My Etsy Shop

I've opened my own Etsy shop!

There are not that many items yet, more of them are coming next year. It's mostly my little knitted and crochet designs for now. Later i'm planning to have some hand-made notebooks, fabric pins and buttons and other craft supplies, as well as some little sewn decorations for your home. And of course more knitting and crochet! Let's see where this takes me.

I am totally up for custom orders. If you like something but want a different color or size, contact me and i'll see what are the possibilities.

Crochet Garlands

I fell in love with this 50% cotton 50% soy supersoft yarn. All the colors they have are amazing. I've made two crochet garlands with it. Fot the first one i used this tutorial. The second one is a triangle version of good old granny square.

December Batch Out on Jozik Records

Yesterday was a really busy day. We have released a new batch of tapes on Jozik records. The day of release is always really busy and i have to spend all day in front of the computer processing images, writing blogposts and newsletters, creating PayPal buttons and so on. Lots of work. But we finally have the tapes out and we are happy :)

This time i designed the artwork for only one of the tapes. The other two were designed by our good artist friends Maiorov and Anya Kuts. Maiorov made hand made carton boxes with a beautiful drawing of his and Anya designed a lovely insert (the green one) to stick inside our new poly boxes.

I decided not to do too much hand made stuff this time, so i also designed an insert to fit into poly box for a great tape by Brian Green. I based the whole thing on a drawing inspired by my new book of Indian ornaments.

My Christmas Ornament Collection

I finally have a kind of a collection of Christmas ornaments ready to sell on the Christmas poetry event i mentioned in previous posts. Above is a foam plastic ball covered with glittery yarn. Below are my handmade ornament sets. First two are made of carton and the other three are polymer clay.

In addition to Christmas ornaments i will be selling some handmade gifts.

My cell phone cozies:

Handmade fabric pins:

And some of my crochet doilies:

This is the first time i'll be selling my creations, so i am very excited. I am not planning to sell them all, but i hope somebody finds something they like among my lovelies.

Poetry Books

I took part in a fun project this year together with two poets. We made books with their poems to sell/give away on a Christmas poetry event i mentioned in previous posts. The poets took care of all content and i've put together the books and made the covers.

The first book is by Platon Lliv. He wrote 10 of his poems by hand and added some cut outs from old books/magazines as illustrations. I've made 10 books with a minimalistic cover and scans of his writings inside.

The second book has poems by Tatiana Pertseva. She had combined her poems with loads of collages made of magazine and advertisement cut outs, own photographs, old tickets and lots of other found treasures. I've made 5 books with scans of her works. Each book has a slightly different cover made with two types of carton. The names and titles on the covers of both books were hand stamped using my alphabet stamps, letter by letter.

I really enjoyed working on this project. We already agreed on a larger project of this kind with one of the poets. Will start after the x-mas holiday. Can't wait!

Christmas home

Last weekend i've started decorating our apartment with Christmas stuff.

I bought this white Christmas tree a couple of years ago. I thought we might not have snow for Christmas so i wanted lots of white inside our apartment. There was plenty of snow last two winters, but this time it seems that we might not have any.

I got these lights and the little candle house last week. I just got this idea that i want to have lights inside something, and once i saw this glass house i realized that it's perfect for my white theme.

This year we have a real advent calendar with little gifts. We had only chocolate ones before.

This year i wanted to add some red to my Christmas decorations, so i got this "Christmas star" flower.

The white fake "Christmas star" flowers and glittery decorations are from last years.

We always have some extra ornaments, because our tree is so small. This time i wanted to display them somehow, so i put them in a big jar with some tinsel on the bottom.

More Christmas Decorations

I bought some modeling clay and made more X-mas decorations. I used cookie-cutters for the shapes, acrylic paints and lots of glitter for decorating. Instagram pics again, sorry for that. I get so tired after making these that i don't feel like getting the camera out and going trough the whole process of taking and processing pictures. But i will definitely have a list of everything i have for sale for the Christmas poetry event with proper pictures once everything is ready.

Lots of little crafts and Christmas decorations

I've been making lots of small stuff recently, because I got a chance to actually show and sell some of my works. There's an annual Christmas poetry event we take part in (last year we did an installation and i always get to decorate the place). So this year i will also sell some of my handmade items there. I'm trying to prepare as much things as i can, so i've been busy with that a lot nowadays. I didn't bother taking proper pictures, because not everything is ready yet, but here are Instagram photos of some things i've made recently.

Lots of crochet doily coasters

Little crochet pouches (they still need buttons)

Fabric covered pins

And finally some Christmas stuff! Gingerbread-looking carton decorations

Fabric covered carton Christmas tree decorations.

Some new and old knitting

I've finally finished knitting Mitya's beanie. It took me about two weeks, because i didn't use any pattern, so i had to take it apart and start all over again couple of times. It has two layers, which is also why it took quite long time.

I also remembered that i've never shown here the scarf i made last winter. It took me ages to make this scarf, so by the time it was ready the winter was over and i didn't really use it until now. It also has two layers, i made it with 5 double pointed needles. I'm happy how it turned out, exactly what i wanted.

We both look so sad on those pics for some reason. I guess Mitya is sad because he's loaded with school work and i'm sad because there's no snow :( (i have loads of school work too, but i'm more sad about the snow)

Photos from the Russia tour

I got the photos from our Russia tour developed and scanned. I had a break from shooting film, but i got back to it on this tour and i'm happy i did, cause the photos came out looking exactly like the warm memories i had of this tour. Above is the entrance to the place we played at in Petrozavodsk.

And this is what it looked like inside. It was a part of an old tractor factory, really nice place but really hard to warm up, so we were all freezing there.

Preparing for the show.

Big merch table.

Love Cult performing.

Olli Aarni.

Walking around the city the next day after the show.

You can whisper your wishes to this tree and it should make them come true :)

There were almost no people walking outside that day, the weather wasn't to pleasant, but we had a really nice walk.

Chrysanthemum tea with biscuits in Moscow.

Chinese take-away in Moscow.

We got a huge watermelon as a gift in Saransk after the show. The people were really nice there. We played in a university auditorium, but unfortunately i didn't take any photos there.

Drinking tea in Saransk.

Walking around Saransk. Love those houses!

In a train back to Moscow.

"Stirka 40" cafe/bar/laundrette in St Petersburg.