19.6.2025

This post includes issues about Forest and Inari Sámi rights and politics. Some people can feel uncomfortable about the issue so remember you can always skip this rare statement post in my blog. But the ones who are interested about the human rights and the truths behind the scenes benefit from this statement. 

Today is a sad day. Finland parliament accepted the racist Sámi Parliament Act despite all the Lapland MP's, except one who was absent, vote against it. 

That actually is very interesting because most of Sámi People who have been accepted on the Sámi Parilament's listing live somewhere else than actually in Lapland, Finland. Most of Forest Sámi and Inari Sámi people still live in their ancient areas in Lapland and follow their traditional and cultural lifestyle. In practical Lapland issues have now been decided somewhere else than in Lapland and by someone else than the real original indigenous Sámi people of Finland. 

That Finland which is known about the equality and well being doesn't exist anymore. It has been weakening in the past yeas but by this act crashed it down. 

The process of accepting the reform of Sámi Parliament act has included a lot of dishonest lobbing and fake news for the reform and against Forest and Inari Sámi people. The key points have been the fake translations about UN Human Rights Committee and CERD Committee monitoring Finland's Sámi situation. Anyone who can read can check all that out and find the truth. See Hard Politics Behind The Scene by Parliament of Sámi Villages in Finland that has uploaded the article on its English site.

They base the new law on the language issue, not descent facts like ILO convention 169. The new Sámi Parliament Act discriminates Forest and Inari Sámi people because they have lost their spoken Sámi language in the past 100-150 years because of the colonialism, assimilation and church acts. We can prove our grand and great parents spoke the Sámi language but the problem is Sámi Parliament call us liars because they don't believe our testimonies. It is interesting to know that they accept and reject even the siblings of the same family into their listing. We even can prove our descent connection by genealogy and gene tests but they claim that is not enough either. 

The truth is that Inari and Forest Sámi people were here first. Reindeer Sámi people arrived only 150-200 years ago from north parts of Norway and Sweden and have been causing troubles to Inari and Forest Sámi tribes who lived on the region first since that. 

Our problem is that Sámi Parliament has connects to everywhere in Finnish society; parliament, ministries, amnesty, media etc. meanwhile they get huge funding for their act. We send correcting request almost daily to the media but they don't correct the fake news. Not even if the news would be totally wrong. 

This racist act of Finland  and Sámi parliament can't silence Forest and Inari Sámi people anymore. Our culture has been hidden from the outsiders and we have lived it in the private homes because of cruel bullying and discrimination by other Sámi and Finnish people. But our culture is still very much alive and we are not going to hide it anymore. 

Expressions "I am sorry" or "My apologies" were not originally part of Sámi culture nor language. As a Forest Sámi I was brought up in the way that I must live my life in the way that there will not be a reason for these words. But living in the pressure of Finnish culture I have learnt there are forgivable and unforgivable actions. I have also learnt that the ones who ask you to turn the other cheek usually hit you again. We are not turning our other cheeks anymore because they have already hit each generations' both cheeks.

You know me as TaijaS. My name is Taija Sillanpää. But my name is also Petra Kiesseluohtâ. Petra is my second name given to me by my Sámi mother. It means a female Forest Deer. Kiesseluohtâ is my original Sámi family name the christian priests never consent to write on the official papers. They translated it to Finnish as Kesälahti. They said it's better in that way. But it is not. It literally means Summer Bay. But it originally is Kiesseluohtâ, nothing else but Kiesseluohtâ and it comes from the exact place on the planet Earth that was ours to live through the eternal time before it all was stolen away from us.

Thank you for listening!

Siejddemuorrâ

This is my own design and piece of textile art Siejddemuorrâ - Seitapuu - Seita Tree. Seita is a sacred place of Sámi people. Seita can be for example a stone or tree. But not any stone or tree. You need to know more about the culture to understand which stone or which tree is seita. So, in practical some seitas are marked even on maps as an ancient monument or landmark. But most are not. When I meet seita in the nature I always salute seita and if possible leave something to seita.

In these pictures in my blog you can't see all of Siejddemuorrâ. It includes also a sacrificial table under it. The table is made of drift tree and is placed on the floor. All together as a complete piece of art and cultural object it needs open floor place where the seita can freely hung from the ceiling. So, it needs at least 3m high open floor place (modern architecture will be just fine). Siejddemuorrâ is made of different kind of yarns, glass beads, salmon vertebra, wood and metal. It includes a lot of cultural information which I will explain to the buyer if the one is a private person and unfamiliar to our Sámi culture but wants to support our cultural work and leaves the contact information for me to get in touch. (We don't get any funding from the government of Finland, Sámi Parliament of Finland or any business.)

In my previous blogpost I announced the price 5000 € for this piece of art Siejddemuorrâ. In July Siejddemuorrâ will be shown and on sale at Lyylin Salonki, Salla, Finland. It is open from Monday to Friday, weekends closed. Lyylin Salonki takes 10% commission from the sales so there the price will be 5500 €. It is a local small business so it needs to get some profit. We (me and my siida) are still planning to get Siejddemuorrâ at public place but if and when it will be sold I will use the money to publish my book. 

When visiting the exhibition at Lyylin Salonki you can bring your own gift to seita and place it on its sacrificial table.

Siejddemuorrâ is already in Salla. This week I took it and two Sámi costumes to Salla for the Forest Sámi Summer Expo 2025. Instead of staying at friends my mom wanted to test some cottages for the upcoming SummerExpo so she rent a cottage at Sallatunturin Tuvat. She was quite satisfied with the cottage and service so she has rent it again for the summer expo. I have nothing to complain about it but I need to say I loved its sauna!!!! The sauna was clean, able to be set hot (or cold) enough easily and the spirit was right!

OpenExhibition

This spring at work I received an interesting email. They were organizing a group exhibition Töissä täällä - Working here for the workers whose employer is Tornio City. Because I work at Tornio Community College my employer is Tornio City. I decided to participate and show First Kiss which none has ever seen "live" anywhere because it is part of the private collection. It has been shown only here in my blog 11 years ago!

Here is the list of artists and their pieces of art you can see in June 2025 at Tornio City library. I have updated this exhibition and one other that is upcoming in July 2025 on my OnTour page. If you are around, take yourself there to enjoy about local art that are seldom seen anywhere else, especially in the Finland capital and big city areas. Salla exhibition is up to upcoming Forest Sámi Summer Expo 2025. Anyone is welcomed to see around and learn about Forest Sámi.

PS. If you are visiting anywhere in Finland and want to see local art, go to the library. Libraries are usually free places for artists to show their art. Galleries and museums are far too expensive unless you have applied and received a public funding for your exhibition. And many don't because they are far too humble to do so even they are super talent. Just be silent, polite, and sneak around. Take pics only when none appears in your photos. It is allowed to photograph in public places but it is considered extremely rude to do so if there is a local person in your photo. Show respect for this and you can see a local person to smile. For my picture of this art exhibition wall I waited for about 5 minutes to get the wild child in photo to hide well enough so that it is called polite and compliment to take the photo and publish it. I could have cut off the child in the picture but I want to show you what is ok and what is not.

Experiments

My plant dye kettle is on again. I have an interesting plant dye experiments going on.

I am using local plants and time to repeat the experiments I started last summer. This recipe you can find in my upcoming book later in the future.

Secrets

At the moment I have started to finish my long-term craft project. It is going to be a piece of textile craft art. It will be shown in a craft expo in Salla, Finland this summer (July 2025). It is for sale (5000€ +  commission if the gallery takes one) but is looking for a accessible public place so it can also be donated if such a place can be found. It has special limitations and demands for the location it can be placed. It is a visible part of Forest Sámi culture. I am not in a hurry giving a new home to it so we will seek the new home for it in peace.

I am in the middle of another secret project too. I am investigating a special plant dye method. I will make an experiment and about that you will hear later in my upcoming book if it will be succeeded. It is not a secret anymore that I am writing a book: Forest Sámi Costume History And Present Days. 

WoolCakes

Here they are. 500g of hand spun arctic dog wool chinegora.

Variable quality, variable yarn. That makes it to look lively and unique which twists are different here and there but all balanced.

Most of it is white or light grey.

There is also darker grey.

There is also other natural shades. That all makes it actually a tweed yarn. I can't wait to start knitting the project. Unfortunately, I have many others going on, so this needs to wait...

SlowCraftWool

After our angora rabbits passed away 2018 we had one last delivery of wool to the mill and received for about 10 kg AAW. On that time Liinu moved in 4 years ago. Since that I still have -like always- collected our arctic dog wool. I started to spin it 2 years ago in May 2023. Now I have spun ~500g of 100% chiengora from our own dogs' wool. I do have spun everything else too but this has been my main and long term project. 

How much I have used the time to spin this yarn? I never counted. But, a skillful spinner spins 40-6o meters of yarn in an hour. This is not an easy yarn to spin so I have used much more time to get ~50 meters than an hour. I have not calculated yet but there might be approx. 200m in 100g. Normal wool of 500g would then have appeared in ~20 hours. This is not a normal long fiber wool. 😅

Today I finally reached the point where we slowly start to see all the shades of the wool. I have washed those 4 skeins now. I used only ~50 liters of water to wash 500g of wool. It is a small amount of water to wash the wool. I did it in home industrial hand-washing way so it was possible. This really is FashionNOW and eco-friendly wool.

I hung these 4 skeins to dry outside so for that I don't need electricity. Just the wind and a bit sunshine. It is +8 Celsius degrees outside at the moment. That is enough to get it dry. But, because the drying up takes time and the birds are building their nests I need to hang up also some scarecrows to prevent them to pick up any wool from these beautiful hand spun chiengora skeins!

What I am going to make of it? A vest for Him. A very warm vest.

The problem to solve was what to use because I don't want to scare the birds away from nesting in my arctic garden. I need the birds for my biological and ecological toxic free gardening. That's why I chose 2 wind chimes you can see in the previous picture and one crystal hanger. The birds are used to the sounds of my wind chimes but still don't go close to them. This crystal hanger has been hanging in my veranda so they have seen its reflected light outside. I just moved it 4 meters and placed it outside. 

I need to pay attention and see if they scare them enough but not too much. At this time of the year the birds appear to pick up the dog wool everywhere. We also leave it outside on purpose for them to use.

NB Mittens No2

Over a year ago I started to learn a new skill: needlebinding. I have now finished another pair of mittens. For these ones I used a stitch I think is called "Finnish stitch 1+2 F1 plaited" in English. I used Novita 7 veljestä "isoveli" (big brother) yarn (75% wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 130m). These mittens weight 90g (!!!) so they are very thick and warm. To be honest this yarn was not the best possible for the needlebinding project. I didn't like its quality and outfit in needlebinded mittens despite I love it in woollen socks. 

What I have learnt -so far- in needlebinding? Well, many stitches of course. But I think the most important lesson has been that it is ancient and slow but a clever technique. It is not a miracle you can't see these on sale at artesan markets so often. And if you do, no wonder they are expensive. I have also learnt that if you want to make someone happy who really can understand and appreciate all the trouble and time you use in making needlebinding, then it will be an excellent gift for them. I paid only 3€ for the yarn on sale. These are for a man for the Yule 2025 who really can appreciate and cherish them. So, it is a low budget gift if we don't count all those hours I used making them!

GreySeals

Last week we had some special moments spotting Grey Seals just 1 km far away from home. Usually they don't come this close. Now we had south winds before the river floods broke the ice and pushed the ice floats away. That's why the south winds were able to push the remaining ice floats to the Gulf of Bothnia's north shores where the ice had already started to melt.

(C) Esa Sillanpää

We admired the seal pups which are surprisingly fast on the ice at this time of the year. Notice, the dogs must be in leash in Finland! No exceptions allowed on spring time! Not even for well behaving Go. In practical, many wild animals have their price. It you dear dog happens to kill one, you pay. For example a sparrow costs you 30€. And it is "just a small bird". These laws & rules are made to protect the nature. 

(C) Esa Sillanpää

The seals were just 500 meters far away from us. We used binoculars to see them. Even we had been able to walk closer we didn't. It is not ok. You should not disturb the nature life. That's why you can't see better pics of the seals in my blog. My father-in-law provided these pics to be published for you. His camera has better photographic objectives than mine. 

(C) Esa Sillanpää

We spotted 44-46 grey seals on different days. My father-in-law has always lived in this village. He was born 1950 and says the seals has never been this close to the shore. I guess it is because of the the impacts of the climate change and the poor ice situations during the last winter. 

(C) Esa Sillanpää

Neither have the commercial ice breaker tours stopped this close to our shore. Last winter they did. My father-in-law- spotted them when going by on his kick sled.

(C) Esa Sillanpää

Ice breaker tours are not very environmental friendly. The ships pollute quite a lot and this is just for the fun. You do can experience the ice in many other ways too and most of them pollute the fragile arctic nature so much less than these ice breaker tours. The ships also disturb the grey seals even they would not go close. The ship movement moves the water and ice quite far from the ship -not only close to it- , that makes the ice to be unstable and break even it is not the time yet, it shakes the ice and makes the seals feel unsecured so they need to escape.

Figures

I have been embroidering little samples for my upcoming tin thread embroidery course 24.5.2025 at my work Tornion kansalaisopisto community college. This is a traditional design. You can find it in Mona Callenberg's book Tennrådsbroderier.

This is my and my father-in-law design we've done together. This is a figure of a capercaillie (=wood grouse). It is one of the designs I have made for sale years ago when the digital photographing, not to mention smart phone photographing, was not discovered itself up here yet. But, if you have visit Lapland in late 1990's - early 2000 and bought a traditional style bag with a figure like this, it is designed by us and embroidered by me under the trademark E.I.S Design. The difference of this new wood grouse to the old one is that this new one has a glass bead eye, the vintage ones has tin thread embroidery eye. It is like a small line there where the eye is. No photographs to be published about those ones -sorry- but they are made of reindeer leather "sisna" handbags. I made about max 5 with wood grouse design. Can't remember exactly how many but for sure they are unique because this design was never before until now published anywhere else. I found it in my notes when seeking the designs to use for the upcoming course. I do have details about it where exactly these bags were sold, so from that you can recon the real vintage item. 😉

This is my own design from my new collection. It is not finished yet. I make these small samples on different fabrics with different tin threads so that the students will be able to see how different threads turn out in the figure.

Anttu'sLife

Isn't it amazing how life turns out sometimes? How you find the connection between the things/occasions/happenings at the end?

I designed this Sámi tin thread embroidery belt last autumn when we were waiting the autumn to frost the ground, cover the world by the snow and ice. It was a bit difficult to let it all come out for the design and decide which form this symbolic figure takes. Will there be starts, snow flakes or flowers? Will there be the snake or not. Will there be the holes between the worlds or not? 

It all progressed pretty slow during the winter, but suddenly when we turn to April I felt huge inner force to get it completed. I felt enormous inner force to complete this belt with powerful symbolic figures of noidi and travelling between the worlds successfully. 27.4.2025 I was just finishing the embroidery with the glass beads that drive the evil away and keep us all safe while they create the holes and make it possible for us to travel between the worlds. On that moment we received a phone call.

There was a dog in the ice in the bay. It means the waters have started to melt and get free from the ice cover. The ice cover is still there but it is weak and anyone can fall through. At the end there is a creature in the hole the broken ice has formed out. It is almost impossible to get out without help. So, now we got a phone call someone saw and heard there was a dog in the broken ice and asked us to go and see because it was on our side of the bay. I watched my spiritual belt and said "Keep us safe and let us travel between the worlds." Then I stood up and we hurried to the bay shore. We found the poor dog and got it up. Of course we called also 112 but had to act because it takes time to get help and we already had someone professional with us. 

The story has got its final happy end with one more scar in my body because of the sharp ice. This belt is Anttu's life. The praise for life and that spirit we all can find again even we had already given up. I saw from his eyes and cold stiffened body that he had given up already. I asked him: "I guess you are not going to give up yet, aren't you?" He kept on staring into the darkness and sigh: "There is no other way." I responded: "No, don't you give up yet, we do get you up if you just hang on one more moment, I promise, but you need to hang on, we will get you out." And that's how I was able to bring him back to the life. That's how we got up his body but also life & spirit.

For us all it is possible to try out again. Like Anttu, you can ask help. Receiving the help may feel eternity. Waiting for its arrival may feel horrible. But if you just cry out and ask for help, like Anttu did, someone will hear your miserable request and help you or get you help. Don't be afraid of to ask. And keep your eyes and heart open, there might be someone in the need of help. If you can't help, ask someone else. 

Love you all!

CoolMayDay

 

I have celebrated May Day before. It is not a surprise it can be cool up here in the north. This year, 1st time ever, I was over 700 km south from home to face this May Day weather. That was a surprise!

We spent the holidays with the kids and their families. We had lazy and relaxing moments. Last year our MayDay looked like this. 

Kirke looks like dead but believe me, she is not. She spends hours like this and if you lift her away she runs back. It must be relaxing. Just think how it stretches your back when hanging like that!

On our holidays in Turku we always walk a lot because of the dogs. We usually spot church yards (which are my favorite top ten) because Turku is almost 800 years old town and that's a lot in Finland.

The weather was not arctic all the time. We faced also beautiful -almost summer like- moments there. I love how they have built the play grounds there! They are park-like.

What amazes me most in Turku is that at least by Aurajoki river the wildlife is around. The birds nest in the parks and play grounds, rabbits dig their tunnels and I have never seen a fox that close anywhere else than in the city. The animals have lost half of their natural fear against the human in the city environment. That makes at least the Aurajoki riverside an excellent place to spot birds and other animals.

It would be wonderful to recon the bird nests by their figure, how they are built up. That is something I can't tell about the nature.

In Turku I found the heaven on earth for coeliac's gluten free life. I usually go another super market but this time I was introduced K-Citymarket Kupittaa by YoungLady. That means I had a guided tour around. I found many gluten free food products of which I have only dreamed about! The Citymarket is huge (from my perspective) so if you ever go there with a special diet, just make sure you have enough time! There are specialties from the big world but also something that is typical to Finland region kitchen.

Also, it was wonderful to come back home to find this "soljo" delivered to my GreenOldHouse. It is a traditional Sámi brooch about which symbolism and meaning you can read here. This is from goldsmith Tomi Mansikka's Aamunkoi collection. It is not sold anywhere yet. This is the 1st piece. Once I asked him could he make this design also as "soljo". And he did, and here is the result. Tomi works for Taigakoru which is my favorite jewellery trade mark in Finland. I am sure he will make some more if you like. :) 

Dutch Heel No4 (var.)

I designed and knit this pretty pair of woollen socks. It is inspired by my Ireland Erasmus+ journey 2025 with my students and the visit at the IrelandsEye Knitwear factory. For the socks I used Novita 7 veljestä yarn (75 % wool, 25% polyamide) (100g = 200m) in green shade and AAW (50% our own ethic produced arctic angora wool, 40% ethic produced FinnSheep wool, 10% nylon) (100g = 238m) which I plant dyed by fire weed. 

For the decorative knitting I used Single cable and mosaic stitch. In these socks you can find the mosaic stitches in the green stripes. To knit the mosaic stitches you use only the stripe shade so you knit by just one yarn (it is not Fair Isle). You knit the 1st row, then purl the 2nd. BUT you need just to slip the stitches between the stripes. It is very easy, just try it on.

For example in this version I knit on the 1st row "knit 4 - slip 2" and on the 2nd row "purl 4 - slip 2". 

I knit Dutch heel variation with seed stitch. Seed stitch is very easy and pretty. It is suitable for the beginners who want to learn to knit something else than just plain. You can use seed stitch just a little bit, only for few rows. Or you can do even double seed stitch for bigger surfaces. 

To get the seed stitch surface you just need to purl every stitch and knit every purl stitch:

1. knit-purl-knit
2. purl- knit-purl

AranHeadband

I designed and knit Aran Chain Cable twisted headband. I started it at the Aran Cable Knitting workshop in Dublin 2025. 

This was my 1st ever twisted headband. I am sure I will make more! I used cable knitting and actually crocheting too.

The yarn is King Cole's Dollymix DK yarn (100% acrylic) (80 yards = 78 meters) in the shade Peach. Never used it before. Actually I didn't know it exist. I usually don't use 100% acrylic yarns but this was just fine for the work shop and sample work.

Easter 2025

This Easter we spent at home and had some visitors up here in the North. I had few moments when I had some time to enjoy about the sunshine, warmth and knitting outside.

We made the 1st bike tour in the local area for this spring. It was windy and a bit chilly there where you could not hide from the wind.

But there where you could hide from the wind was very warm and comfortable. We climbed to the bird watching tower with our binoculars to look out over the bay to spot swans, mallards, greylag geese, golden eyes, sea gulls and mergansers. If you remember we are participating in the nature conservation project of goldeneyes.

If you compare the pics of this post to the spring trip 2024 you can see this year we didn't have so much snow, neither frost. The sea is still frozen but it is melting fast.

NewT-shirt

This time I dyed an old T-shirt. Actually, it was given to me for rag rug weaving. It was just fine with a few tiny spots. I decided to call in FashionNOW and make a new T-shirt for myself.

This time I used red onion peels. From the peels we had dyed at work with my students already quite a lot of wool yarn and they still gave me this strong shade.