PiipaLinen
As I am not an artist or even especially artistic, I can’t say I have some kind of “pain of creation” when I make the designs. I know, however, that sometimes I need to “stare at nothing” and to be alone so that I “hear and see” what I’m thinking about. From where do the designs come from, then?
Sometimes some things just need to be tested on the fabric in order to see what they look like transferred from head to the cloth. Sometimes there is some obsession that I need to print some specific pattern on a cloth or else it won’t leave me alone. I can’t rationalize why it needs to be done. It just does. Sometimes there’s some word or a adage bouncing around in my head. From that, a picture is formed in my head. And as you have seen, everything looks quite simple in my head.
Nature shouldn’t be forgotten here. Our beautiful, perfect and inspiring nature.
Children’s drawings have always fascinated me. They are drawn with focus and the result is almost always a perfect success. You don’t look for dimensions or the right curve of a line, they are perfect like that, with first try. Maybe they are fascinating because I draw like that too. However, there is one substantive difference between mine and their drawings: authenticity. Children’s drawings are authentic, and mine try to be something. That’s why I don’t alter their drawings, so the authenticity wouldn’t disappear.
We were spending an afternoon with a four-year-old girl. She had new chalks which we used to draw on the yard tiles outside. She drew her father and a sun. She was carefully drawing rays around the sun so that it wouldn’t look like a spider. She was having shivers from the thought of a skewed sun. I was drawing too. She looked at my drawing and asked what it was. I told it was a house. She was inspecting it for a moment and then said that it is not a house, colored like that (red) and all. I asked what is it then. The answer came: clearly it is a doghouse.
Right.
Niemiskä
"Niemiskä"- nice home alley
When they started to build Niemiskä, a neighbourhood, I was about to burst of joy. I was 100% sure I would move to this neighbourhood as soon as it was possible. This place is made for me, I thought.
The first houses were built in steady fashion, and I cycled there to see where it would be good to a human child to live. Frustation grew as the houses rised. They were all looking the same and stood side by side! Only a small gap separated each house from the next. In my enthusiasm I had closed my eyes from the planned building style, and it would not fit in the mind of the child of a sparsely populated area.
When it all occurred to me, it was crystal clear that this place, building of which I had eagerly monitored, was not for me. I guess that I wouldn't even find my own yard with first try, as the gates were next to another and all the houses on the alley looked the same. I should have some visible landmark to head for when coming home. I thought that a giraffe would be such an unusual sight that I could actually notice it. That's why I put a giraffe on a yard in the Niemiskä pattern. It would be my home. I would find my house more easily, and the neighbours wouldn't have to make a comment every day about in which house I was going to...
I borrowed, for the Niemiskä pattern, an achitectally designed house from Topias, Linnea's cat (even as there are more dogs), Annika's giraffe, Lyydia's flower and Emmiina's bird. I think that this looks like a nice home alley.
Thanks to the real artists for their products that I used in this pattern!
Blueberry
"Blueberry"-beautiful superberry
I can't help but admire the delicate and beautiful flowers of blueberries and cowberries, and after they've flowered, their pretty colored berries themselves. I also take pictures of them over and over again. They are so small and so perfect. And healthy.
Every summer I try to pick at least some berries, but I'll admit that the berries are somewhat of side products of the forest trips. I enjoy the forest warmed by the sun, and all of its stunning smells- and of course the main event of it all, eating the picnic lunch. But there is something that will keep me watchful...
Yes, it is fun in forest, but do the ticks have to come there too? And when it is time to pick cowberries, there are deer flies. I don't like insidious guys.
I pressed the blueberry with its flowers and berries on a canvas (without the ticks) just because blueberry is cute. The pattern has had a nice reception, for my delight. And why not, as there is nothing insidious hidden in it.
I thank Mother Nature for its little cuties :)
Lyydia's flower
”Lyydia's flower”- cute flower
I have bundles of children's drawings. Whenever I start to comb them out, I just can't throw away those that have a name on them, even if I can't tell what they might portrait. Some have only a circle or a line, but they are made for me and signed by the young artist. How could I throw something like that away?
There are also those that are addressed to Santa Claus or to an Elf. (The latter sounds like me) They have drawings of presents and wish lists scribbled on them. The drawings have been taken to a windowsill, excited, and then they have been found by this true elf, equally excited.
Then there are several drawings with a name LYYDIA written on them.
All of them have a flower with a carefully drawn dot in the middle. The flower looks the same in every drawing, although over the years they have become more regular. They all have a long stem and two leaves. The leaves are on the same spot, both sides of the stem.
This flower and the name are inseparable.
The flower is so cute that I had to print it on canvas and blow it on glass, this time without the stem and the leaves.
And wouldn't it be cute if the flower could stay next to Lyydia's name. Always.
Lyydia. She's the girl who will walk on high heels and speak English as an adult.
Lily of the valley
"Lily of the valley"- our national flower
Lily of the valley, because I'm Finnish. I am lucky as I was born in a good country.
It is strange how we take all this for granted. We whine and murmur, the government is hopeless and they do only bad decisions. We only see what's bad and close our eyes from all that is incredibly well. It could be otherwise. At the latest near our Independence Day I remember, that all this haven't just been given to us. I humbly remove my hat for our veterans of war, and for some reason lyrics of Sillanpää's Marssilaulu always come to my mind:
"...When the fatherland is under a threat,
works of home must be pushed aside.
Whatever riches may be in Finland,
surely the most valuable of them is freedom.
The rights to stand tall and to fall
are for every man."
At this point all I can say is Thank You. I couldn't even imagine the terrors of the war.
Sillanpää's Marssilaulu also made an impression on my sister's son. He had started to listen to marches when he was tree or four years old. He sang with all his might along the songs from the CD. Sometimes the lyrics were renewed, especially at this point:
”Same is the echo of footsteps,
our instinct knows it right,
how from the caches of hillocks, from gold, and
the fathers look at their legs.”
(Same is the echo of footsteps,
our instinct knows it right,
how from caches of hillocks, from the mold of the land,
the fathers look at their sons.)
It's not so strict, as long as the pace and the feeling are there.
Clover
Clover – Who has the four-leaf clover, has luck.
They say that there is only one four-leaf clover for every ten thousand regular three-leaf clovers. Have You ever been looking for a four-leaf clover. I have, many times.
My sister called me one summer Sunday morning and asked me if I wanted to go biking and check out a semidetached house that was for sale, what it looks like and what kind of place it was at. We went and picked a friend up on our way there. When we came back, I had no idea what the house was like. When the others were checking the house out, I was looking for a four-leaf clover from the side of the road. I had completely forgotten the reason why we went there in the first place. Partly this enthusiasm for searching the clover was because I had been trying to multiply it at work, without any luck. It seems like you can not multiply a luck-giving clover so easily. Maybe that’s because it would lose its meaning!
Why did I print clover? Isn’t it soooooo old consept? Because I had to. I am not superstitious, but now it feels like something bad might happen if I didn't print it. Why wouldn’t I wish luck for You? And I didn’t just print the lucky clover, I printed mostly regular clovers with some four-leaf clovers among them. You need to find it. It gives you luck, and that’s what I’m wishing it to do. Good luck for You!
The Birch
"Birch"- the summer tree
Are the birch buds open yet, are there dogears?
Yet again I decided that this spring I'll sit and watch as the buds open, and every year it happens just as I blink my eyes. Every spring it is equally new, glorious and wonderful!
I sat, drinking my morning coffee and stared with blind eyes at the fresh landscape of the early summer. I listened to the news, which I didn't hear. "Next, the pollen situation... The birch is blossoming at the height of Oulu..." My ears heard the words, but my head didn't register anything I heard or saw. The birch is blossoming at the height of Oulu, the birch is blossoming at the height of Oulu, the birch is blossoming... This repeated as an echo in my head. No reaction at all.
I finished my coffee, stood up and repeated to myself: "The birch is blossoming at the height of Oulu."
Wham! Strange enough, there was suddenly some action in my head. The birch is blossoming. That's it. From that moment on it has been blossoming. The birch equals summer.
The Fox Song
Räven raskar över isen- best Christmas songs
- What do you think is the best Christmas song?
- The fox runs across the ice, of course.
- ??
- Yup, it's so appealing.
This conversation has been had a long time ago and still it is returned to, and the answer hasn't changed. This is almost a Christmas tradition already. The truth is: I can't name the best or the most beautiful Christmas songs, as there are so many of them. When I choose one, another starts to feel better, and I can't decide which is better. So I chose the one that I couldn't first understand, how it had ended up being amongst Christmas songs. The fox runs across the ice and the baker bakes, I think, even if it is not particularly mentioned in the song. In my mind the fox is running across the ice in a blue twilight in a quiet snowfall and the baker is baking gingerbreads sweating, as we all do when the Christmas is coming.
It may be needless to suppose that this old Swedish Christmas song and ring game would open up to someone like me, whose skills in Swedish language stop at jag här. The Swedes can be proud about their Christmas tradition. We need to keep traditions alive, and because of that I am not changing my mind about the best Christmas song. Even the youngest of my family know what is my answer to the question presented at the start.
My niece (12 yrs.) asked jokingly that am I going to print fabric from the fox runs across the ice- song, as I like it so much. Guess I didn't really have a choice.
Tadaa!
"Tadaa!" -a pattern in a blink of an eye
You don't always know what you should own. I was told that I need a drawing board. I was wondering why a person like me, only a step more evolved from a cephalopod, would need a drawing board. It is a important thing, they said.
There was no choice, I had to go shopping. I returned from the store with a package in my armpit and felt quite smart. Somehow, however, I realized that the drawing board does not draw for me or read my mind, and I was still drawing stickmen, but instead of drawing on a paper, I did it through this board. I needed guidance.
I'm in that happy situation that I don't need to know how to do things, I have people around me who can do many things. So I headed for a knowing person with my new drawing board. A moment later everything was ready.
- See, this is how this works. Let's choose this wide print.
He makes a swift movement with his wrist, and a black figure appears on the computer screen. In that instant I see the pattern on a cloth.
- Save it!
- This smudge? There can't be use for this.
- I'll find a use! Save it.
- I don't really understand what you're seeing in this, but I'll save it. Now it's saved, but what are going to do with it?
- You'll see. Thanks for the guidance, and for the design. Such a good board, it taught you to design patterns!
Tadaa, Aaku! Here we are!
The Traffic Jam
"The traffic jam"- a chain of three vehicles
Grandparents have visitors. A little boy sits outside at a table and draws. He is very focused on his work. Every now and then he stands up, takes a peek behind a hedge and returns to his work. This repeats a couple of times. Curious, I too take a peek to see what is so interesting behind the hedge. I see a Leyland- tractor. Does that make him so mysterious?
He loosens his grip and I see him swirl something on the paper a bit more relaxed. The work is finished. The pen barely reaches the table as a ball is already in the air. I ask if I may look what he drew. Permission granted. There's two cars and a tractor on the paper. A traffic jam of three vehicles. I admire the tractor. Is there a more beautiful way for a little boy to draw a Leyland- tractor? I think not.
Something had been forgotten. He returns to the table, grabs the pen and scribbles. On the paper appears with a little boys handwriting: Topias
Thank you!
Meow and Maow
"Meow and Maow"- two lovely cats
There can be times when you are bored and have nothing to do. To me, at the moment those two are unknown. I hope that there will be a boring day, multiple even. Something will born from the boredom. "Meow and Maow" were born on a boring day.
- I'm bored. I have nothing to do.
- Couldn't you draw?
- I can't.
She looks at me for a while and leaves. Soon she returns with a paper in her hand.
- Look, I drew you a cat. Actually two cats. Meow and Maow.
She had drawn her happy face to the cats.
- I drew stripes on one and circles on another.
She thinks for a moment.
- There is not really circles on cats, but with fairytale-eyes you can see the kind of cats that have them. Then you can draw circles on cats.
I agree.
- It's for you. Don't lose it.
I won't, and I must print the cats on a cloth.
Thank you, Linnea!
Cloudberry
"Cloudberry"- the queen of the swamp
Hilla, lakka, lintti, suomuurain. The Queen has many names. To me, it's hilla, from where my mother was born it's lintti.
The cloudberry is a subject of conversations every summer, will there be it or not. In my childhood home, there wasn't probably any bad cloudberry summer. My father had developed an impossible nose for cloudberry, and there was plenty of it. I must confess that I have been on a cloudberry swamp only once. It happened a couple of years ago.
It was a sunny and warm summerday. There were five of us, and we headed for a swamp with shine of cloudberries in our eyes. We sloshed around the swamp, shooing horseflies and picking up cloudberries in our jars. We returned at the cottage with our treasure. With watery mouths we made coffee and dug out the bread cheese and cream. There must be a reward for hard work, naturally. Everyone brought their gathered berries to the table. As a noble person I gave my whole loot, all of the fifteen berries. The number for horseflies I had gotten would have been much greater than the number of berries.
This summer I didn't go to the swamp. I decided to get my cloudberries with a lesser work by printing them on a cloth. The resulting atmosphere was almost the same as on the swamp. It was hot and sweat was running, only the horseflies were missing. Still, there is more cloudberries printed than there was in my jar that day. Now, having a cup of coffee in front of me, bread cheese in my hand, and a cloudberry cloth on my table, I can almost enjoy as much as after that gone summer berryhunt.
Cells
"Cells" - from small, a great can be born
I have studied the cells of many plants in my former job, picked small growth points sized only a millimetre, and followed how a small becomes big - or atleast big enough tree, or bush or a small twig. Every one unique and just the right size. Isn't that the important thing? I think that I have some kind of gut feeling about how to make the miracle of growth happen in plants, but in this current job of enterpreneur it is a bit more complicated. In theory everything is possible, but in practise it is quite a different thing. Despite everything, this too is unique.
I printed "cells" first on a cloth and it looked nice. Then I blasted it on a glass an it too looked nice. Excited from these, I got much more new ideas, some of which may come true some day. I'll inform later about them. At the moment, "cells" is printed on fabric, which has been made into decorative pillow cases, table runners and bags. "Cells" is also on glasses and pitchers. These are to be seen and sold on PiipaLinen online shop.
Welcome, and happy shopping!
