bottom so extra water will go there, perfect!). I had to install some photo filter editor to my laptop because my phone (Samsung Galaxy SIII Mini) has mind bogglingly bad camera. So you get these fancy-artsy-fashionable pictures! You being my imaginary readers. Notice the row of Converse shoes. Shoes are expensive here, so when they were on sale, I just had to get 2 new pairs besides my blue and pink ones. The pink ones are the oldest and the rubber toe part has a crack, the blue ones are quite new but I spilled some sodium hypochloride on them at work, the first day I was wearing them at work IIRC. So there's one bleached spot. I think that coats will hang there after summer.

Second object is a bathroom sign I ordered from somnambulant in Etsy. It took 4 weeks and a couple of days on top of that to arrive (I was already thinking of contacting the seller, and also checking the mail at our old apartment, but thankfully it came). This flat isn't the most perfect option for this sign (due to how all the doors work at the entrance), but maybe in the future it will shine even more. It's at the inside-side rather than the outside-side of the door, because our cats' litterbox is in the bathroom as well, so we always have to keep the door open (if no one's using the toilet).

Third one is a poster I ordered from Allposters.fi. It cost around 3-4 euros and the frame is from IKEA (RIBBA) and cost 20-25 euros. I had to cut the poster with a scalpel to fit the frame (also did that for another Dalí poster and I have one more expensive one waiting for treatment). Hooray for non-standard measurements, or maybe rather the lack of US standard sized frames in Europe. Well, I still like the poster on top of the toilet seat! Although there's now a hole in the tiles and I'm not sure how that will work out when we move out...

From the picture above you can get a glimpse of object number 4, a key rack. I designed it for our old flat! The paper print I got somewhere online... might have been Paperella.fi. I got the hooks from a hardware store and also some sort of sprayed adhesive to attach it to the wooden frame that my boyfriend made at work. The only problem is that it used to be attached to a coat closet's side through the closet wall, and it doesn't have a proper attachment mechanism for hanging on a nail/screw on the wall. So currently it falls on the floor quite easily. I love steampunk things, though I haven't done any research on the subject. 

The beginning. Again.

I've had a few blogs. Most of them only have a couple of posts, because I've never won the popularity contest and it feels like that the only reason to write a blog is to get a million followers and make it your day-job. Well I might be exaggarating a bit, and if I were to be totally honest, I've never managed to update something like a diary regularly. I'm first enthusiastic, and then I just forget about it.

BUT HEY MAYBE THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT?

I recently, in the beginning of April 2014 to be more exact, started knitting. And was thinking that it might be fun to also blog about it. I did post a couple of posts already in another blog that I started  (haha!) in Finnish, but for some reason I prefer English. I'm not saying that I can write or speak English anywhere near to being a native, and probably I'll translate things such as phrases from Finnish to English in a way that only makes sense to me...

Let's move on. This won't be a fancy artsy craftsy blog, because I'm not really creative. I don't take inspiring/inspired photographs with a fancy camera and I don't do interior designing nor come up with clever ideas. (Our household is usually a mess with cat litter and cat hair all over the floors and carpets, and HOW DO I FIT ALL THIS STUFF HERE?). At most I try to recreate what someone else has created and will mostly fail. In terms of handicrafts, if I can do it, anyone can do it. And I suppose that's the point of view I will try to have here.

I have a lot of things in my mind I'd like to write about in this blog. Lets see if I can make it.