Yellow buddies

A little lion and a big duckie are made of same colors. Like two peas in a pot. I just can't stop crocheting, it's too addictive.

Women's houses

So, I'm dwelling on my house inspiration again. These little cottages are inhabited by some vintage styled ladies. It kind of makes you wonder though... do they really have a door on the back side of the houses, or how else are they ever gonna leave there?

Birdhouses

I've been making some collaged birdhouses on leftover matboard that I got from a framing shop. The holes are for attatching a metal wire, so these can be easily hanged anywhere. More houses coming soon...

At the beach, but no bikini's

We made a mini summer trip to Pori and visited Yyteri beach. There was no chance of sun bathing though. Thick gray clouds filled the sky, and there were occational showers, but we were lucky enough and didn't get soaking wet. Anyway the nature was beautiful despite the dull weather, and I got to see the Sea, which was my number one plan.

More colors

Yey, the sun is shining again after a long row of rainy days. The busy weeks with art courses are now also over and it's time to sit down and unwind a bit. There are little amigurumis growing on my balcony... well not really, but my basil behind the bunny looks luscious, doesn't it?


I'm testing a new kind of yarn: Gjestal Janne, which I ordered from here. It's a lovely yarn and suites perfectly for amigurumis. The color range also delights me. Yarn thickness is similar to Finnish Novita's Seitsemän Veljestä, so you can easily combine the two.

Children's art

We had a wonderful and creative week. I'm very proud and almost amazed how well the course went. Somewhat large amount of plaster was used during lino cutting, but there were only small wounds. And nobody cried.


Here's the house we had the course in. This painting was made by Julia, 8 years.


Lino prints all ready and neatly in rows.


Group of cheerful paper mache matryoshkas.

Retro cards and art courses

Making cards again... This time I used old pictures and ads from 1950's and 1960's magazines. They had a lovely sepia tone, which I love so much. There's a pause in my crochet projects, because I had to order some more yarn.


Next two weeks I'm going to be busy busy busy. I'll be teaching art courses for children. The first week will include ceramics, paper sculpture, painting and lino block printing. Sounds fun, but I'm also a bit nervous. I hope there'll be no bad injuries from lino cutting, especially for the younger kids. The students' age vary from 8 to 15 years. Quite a range!

The other week will be about computer graphics. We'll learn some scanning and image processing, basic stuff really. Children can use their own drawings and paintings, add text, turn them into posters and do different layouts. We'll see how it goes.

Little amigurumis

Making one of these little amis from Ana Paula's book takes me only a couple of hours. It's fun, I can make many of them, use leftover yarns and play with the colors. They are about 6-8cm tall each. I was missing plastic eyes, so I gave my creatures embroidered ones.


Crocheter also needs a coffee break, and a yarn muffin.

New books!

I've been yearning for these books and now I finally went and ordered them from here. They arrived very quickly and I absolutely love them all! These collage books by Gerald Brommer and Claudine Hellmuth are very informative and comprehensive. I especially like Brommer's book because it has more of a fine art style approach to collage. Hellmuth's book is more casual and sweet, and it also gives very clear and inspiring instructions to different technicues.


Ana Paula Rimoli's book is a real cutie, and all the crochet patterns are very easy to understand and follow. I can't wait to get my hands on yarns and hooks. Chee... my hands look ugly in the photos by the way.

Anna and Virginia

TMTA had a lovely theme this week: Women in art. I couldn't choose from two of my favourite women in literarure, so as a compromise, I made two atc's. Anna Akhmatova is a great Russian poet and Virginia Woolf is one of the most interesting modern novelists of England. I've always been very inspired by these women, their work, their personality, and also their tragic and melancholic lives.

The elegant profile pictures of these ladies are image transfers. I added some crayons and used metal leaf as their crowns, although the scanned images don't show the golden glow properly.