BathroomWallCabinet

I bought this traditional style and beautiful old small wall cabinet this week. I paid 20 € for it plus 8 liters of petrol to fetch it. I cleaned it gently but well.

After cleaning it, I oiled it by Extra Virgin Macadamia Nut Oil that I still have for my save the parquet flooring project. It looks very beautiful now. It is hand made small wall cabinet used usually by hired men at the estates. They kept their personal items in these cabinets: small hand mirror, comb, razor and soap.

This cabinet is for Lappala. Lappala is a traditional house. We will cherish Lappala according to the traditions. That's why we are going to recycle as much as possible. In Lappala is a small toilet which needs updating. We have already bought the new hot water boilers: one for electric sauna and the other for the toilet. Also, the toilet needs new seat. That one we had to buy as new, like the hot water boilers. But other things we can try to recycle. This bathroom wall cabinet is one of those old things which can have a new life in Lappala. 💚

DeerBag

Few years ago I received an old tapestry wall decoration. I was not quite sure what to do with it. Someone had received it with an old apartment they bought. It had no special meaning to any alive person. It ended up to me with the idea that it's a piece of craft, do something with it. 

I have been thing to what meaningful object I will turn it out. Ta-dah! I designed it and it turn out a handbag. 

I have made handbags before by using old canvas projects. One for my mom and another for one who is not here with me anymore.

In this deer-project also the lining and strap are recycled. The tag "Hand Made" and the magnetic clip to close the bag are new.

I made a small pocket inside. This is unique, and for sure a very special handbag. No other similar on the Planet Earth. Only this one. This is FashionNOW.

HandleTheDoor

We live in Kemi, Lapland, Finland. Few are the days every year when we want to keep the doors open to my arctic garden. That's why, when needed, we have always just placed something to keep the door open. During all these years we have found out it is quite unpractical because the wind from the Baltic Sea hits straight to my garden after speeding up all the way from Denmark to here. We often hear the wind to bang the door closed. On that moment, if being in the garden and hearing the bang, you wish you unlocked it just in case.

That's why we have set our brains to active creative mode to figure out an simple and budget way to keep the door open. We wanted the result to be easy to use. Here you can see the result. It matches with the brush sweater. I love these "here lives artisans" signals.💘

I maid the handle band by plaiting 3 different shades of rug weft. This tricot weft is flexible so the plaited handle band stretches gently with the movement of the door the wind causes. Brilliant, isn't it! You can easily plait yours by up-cycling your old T-shirt if you don't have any weft. See how to cut your own weft in Rag -tutorial post.

Parquet

We have lived in and with Green Lady for 17 years. We have vintage parquet flooring in 2 rooms. Already then when we moved in, it needed updating. And we've been doing so. But actually nothing has lead to desired outcome. We've been talking about changing the parquet flooring but we see it vain. Simply because it is old wood flooring and I want flooring that at least looks like old wood. So, what is the point to waste wood and forest for that? It is not very sustainable.

We could have sand dusted it all like it is recommended but have not chosen that option. Why? Because the parquet is from early 60's, and it has few very deep holes that reach so deep that if you sand dust it all the way deep in, that would broke the whole parquet. Anyway we would need to leave it half way and it would look brand new here and there and very old here and there. That would probably seem funny. Also, we still have the traditional insulation in the house, which means we have sawdust also under the flooring. If it gets heated up by sand dusting by machinery it causes a risk of the fire. We don't want to take that risk. Add to that, sand dusting cause a lot of dust and avoiding it would need a lot of trouble. Too lazy for that.

That's why we have been trying to create the surface to look vintage old but cared and loved. All these years. With many different kind of methods, liquids, waxes etc. With the unsatisfied result. Until now. Now it seems I have accidentally found the way.

In early June I fixed the broken wind catcher. I used Extra Virgin Macadamia Nut Oil that Young Lady had forgotten into our kitchen and it was out of the date. I used it for the wind catcher. Later I used it for the weaving tools and noticed it really creates a beautiful surface also with 3D surfaces. I got a bit excited and oiled by it also some spinning tools. And there I faced an accident. I dropped just one tiny drop of the oil on the parquet. I did like always before when I drop any oil on the parquet. Wipe it by my sock and pretend nothing happened and a moment later none sees nothing. Except now I noticed with horror that it didn't fade away. I just spread around and left a very visible dark brown spot! EEK!!! 

I comfort myself that the parquet is so ruin already that nothing can make it worse... Except next day I noticed it actually looks great. I talked with Him and we decided to make a test for ½ m2 area because it actually is so ruin that we really can't make it worse. After few days we noticed it looks great and decided to oil the whole parquet flooring in these 2 rooms by the Macadamia nut oil. Then we ran into a problem. In the whole Finland, actually the whole Europe, seemed to have run out from Macadamia nut oil. I even consulted my Australian friend to find a shop that can deliver it online straight from Australia to me. See, Macadamia actually origins from Australia. But, we actually found two small groceries in Finland that seemed to have this oil in their store. One was 1½ hour drive far away and the other 12 hours drive away! I called to the closer one, they kindly checked out the situation and set aside their whole storage (4 x 250 ml bottles) for me. We jumped into the car and head to south.

Poor Pii was not very happy about the oiling because it lasted for 3 days and she is a person of order. She was quite ok for the first 2 days until we need to remove her dear loom to get also her very own corner oiled.

I did the oiling by my very own bare hands. I rubbed and massaged the oil into the wood. I must confess it was a very hard job because the starting point with our vintage parquet was so miserable. I have worked hard before with our flooring so I knew what to expect. I always did one part of the floor and moved the furniture to be able to do so. That's why it lasted for 3 days. But we all are satisfied with the result. Also dear Pii who needed to be separated from her dear loom just for 10 hours. 

I know Extra Virgin Macadamia Nut Oil is considered one of the most expensive cooking oils. I must tell you it is anyway cheaper than many liquids & waxes manufactured for wood & parquet floor maintain. Besides it is 100% natural oil without poisonous ingredients. Of course it doesn't fade away the holes and all the scratches on the flooring's surface. It actually deepens most of their shades and all the holes and faults in the parquet. In our case we had so many that it actually looks good now. The oil highlights all the natural figures of the wood and scratches. Now it all looks very old and worn but also loved and cared. I love it when I can spot out some scratches which origin I know. I love this house full of stories. 

I needed 4 dl oil for 36 m2 area. I still have 3 full bottles left. I will re-oil it all after a month. And in the future few years at least once in a year. That will show do I need to oil it annually or not. The cost for 4 bottles and gasoline to drive there and back was total 50 €.

NOTICE: The towels & rags you use in oiling include the danger of fire when they dry out!!!! You need to dispose of them in a special way. Check that out -before starting- from your local instructions. I did burn mine in the wood burning fire stove. If you don't have that option you need to find the way not to cause a fire! I used the rags only to wipe away any extra oil.

WeavingTools

I usually never have time to go shopping just to hang around. Yesterday I happened to drive by a local Goodwill charity shop that had opening at the new place. I pop in just for the support. I don't buy distaffs at second hand but I do have 2 of them. Now I found this distaff and decided to buy it just for the support. It laid next to the wooden warping paddle. They both looked old, vintge, miserable and worn out. I brought them home just with 5 €. I cleaned them and oiled with the Macadamia nut oil like I did with the Wind Catcher. Just look how beautiful they are now.

Someone would say this is not a warping paddle but a spaghetti serving size measuring tool. I don't know about that. All I know is that these were used as a warping tool around here when the spaghetti was not here yet. And many were hand made and home crafted. It might be a multi-functional object / design! 😁

Pegs

This is my very old peg basket. It is almost 30 years old. It has finally faced the end of its time. The plastic has weaken so much that every time I just look at it, small plastic pieces falls off. I've been seeking a new one, actually for a year by now. The problem is they don't sell baskets for pegs without pegs. I don't need pegs. I need the basket. I have been looking different kind of options but each one would have needed some DIY extra.

That's why I ended up to design my own one and crochet it. I used loose end weft from YoungLady's rug project. I am satisfied with the result and it works well. I hope it to last the next +25 years!

RainbowMittens No1

Only in January 2026 I was learning Shepherd's crochet. And by MayDay 2026 I was having a workshop about it at annual Rovaniemi Craft Expo because of my job together with all the community colleges of Lapland. Each college had their own workshop around the same table. Next year I'll be there again. Next year the annual Craft Expo in Rovaniemi Lapland will be held 17.-18.4.2026. I will be there again on Saturday 17.4. showing up some other artisan work. You are always welcome to pop in and chat. We don't sell anything, we share only the information. There will be also craft/artisan small business to sell their products.

I designed and made these beautiful RainbowMittens No1 for the show in Rovaniemi. I used Novita 7 veljestä yarn (80 % wool, 20 % polyamide) (100 g = 200 m) for both blue and rainbow yarn. They are made by Shepherd's crochet.

Oops

In May I have stepped to plant dye wool as a natural cycle of the year according to the traditional Forest Sámi life style. These are experiments for my upcoming book.

The traditional plant dye for traditional Forest Sámi knitting patterns is going on well. Red is red and yellow is yellow. Red is made by madder and yellow by special birch leaves.

But very big oops pop out from my green kettle!!! Gosh! It is black. Accidentally. It supposed to be green but I made it Iron Age black. 😆At least it seems black now when it is wet. We'll see how it will turn out when hanging in the sun. 

StartingShawl

Last autumn I plant dyed some yarn for my upcoming shawl project and made the warp. It is going to be something very special.

I can't do it when the cats are visiting. Now when I know there will be weeks until they'll be back, I set up the warp on my loom. So, here it starts. It is going to be a Forest Sámi Shawl. It is a real restorative craft that breathes history and spirit of my ancestors through the traditional crafts. 

CatHammock

Yesterday I told you how YoungLady brought something with her in December. It was a round metallic frame which is a part of her huge cat tree. One of its hammocks' fabric part had worn out and broken in the hard use. I decided to use the left over material from Siejddemuorrâ. I designed it and first I crocheted the round and made some decoration for it.

Then I added macrame threads and started to work with it. I was guided not to make it too high and not to add anything playful (wooden beads or balls) with it to make sure it lasts longer. 

I started with the crochet, continued with macrame and in the half way made the pillow and the finished the macrame with the pillow to see the form better.

The pillow looks a bit too fat because the filling is plump up. The pillow and the filling will flat down when the cats have slept on it for a while. 

CatPillow

I designed and sew a new round pillow and pillow case. I used recycled materials for all the fabrics and filling. The quilting block is leftover material and rescued from a trash and given to me. The white parts are made from and old sheet (linen) and the beige parts are from old trousers. For the filling I used old home decoration pillow. Real FashionNOW product and the nature says thank you.

The pillow case has a zipper so you can easily remove the case and wash it. Inside is the filled pillow made of white and beige fabric. This pillow is for the cats. When YoungLady arrived for the YuleHoliday she brought something which she asked me to fix. This pillow is part of that. You will see more later...

PatchingPullover

I have a very old industrially made pullover. When I bought it on sale, it was a bit too big for me because it was men's size despite small. I have been using it and loved it. Now the wrist parts and elbows have worn out with tiny holes in the structure. With the wrists I just cut off the extra and fold it again. Now the length of the sleeves is actually the right. The elbow parts I first patched and then hide the patching by embroidery. This is FashionNOW.

HomeDecoKnitting

Just take a look how cute home decoration knitting I made! It is a sweeping brush handle woolly sweater! It is made of left over / loose end yarns. It is very easy to complete. It is done by circular knitting with 5 knitting needles. I had no 3 needles and the yarns approx 100 g = 200 m. It actually doesn't matter. You can mix all kind of yarns as long as they are about the same thickness. You can mix 100 % wool and artificial fibres. I even had some glittering in few, which you can't see on the pic.

I used 4 stitches on each needle (16 stitches total). I knit all the stitches. The length is of course individual but the basic handles at my corner of the world are approx 140-145 cm high. I just made a knot at each different yarn start/end and left 3- 5 cm loose end and pushed it inside the sweater. At the end I just knit together 2 stitches on each needle, and on the next round again 2 stitches together on each needle. Then I had 2 stitches left on each needle (8 sticthces total) and I cut the yarn and pull it through these 8 stitches and tightened. I never turn around the sweeping brush sweater. I just carefully used a needle to zig zag the yarn back and forth inside the sweater. It really was possible because I didn't do it longer than the length of the needle. Then I pulled the loose end of the yarn to the front side, tightened a bit and cut it off. 

 

At some point the sweater started to get a bit too long to be easy to knit so I used safety pins to keep it in order and easier to work with. It was all fun. And, this actually is low budget gift idea for the upcoming Yule tide with FashionNOW idea if you use your loose end yarns and don't buy any new! Knitting this is easy and fun so it does good on your mental health and on the other's health too because I can promise it will bring a smile at everyone's face who will see it! 💖

OctoberWeekend

This October weekend I have been quite busy. I have been doing traditional Sámi craft which results you will see later. This is a fur of a wild mink my father-in-law caught and made ready for the use.

I've also designed a new tablet weave band and made the warp for it already. It is going to be something special for my father-in-law. Don't tell him! It's a gift.

It has been dry an beautiful so we went to the sea shore to collect some sea grass. The autumn has been warm and we have not got the 1st snow yet despite it already is October. 

He needs sea grass to refill His decoys. He hunts black grouses by decoys. What is that? We'll, in decoy hunting you set up stuffed fake black grouses on the top of the trees. The real ones think "oh, there's a great place to eat" so they come to land on those trees. And that's how you get them caught for the food. But He needs to fix the black grouse decoys a bit because last season He faced a demolish. A white-tailed eagle also thought they were real and attacked at the decoys. The white-tailed eagle was quite confused and did everything it could to get the decoys but at the end it needed to give up and fly to find real food.

We are drying the sea grass on our bathroom floor by the stove. It works well. Soon He can finish fixing the decoys.

From this you can be sure the climate change is here and true. This sun flower blooms with few fellows in my arctic garden. The remarkable thing is that it is spontaneous and not planted. It is nearby our bird feeding place where we feed birds over the winter season. But it is a shadowy place and we have been feeding birds there for ages! Never before we have got any "wild" sun flower as a result even tough I know it can happen.

Despite I saw today almost full white hare (yes, they change the color of the fur coat for the winter to be safe from the predators) the frost has not arrived. We have protected our apple trees by the nets to keep hares and Roe Deer away. This may seem funny to you, but this really is necessary. Just image 1 meter high snow cover. Our apple trees don't grow much higher than a man. When there's deep snow cover on the ground the trees are partly buried in. If you protect only the stem, someone will eat the rest.

He has set my new old wooden rowing boat ready for the winter. He bought it for me from our neighbor who doesn't need it anymore. It is designed for the rivers, not the seas. I need to think where I will take it to inland because we live by the sea shore. You can notice there is a construction going in the garden which we were not able to keep on this summer because of Poor Pii. About the construction project you will hear next summer because we really can't start it now when the winter is arriving to cover the earth by the snow.

While I was looking after Poor Pii He fixed His boat but also built our new wood shed for our fire wood. Believe or not but He carried each timber over His shoulder from the street to the end of the garden (25 m) because we didn't want to damage our plants and tress because of the project. That's why He also dig the soil by tiny gardening shovel at some point because we didn't want to damage the roots of the huge old spruce that grows behind the new wood shed. The shed is built in the terms of the garden. That's why He also lift the timbers by his own hands one by one over each other all the way to the top. To avoid the damages to the trees we could not use any machinery/vehicle for the project. We are happy with the result, despite the shed looks like a brand new it also looks it has been there for the ages like the nature had already grown around it. But we just built it into the nature.  This season we don't have the time to built the stairs for the shed so this temporary solution will do just fine over the coming winter.

This weekend I have also been at the friend's farm to help with the wool and sheep. We have been sorting out the wool and kept on learning shearing the sheep. Also, meeting other old friends and making new friends. It really was empowering occasion.

Actually, my friend Elina has started a small business to run a farm holidays. You can take a look and book yourself in if interested at Farm of Old Leinonen. I've been there before and showed you around. And for sure I'll be back to gather with friends at Elina's sheep farm.

OMG

My colleague at work faced a horrible disaster last spring. She had put her French cardigan to hang outside to make the air to clean the wool. That is how you clean woolen garments. You put them outside to air and they get clean! This time she noticed someone had ate her beautiful cardigan! At the end she found out it was birds who had started nesting and needed something warm to build their nest. We both agree there must be very romantic baby girl tits in the world now! Princess like. She asked if I could do anything with the holes.

Well, I can always patch them. For the patching I used DMC stranded cotton embroidery thread. To make it more firm and not stretching. I wanted to create a base for something. See...

The cardigan had hang from the hanger on which the tits hand been sitting and peck fibers out from the garment. That's why both shoulders had faced the disaster but no other parts. 

To hide the patching I did some freehand embroidery over the shoulders.

It is mohair cardigan so I used mohair yarn for the embroidery. In this way she could at least wear it at home and cottage. But she liked it and is going to use it at work again.

This is FashionNOW. And also preserving memories. It was a gift she had received from a very important person in her life.

Notice: I have made a small Patching Wool -tutorial in 2014!

HomeSchool

In Summer 2025 I was unable to leave the house because of Poor Pii. I had planned to go again on Bobbin Lace Course at Valamo Monastery and already booked myself in but had to cancel it because of Pii. But, it didn't need to mean I could not have my course here at home on my terrace deck in my garden. It needed some arrangements because one point being at Valamo Monastery is being isolated and on ready made meals so that you have all the time to spend on focusing the subject you need to. That's why we needed to update our fridge and rethink the week menu. Here you can see one of my suppers: home made saskatoon berry curd, industrially baked gluten free bread with cheese and cold hot chocolate. Yep, cold hot chocolate. You make it to cold milk and do not warm up. I wonder if you have it elsewhere too than in Finland. And, no, it really is not what you mean with a milk shake.

And here is one of my easy breakfasts. Industrially baked gluten free bread, home made raspberry-saskatoon soup, cold hot chocolate and tea. Breakfasts were served with a good book. In this time it meant Jane Austen.

I always have one hot meal in a day. Usually it is served at lunch time. The lunch includes smashed potatoes with gluten free minced meat of cow. We usually never buy industrially produced meat (or anything else) but this was a special thing to ease my life for the home schooling. The Greek style salad is also industrially produced and packed in portions. Gluten free pancakes are home made so I needed spend some time cooking them. Here you can find a recipe for Gluten Free Potato Cakes. If you want to make normal pancakes just add one more egg and leave the potato out. 😉 The jam is home made red currant - cherry jam for the season 2024. 😋