Night Bright!

(Copied from my Artsy Fartsy Blog)

Okay so the title was a bit of a play on "Lite Brite"...but with proper spelling.

Here in Finland, people are quite smart.  When it's officially autumn (aka it gets dark super early - so around late August/September) - you'll notice a few things.  

1. People dress in layers and from head to toe (hats, mitts etc.) - I stupidly and occasionally wear sandals still.  Drives Finns mad I think.

2.  Reflectors on their coats, prams, rain covers of the prams ("strollers" for you North American folks), pants etc.

Why reflectors?  So people are visible at night time!

I recently lost my rubber ducky one but have decided to finally make use of some reflecting thread I purchased at Poppeli and make my own.

Here is the 2nd attempt (with a pattern):

The blue is a beautiful Safran yarn and  the white/silver you're seeing is like a reflective fishing line.  I used a pattern from a book and size 4mm hook as 1.5 was too small for my poor eye sight.  First attempt is proudly dangling from my coat and is just a large circle about the size of my palm...and dangling so people can see that I am moving.

Did you know?....In Finland if you have to pull over on a highway, you have to put a red triangle reflecting sign about 100 meters behind you?  This way people know in advance: "Oh someone's fixing their car or taking a leak on the side of the road - best not to pull over."  Well you get what I mean.

In Canada - we just use our 4-way blinkers....but in Finland it's strongly recommended (not officially a law)to use the red triangle sign (same as on the 4-way blinkers button) and I'm sure it saves lives.  Just like these reflectors do too.

The first time I saw someone with one (rectangle shaped and pinned on their back) - I thought it was a price tag they forgot to remove or that the jacket was stolen.  Then I could not figure out for the life of me why it was SO SHINY!  I blame the pregnancy for that blonde moment...