Dear Fellow Crafter,
Welcome to read my new blog. If you are a returning reader from the days of "Little nook of Nele" (Jan 2011 - June 2016) or the even older "Nelen nurkka" (Oct 2008 - Dec 2010), welcome back, you'll notice that I still take poor pictures and have oppinions on everythings, but I might have learnt not to share all of them. If you have followed a link from IG or FB, I'm happy to see you found your way here! Less photos, more writing, sorry! Which ever way you have found your way here, I hope you enjoy reading my thoughtlets, thoughts, oppinions, points of view as well as researched information and maybe you might even leave a comment for me to know what do think about the topic at hand!
First, if I may point out, I know, the word "crafter" is not very commonly used word in English, although Cambridge dictionary does give it the same deffinition I'm using here. It is the word I identify myself when talking about my beloved hobby of crafting, and it is the word I use when I talk about my knitting, sewing, nalbinding, lace making, weaving and spinning friends as a single group. You might use the word differently, but here it is word to describe a person making things with their hand(s), having skills and enthusiasm over their craft related hobby/ies. Here, being called a crafter is not demeaning, but appreciation of skill, passion and time.
Second, just in case you've stumbeled here with out knowing me before hand (I've been told that MIGHT sometimes happen!), let me introduce myself:
- I'm Nele, mid 80's millenial ("fun"fact about me: my first global event memory is when USSR collapsed, and I believed for the longest time that the ground of the country had crumbled away and I was afraid the crumbling would continue to my great-grandma's homestead.)
- I use pronouns she/her, and refer to people as "they/them" if no preference is known. In Finnish there is only one pronoun for the third singular form.
- I have lived in four different countries (Finland, England, Germany and Australia) and in 5 different regions in Finland. I find it difficult to tell where I'm from when "Finland" is not sufficient enough. Currently I live in Joensuu, North Karelia, I was born and raised in Kuopio, North Savonia, but I haven't really lived there since 2007, so I don't FEEL like I'm from there. As an adult, my longest standing home municipality was at the Swedish speaking Southern coast, from where I moved to Joensuu in 2020, after living there for 7+ years. If things go as planned, Joensuu should become my longest standing home municipality about a year before I move out (if I move out).
- I'm Finnish, with Karelian and Savonian (and then some) heritage. I love to do family research, and I might talk about it here as well, because occasionally the heritage part is very important to crafts and their intangible components. I use Geni. I have not had my DNA tested, but my brother has been informed, that eventually he will be. I have done family research for close to 30 years (yes, I was young when I started), I'm lucky to have known two of my great-grandmas, and unfortunate to have burried both of them, two great-grandpas, two grandpas and a grandma. One grandma still survives. The crafts and skills of my grandparents' and great-grandparents' (and few great-great-grandparents') continues to be a source of admiration, inspiration and occasionally also frustration. One of my great-grandpas was a blacksmith, one of my great-grandmas could do everything possible with her hands, another one hated crafts with passion where as her mother owned a Singer sewing machine, an expensive purchase at the time. I come from crafting home, from a long line of crafters and professional craftsmen, and although I might not have always understood the significance of it, I do now.
- I speak Finnish as my native language. I consider myself to be fluent in English, although I do mix British English with occasional Scottish English, Australian English and American English. I try to stick with the British spelling and vocabulary, but I don't always manage to do so. I speak (Finnish)Swedish, or "kust-svenska" and read Swedish rather well, but I write it exactly as I speak it with heavy Ostrobothnian accent, so it it not very pleasant to read. I can survive in German, I have studied Karelian (Liygi), Russian (learnt the alphabets, barely), some Hebrew (while at senior secondary school, so no wonder I don't remember even the alphabets any more) and Dutch and Gaelic (via Duolingo, you can guess how well that went) and have tried to teach myself French and Spanish with no success. I would love to be able to speak more languages and use the ones I already know more frequently. I adapt dialects/accents quickly and easily, and I'm not making fun of you even if you hear me talking like you after speaking with you for few hours.
- I used to have teal hair. I never got used to it (or actually, to the reaction people had to it) and I was happy when it eventually grew out. It was fun experiment, after so many years of following strick rules how my hair could look and how I could wear it, and I'm very glad that I did it, but it wasn't for me. I like to wear colourfull clothes, I say that it hurts my Karelian heart to wear black, but the teal hair was too colourfull even for me. I have dark brown hair, I found my first grey hair in March, and I'm lookin foward to see whose hair I trully have inherited, the one that will go white in few years or the one that will remain brown until end of my days.
- I'm currently wrapping up my Crafting Science studies at the University of Eastern Finland. If things go as planned I'll continue to pursue PhD in early 2025. My research is focusing on looped textles, specially in nalbinding, an age old yarn craft which is part of living heritage in the Nordic countries, some parts of Arabic peninsula, West Africa, parts of Oceania and South America. I'm by my previous profession a RN. After I finished senior secondary school and military service, I did consider becoming a crafts teacher (yes, crafts is taught in Finnish primary education years 1-7 and as optional course for years 5-9 and in some senior secondary schools), but the options didn't feel right (I'll talk about the bias behind this some later date) and instead I became RN for one reason only, I would never be unemployed. After about 10 years I could say, that it is not enough to keep one going to work for another 40 years or so (retirement age in Finland for someone sharing my birth year or younger is currently few months under 70). I am still affraid of being unemployed, but I'll learn to live with it, eventually.
- In case you haven't noticed, I babble a lot. I share the view of the Ents (in J.R.R Tolkien's world), that story is not worth telling, if you can't take time telling it. I know it is neuroatypical trait, I have many of those.
- I'm multicraftual: (in no particular order)
- Knitting
- Crocheting
- Nalbinding
- Dyeing; acid, natural, food, snow, reactive, machine
- Embroidery; needle point, cross stitching, free hand, Karelian red work
- Spinning; proud owner of Kromski Minstrel wheel
- Weaving; tablet, pick-up, wide wear
- Bobbin lace
- Needle tatting (shuttle breaks my brain)
- Sewing; machine and hand
- Macrame
- Knotted lace
- Black smithing
- Lathe work
- Whitling
- Wood work
- Basketry
- Machine knitting
- Resin casting
- Figurine painting
- Screen printing (the fabric kind)
- Leather work
- Laser cutting
- 3D printing
- Pewter casting
- Beading
- Himmeli making
- Candle making
- Soap making
- Furniture restoration
- (Polymer/air dry/etc.) "clay" sculpting
- 5D diamond painting
- Mending, patching, fixing
- 3D card making
- Braiding
- Punch needle
- Ryijy sewing
- Crafting things I'm still figuring out:
- Sprang
- Tanning
- Shoe making
- Upholstery
- Log work
- Bark work
- Masonry
- Net making
- Netted lace
- Needle lace
- White work
- Lamp bead making and other glass working
- Ryijy weaving
- Pattern crafting (for sewing)
- And probably many others I can't even think about
- Other identities I hold: daughter, sister, granddaughter, (grand-)niece, godmother (and the family specialty: godcousin), cousin, friend, aunty, tea-total,t utor, teacher, spinster (but deffinetly not single!), reserv trooper, ms (rouva/fru/frau), cis-woman, Anglican, "fake geek girl", table top gamer, poor baker, history (well, herstory) enthusiast, fat/big girl (not plump or chubby), sports avoider, union/student presentative, tea drinker, Pepsi Max-addict (runs in the family), dog person, introvert, ski jumping fan, pineapple-is-a-good-pizza-topping kind of a person, picky eater, book worm, Pokemon go-trainer (team Valor), short story writer, domestic labor loather, feminist, learning to unlearn white priviledge, at the red/green side of political field, interested of everything and anything, (trying to) learning to code, collector of books, glass-is-half type of thinker, flirting with living history, pro-EU. I hope that a "decent human being" does apply, but that you need to ask from someone who knows me.
Hi, this is me, nice to meet you (if we haven't already!)
- The Journal-type posts are about the crafts I do, finished, unfinished, frogged, failures and succeses, new and old, a traditional blog type of posts, if you will. I recently decided to leave Instagram and I haven't been active in Ravelry since, well, you know what happened to Ravelry... so the Journal posts are for recording my crafts and sharing them with you. Sometimes cross-posted from my Youtube channel, which will return from the hiatus in beginning of next year. These will be posted when there is content, roughly few times per month.
- The Technique-type of posts are more me telling how I do some parts of crafting, like the heel or a particular nalbinding stitch or a spindle whorl. If I write patterns, they will be under this type. Excluding patterns; usually cross-posted from my Youtube channel. These will be posted occasionally, roughly once every two months and/or per request.
- The Research-type posts are me talking about my research, other textile researchers' research, sources, historical examples, museum collections, cultural heritage, local traditions, archaeological finds, interesting bits and bobs. These will be posted approx. once in every 4-6 weeks/twice in three months.
- There might be other things, clothes, food, books, movies, nature, adventures of Bert the Happypotamus (of the House of Happypotamiae, first of his name), thoughts of the world we live in, if and when I feel like it, it is my blog in the end of the day.
I use variety of materials in my crafts, including wool, leather, bone and antler, cotton, faux-leather, occasionally exotic trees etc. The bone and antler are leftovers from local moose hunting, leather I buy as second hand when I can't find already existing pieces elsewhere. The exotic tree pieces are leftovers from larger pieces, such as kitchens and saunas etc. For the source of the wool and cotton (and other materials), I'm more consious of the animal wellfare and over use of land that what I used to be. Oldest yarns in my supply are from ~2010 (this is excluding my great-grandma's SABLE yarns, I now own), when these matters were less discussed, so I can't say that the materials are all sustainable, but I try my best with my new purchases. Although I might be talking about yarns, fibres, fabrics and materials in general, you won't see me showing off hoards of purchaces, having to have something new to show is part of the tocix culture where we are continuosly told to buy new things. Yes, I occasionally buy yarn even that I have yarn at home. Yes, I occasionally buy fabric although I only sew when I have to. Yes, sometimes I see new, interesting crafting technique and buy the supplies for it to use in five years time, but in general that's between me and my bank account, not because I feel that I have to show something new.
As of today, my social media presence includes:
BlueSky: nelefinn.bsky.social
Discord: nelethefinn
As mentioned above, I'm currently in process of leaving Instagram and Facebook, and thus I'm not sharing my profile information from there.
My Ravelry handle is Ne-le, but I don't check in Ravelry, unless I'm looking for a pattern from my library, or information of an old project.
All the opinions are my own, unless specificly otherwise stated and they are accurate at the moment of posting. They may be corrected or altered at later date with no prior notification.
All work presented in this blog (unless elsewhere otherwise stated) are under copyright CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 .
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