WindCatcher

I love wind catchers. This one I have bought a very long time ago at second hand. It has been scaring bad creatures away from our property until last year when it lost one part of it. I found it and took it all down to make sure nothing else will be lost. Since that I have been seeking a thread to fix it. Nothing was found until now. 

See, I wanted to use UV-resistant thread to make sure it will last even longer after I fix it. Wet cloth and these were all I needed. The tread is a fishing hook cord. I bought it at our super market's fishing department.

At first I took few proper pics of it by my smart phone to make sure I can put it all up again. Then I unwind it all and wipe by a wet cloth. I love the impression how the time and the weather has applied the metal parts so I didn't do anything special to them.

I oiled the wooden parts by a nut oil I found in my kitchen! I gave a nice look for the wooden parts. Also this is real FashionNOW. There was no need to throw the broken wind catcher away. It still plays a beautiful sound so I just fixed it.

To create even more power to its protective feature I added some traditional shiny Sámi culture element by a mirror glass. I used a glue to attach the glass on the both sides of the lowest wooden part. It should be frost resistant but we'll see that in the future.

Särestö

In Kaukonen, Kittilä, Lapland, Finland there is a place we call Särestö. Officially it is Särestöniemi Museum. It actually won The Museum of The Year contest in Finland in May 2026!

It is the museum of a famous painter Reidar Särestöniemi (1925-1981). In December I went to see a play of his mom Vesisaaren Alma with my sister. Now I went to see the museum with my sister. We have been there together before. A long time ago. The museum was opened in 1985. We have visited it by then. That makes 40 years ago!

There is his family home. It is a traditional log house by the river Ounasjoki. It is mostly like it has been when he lived there. Of course some parts has been put on display because it is a museum now. 

Also Reidar's family had a traditional cow house. Like all the traditional buildings, also animal sheds were made of logs. They had for about 8 cows and few sheep which means it was a wealthy house.

They had also a horse stable for their 2-3 horses. You can spot also a dog house in the picture. The leftmost building is an outhouse (toilet). Image yourself going there in the winter when there's snow and frost.

The gallery was built up in 1972. He was so famous and visitors came to see his work. He needed the privacy so he built up a gallery next to his ateljé.

In the gallery is also his sauna department where some important and close guests were invited. He had 2,5 m deep pool in the sauna department. Surprisingly the sauna department and pool locate on the 2nd floor of the gallery. Obviously, because it was built on a stony ground and digging a pool into the soil would have been too complicated in arctic environment.

Previously he had his ateljé next to the gallery. Unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire by the new year 1977/1978. The new ateljé, which was also his private house, was ready for him to move in already in October 1978. 

His ateljé is a dream place for every artist or artesan. Unfortunately he passed away 2½ years later and was not able to enjoy it for a longer time. 

The museum area is like indoor and outdoor museum, all together. I warmly recommend you to visit it and investigate it all also outside, no matter the weather. If it is a summer, dress up, because there will be mosquito.

You can even spot the place of Reidar's birth. They used to have a smaller house there. They sold it later. After that Reidar carried a big stone there to spot the exact place of  his birth.

He died in his ateljé but is buried in Kittilä graveyard in the center of Kittilä. By the gate there's a map that points out his grave in the top left corned.

You can find Reidar's grave easily. You just walk straight forward from the gate until the last turn to the left. And then you walk forward again until you see this sign. 

Remember to be respectful. And silent. 

Vipera berus

In last March The Forest got us. Since that it has shown many miracles to us. Today when visiting Forest I found something very interesting. We have been aware of that there might be snakes but now I spotted a real sign of it. It is the skin of the common European adder (Vipera berus). On the picture you can see only a small part of it because it already was so dry and broken. 

In Finland you can meet three snakes: the common European adder, grass snake (Natrix natrix) and Smooth snake (Coronella austriaca). Smooth snake you can meet only on Åland Island. Grass snake you can meet in South Finland. The common European adder is the only snake you can meet in Lapland. And it is the only poisonous snake in Finland. But it doesn't use its poison each time it bites. 

The common European adder is protected animal and you are not allowed to disturb it. Which means that only if you find it near your house you are allowed to remove it to a different location. 

Later today in Forest I noticed one adder in the swamp. I have never seen a snake/adder in wild before. It was beautiful and I felt no fear at all. It was adorable flexible and limber when it moved to hide from me. Meeting the adder was one of the big moments in the wild, like spotting the grey seals a year ago. Actually, from these two blog post you can see the years are never the same what comes the seasons and weather. This year our spring has crashed in fast and assured.

The mosquito are here, which is very early. But also the blooming has started. This is Hare's-tail cotton grass (Eriophorum vaginatum). It is one of my favorite swamp plant. We can meet also cotton grass in Forest.

This is bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia) which also grows in Forest. It is relatively small swamp area flower. But when it appears with many other bog rosemary plants it is like a pink pearl blanket has spread over the swamp. It reminds wild rosemary / Labrador tea (Rhododendron tomentosum, syn. Ledum palustre), which is my favorite swamp flower, but bog rosemary is much smaller.

SweaterHemming -tutorial

I bought this wonderful Devold 100 % wool sweater from Svalbard, Norway in 2018. That means 8 yrs ago. I also bought that Svalbard-Longyearbye -badge I sew on the sleeve. This sweater has been in "all year around" -use and very dear to me. Now the hems of its right sleeve has started to worn out. (I am right handed.) There are signs of it also in the left sleeve and trunk hem too. That's why I have been thinking how to fix it because otherwise the sweater is still in perfect fit.

Instead of patching I decided to use crocheting. I used simple crochet stitch. It is easy to make also for the beginners and it fades well into the knitting. If the hem has already broken yarns, make sure you make your crochet stitch far enough to make sure you catch everything. You get it very neat when you crochet each stitch equal distance, according to the deepest point your yarn has been broken.

At the end -like in my case- even the new yarn would be different shade, it fits in well. I could have used also white yarn, but I didn't want to. there are different shades of whites too and because the other shade is red I was afraid of the new white would not hide the red under the white so well. Make sure you choose as similar quality of yarn as possible compared to the original sweater. You can go seeking it wearing the sweater. 💕

On the tutorial video above you can see and learn how to make it. It really is FashionNOW. It also saves your personal time, energy and money... not to mention the PlanetEarth. I bet this makes your favorite sweater even dearer because now you fix it yourself and created a new memory!

OOW Mittens No1

I designed and knit mittens for myself. I used loose end yarn from my own design WaterGrassVest project. These mittens match well with the vest. I am knitting woollen gloves to wear under these mittens. It is going to be something extra warm for my hands for the next winter. I used our own OOW yarn. (25% arctic dog wool and 75% Finnsheep wool) (100g = 220m) This is not fast fashion. It is slow craft and FashionNOW.