Exploring new combinations

Well hello! It has been a while since I last posted here. Hope your year has been good so far! I have been concentrating on other things lately and my crochet arm has also needed some well-deserved time to rest, but when it comes to making my interest has been in testing and finding new combinations. I try to explore combinations of different yarns - like linen and cotton or wool and cotton - or pairing the crocheted parts with fabric. Slowly and steadily I am also learning to sew better. Some of these pieces I have showed on Instagram last autumn and some of them are now lately finished.  

My thought here is to create more meaning into each piece I make through recycling for example, and using fabric from an old pair of favorite jeans. Yarns I used in the pillow are also purchased from Marrakesh and Bergen in Norway so the pillow contains some wonderful travel memories as well. 

Like in the previous posts, here are some things I have enjoyed lately:

- Fourth season of the program called Husdrömmar - a Swedish version of Grand Designs, with warmhearted hosts and it can luckily be watched on www.svtplay.se.

- Amy Chaplin's cookbook At home in the whole food kitchen has teached me many things about cooking and eating healthier.
- Blackbirds have arrived back to Finland and it is lovely to hear them sing again, feels like Spring is coming.
- Makelight course Photography for Makers.
- Projects to try: God's eye, Ojo de Dios and Face the Foliage and these lovely tassels by Philippa A Taylor(you can see one of them also above).

- Morning on the Dock -podcast, still, like last summer when I found it. In one of the podcast episodes, Susannah Conway talked about choosing a word for each year instead of New Year's resolutions (and she has shared the idea in a lovely way for the rest of us). As I listened to the podcast I had an aha moment when I realized that I had done the same during last couple of years intuitively without conceptualizing it that far and was very grateful for this discovery. Last year my word - or theme in this case - was "gentle living", which I also used here on the blog, and it manifested in such wonderful ways in my life. I did the whole decluttering project for example and I notice that this has also affected my making. Making less, but trying to make each piece more meaningful. I have a new word for this year as well, and it is a more challenging one, a word that I know I need (and it surely has shown its challenges already).

But lets go back to the word for the year 2015, and the reason why I thought to take this up here in the first place. It also explains why I have changed the title here. My word for 2015 was quietness - hiljaisuus in Finnish - since I knew that I would have to look inwards to find myself as a maker, and also to rest and really think through how I want to live forward. Therefore the blog and my small business got the name Hilja Design (and the name I wanted was already taken). Right from the start I knew I wouldn't get the right kind of warm and joyful energy behind the name I wanted even though silent moments are an everyday practice in my life. Therefore I have been looking for a new name for quite some time, and hope to find it when the time is right. In the meanwhile, lets just continue making and learning - and use my own name at least here on the blog title. This is a little passion project for me and therefore I am giving it the time it takes and allow it to develop to a direction that feels natural. I also feel that my work life and making don't go all too well together, both demanding me to learn new skills all the time and both being creative (or that is how I also see teaching), so this has been an issue for me and I need to find a better solution than so far.   

And of course these words from previous years are still a part of my life, nothing begins the first of January and ends at the end of December when it comes to life. Everything is in constant change and evolving and sometimes I fail to live according to these words. They have helped me to create new and better habits though so I am going to continue with them and I warmly recommend to take a look at Susannah Conway's work if you think this could be something for you.

I have also made some changes here on the blog as you see and this Mlekoshi-design felt right to me (and I just couldn't resist that lovely slider :-), but still wanted to keep everything very simple here).