The cherry harvest is behind us, and whatever is left on the tree now is not fit for human consumption. Most of it will fall down sooner or later. A great deal of it has done so already. I picked a giant builder’s bucket full of cherries out of the grass under the tree today. Took me hours of crouching.

The waste collection company in Stockholm provides an optional service of garden waste collection, for an extra fee. It’s been well worth it for me. Without it, I don’t even how I would get rid of a bucketful of rotting fruit. Now I have a giant bin that gets emptied every other week from April to October, where I can throw weeds, branches, leaves, fallen fruit, and other such garden waste. Including cherries.

There’s a weight limit, and a specific weight limit of 10 kg for fruit in particular. I guess if there’s too much fruit then it messes up the composting process. Too wet, or too sugary, or something. The bucket of cherries weighed 12.5 kg, with the bucket surely accounting for some of it. That rounds to 10 kg in my world – it’s closer to 10 than to 15 – so into the bin it all went.

Working on ways to do something with all the sock yarn I have that are almost-but-not-quite enough for a full pair, and don’t pair up well.

This attempt came out quite nice, if I say so myself. A colourful gradient yarn combined with a neutral, with a simple slipped-stitch pattern to make it slightly more interesting than just plain stripes.

Not quite as mindless knitting as socks have become for me. The pattern has a three-row repeat, and it took me a good while to get used to it. I kept forgetting that I had an actual pattern to pay attention to, and tended to just keep going with whatever row I was on when I picked them up.

Took half the day off and cycled to Kärsö. I’ve walked the hiking trail that circles the southern part of it, at least twice, but never visited the northern end. (The island is bisected by the road from Stockholm to Drottningholm, and you can see Drottningholm palace across the water from parts of the hiking trail.)

The northern bit is much smaller, quite rocky, and criss-crossed with lots of small paths, many of which lead to great bathing spots. I also found out that the northernmost tip is an informal naturist beach. (If “beach” is the right word for “rocks you can clamber into the water from”. Of course Swedish has a word for this.) I therefore have no photos from the places with the prettiest rocks and the best views – there were naked sunbathers dotting the cliffs.

The waterway here was quite busy, with small boats passing frequently. The noise of the waves was nicer than the noise of the boats themselves. One or two managed to create enough of a wake for it to splash all the way across these rocks and halfway onto my picnic blanket.

When I got home, I heard that Ingrid and her friends had been bathing at Ängbybadet, the beach just across the water from me. That’s those two lighter spots on the edge of the water in the middle of the photo. At times (when there were no boats) the voices from the beach carried across the water. Theoretically I may even have heard Ingrid, with neither of us knowing it at the time.

The top of the top goes faster than the bottom of the top. The rows get shorter, and then shorter again. I’m almost done.

It felt a bit silly to start working on a summer top when summer was already here – it was too late, really, it would have made more sense to make it in good time before. But it looks like I’ll have time to wear it before the season is over.

Ingrid and I went to Skyddsvärnet, the giant charity shop in Spånga. We both look through the glass and china shelves first, after which Ingrid mostly browses clothes while I look at textiles. There is everything from odd scraps of upholstery fabric to long rows of bedsheets, curtains, table runners etc. Sometimes I just find small pieces of fun fabric that I buy with no clear project in mind. This time I had a goal in mind. I’m toying with the idea of sewing a pair of loose summer trousers. I haven’t sewn any proper clothes since forever, and I’m guessing the first attempt might not work out perfectly. Some thrifted fabric would be good for experimenting.

The linen fabric I found was too thin and sheer, and there was an unusual shortage of tablecloths. The curtains where the fabric was of a suitable thickness and quality had Christmas-themed print. (I did come home with a white denim jacket for 79 kr, though.)

The only linen tablecloth was this beauty. Wonderfully thick cloth in a jacquard weave, not the least bit worn. Embroidered with someone’s initials, and the year 1934. It had a couple of yellow spots, but was otherwise in excellent shape. It was too thick for trousers, but even if it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have had the heart to cut it up.

It’s sad to see such a beautiful antique item hang in a thrift shop, just because of a few spots.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the spots at all. Maybe someone inherited half a dozen tablecloths, and they just don’t have room for all of them. Or maybe they have one that fits their table properly, whereas this one is half a meter too short. I hope someone will find and appreciate it.

I have – at long last – added notes to all my blog posts from the Japan trip. Yes, it was half a year ago. Better late than never. I got most of it done in April, then forgot about it, then dreaded doing the rest. Today I sat down together with Ingrid (who has her own, physical scrapbook from the trip). We went through our notes together, refreshed our memories, filled in each other’s gaps, and I got it done. Phew.

If you want to have a browse, here are all of the Japan posts. In reverse chronological order, unfortunately. I don’t see any easy way to show them in chronological order; might figure out a technical solution for that some other day.

The hand-plaited string cord I made yesterday was one step in reviving this old leather purse that I found in the basement cleanout last year. It needed thorough cleaning and reconditioning (which I did today) and a better strap – the old one was a too-short piece of ugly store-bought string.

I pondered a while how to make it so that the cut-off ends of yarn won’t get caught up in the zipper. And then realized that one solution is to just leave the ends so long that they can lie flat along the sides, and the actual ends of the yarn ends aren’t anywhere near the zipper.

Now I have a second mini-purse or loose pocket, to keep the first one company.

I have also learned that the word plait, as in “a plaited cord”, does not rhyme with “wait”, “gait” and “strait”, but is instead pronounced like “plat”. For literal decades I’ve only seen this word in writing and drawn the obvious conclusion about its pronunciation. Last week Adrian and I watched the Great British Bake-Off, where the contestants were making plaited bread. When they first said “plait” so as to rhyme with “flat”, I thought it might be a regional dialect. Then all the others did the same. I had to confirm with a dictionary or two before I could believe it. How does that make any sense?

I wanted a good, sturdy piece of cord for a project. Found nothing in the cupboards. Thought of going to a hobby store and maybe buying a narrow strip of leather, but then remembered that I have a booklet with instructions for plaiting or weaving cords and ribbons, based on traditional Estonian techniques. I bought it a whole bunch of years ago because it looked like fun, but never did more than look at it. Maybe I could try one of those.

This is a kind of plait that yields a cord with a square cross-section. In fact now that I look at the photo, I see that this is one of the sides, not the front, because the colour pattern is not symmetrical. The other faces look very similar, and would be indistinguishable if it wasn’t for the colours.

I pinned the cord to a cushion and started plaiting.

I was going to just make a start and then do a little bit every day, but enjoyed it so much that I kept going, and going, and going. All the way around the cushion.

I didn’t stop until I ran out of yarn. (Järbo Tencel Raggi sock yarn, leftovers from gift socks I made earlier this year.) Now I have a length of really good cord. It feels very nice in my hands – sturdy, slightly elastic, neither slippery nor scratchy.

The book is 17 kirrivat paela by Lüüli Kiik.

The clothes moths that have been fluttering around here have primarily (or maybe only) damaged store-bought items, especially extra fine merino wool. A tank top, the red cardigan, and this pair of woollen underwear. I guess they prefer smooth, thin, superwash-treated fibers to coarse, rustic Swedish wool. I’m glad.

On these underwear, which I used as pyjamas in the winter, the moths focused entirely on the crotch. I guess there was some remnant or excretion from my body there that added extra flavour.

Continuing on the theme of taking nice, long breaks from boring work, we went to Spånga Konditori today for ice cream and cake. It’s been a while. The choice of cakes is narrower than it used to be, maybe because it’s summer? But there were plenty of homemade ice cream flavours to choose from.