GIFT Alert! New Notions from Finland Have Arrived

A couple of weekends ago on a Sunday, I went to a HUGE craft show here in Finland. I wandered around for hours and saw some of the most amazing handicrafts, from holiday ornaments to wooden spoons, beautiful hats and clothing, yarns, handmade candles, wooden stools, etc. While I loved absolutely everything I saw, my favorite find was a little needle gauge made from recycled plastic. 

The booth I bought it from had a lot of really cool knitting accessories - needles sizers, stitch markers, gauge checkers, etc. All of the items were made from recycled plastics, and my hand needle sizer was packaged inside a piece of newspaper that was cleverly folded into a flat little bag. What a genius way to recycle newspaper and save the world from one more plastic bag.

I got to talking with Aleksi, the man at the booth and told him I owned a yarn shop in the states and that I was always looking for unique (and practical) items to add for my customers. After a few minutes we had agreed that I would email him the next day and order some goodies to sell at Kaleidoscope Yarns.

The next day he was traveling back home after the craft fair, but we exchanged several emails about my order and by Wednesday, it was all set. He had packaged everything up and sent it to Vermont. Eight days later, I was talking to Barb on Skype and Elwyn, our postal carrier, came upstairs with a package that needed a signature. I heard him say, "This is from Finland" and knew that it was my notions order.

I could have just let Barb open the box later, but I wanted to see her reaction. Everything was packaged - again - in folded Finnish newspapers (I told Barb they should try to read them!) It was really neat to see her open each newspaper bag and see these accessories for the first time.

In addition to the Hand Needle Gauges (like the one I bought) we've got Owl Needle Gauges that have one more hole (for US15/10mm). Did I mention we've got both US and metric available?

And this small Knitter's Tool is great - has slots for measuring 3mm-4mm (metric only) needles and a WPI (wraps per inch) tool.

This small square Gauge Checker is a great idea... we know many folks are not keen on checking gauge, but this is SO cute that if you buy it, maybe you will remember to use it? (We're hoping anyway... make it a New Year's Resolution!)

And since we all were kids once - and maybe some of us still are - check out these little Lego stitch markers! Each set of 4 includes four different colors.

Or, opt for a set of whimsical Finnish road signs. The ones pictured here are all the same sign, but each set includes 4 different road signs - like "tractor crossing", "train", "moose", "stop", and more. They're funny!

I hope you all like them! It was really fun to find some unique new products over here that I could send back and offer to all of you. Thanks SO much to Aleksi for working so quickly to get these shipped to us. Now we've got them in time for the holidays!