syko

Computer break-down and Summer doings

Hello my friends! I wish I could tell you I've been on a long vacation, but the truth is my computer broke down a couple of weeks ago, I've missed you so! I am having a precious moment at T's computer while the family is asleep now. This computer break-down was the kick I needed for the decision to start offering ad-space on my blog, after all this blog is a very important part of my little business and I know that if it will generate some cash I will have/find more time to jot down my crafty doings in this space. Money -- how boring to talk about, but how hard to live without.

I will add another sidebar to the right for the purpose, I will do another post with more info, but you are welcome to contact me by mail @ kajsa dot wikman at gmail dot com if you are interested to know more right now!

Let's move on to something else! It's been hot! Too hot for my taste, but luckily our apartment is cool and we have enjoyed going by bike to the beach. This lovely beach cabin stands at the beach in the small town of Ekenäs (where I hope to live one day, hopefully in a bigger house than that, though...).

Ekenäs has a wonderful marketplace where local farmers sell FRESH veggies, aren't they beautiful? Make me want to sew something!

So I did! This little fellow was made for my cousin's little baby boy. I'm very happy with how the face turned out, that's always the most difficult part! In his pocket hides a tiny...

look-alike! I had so fun I might just have to make a few friends for him!

I'll talk to you soon again! And not just about advertising, I thought I'd show you some lovely fleamarket finds and give you my best tips for thrifty fabric hunting!

 

Kajsa goes to town

Last Thursday I took the tram into town. My Finnish publisher Gummerus had invited all authors that will be published next Fall for a party. I wore my heels. It hurt, but I felt pretty :) I made the linen skirt a couple of years ago, I think the fabric was actually meant for curtains. I love the little swallow and the oriental feel of it.

I have a bag made of a long zipper, a gift from my m-i-l. It looks great and fun and the best thing is that it does not weigh much so it doesn't hurt my shoulder.

I tried to find something beautiful to show you along my way, it was kind of hard, but I do like this hospital building by Olavi Sortta from 1936 (thanks wikipedia)! 

The tram was museum quality, I liked the lights.

I stopped at Pulu to drop off some Syko-stuff, they had alarmed me because my shelf was looking empty (I love it when it happens!) One of my buntings went straight into the window. 

I had 30 minutes extra time so I picked up some more white alpaca for my crochet blanket at Menita, my favourite yarn shop.

The party was just around the corner...

All authors got to wear white carnations, it looked quite romantic on my linen jacket. I decided I need to read more novels when I heard about the new releases. Food was good and drinks were free. I took the last tram home. That doesn't happen very often :)

And because I stayed late, I got to take home some of the flowers that had been used for decoration.

I enjoy them so much, I am not spoiled when it comes to fresh flowers. I hope this hydrangea will love life on our balcony.

Today it is T's turn to go to a party. I will be watching the Eurovision song contest finale with the kids. We are crossing our fingers for Paradise Oscar! 

 

 

Hobby vs work

Here's the progress so far on my new hobby project! I'm liking the colours a lot, but I do like the squares with a white inner circle more. The yarn is Drops Alpaca from Garnstudio (pattern link here, the yarn I use is much thinner than in the pattern). It was a great relief to move my studio out of our home earlier this year, because our apartment was crammed with my stuff. I have noticed though that I quite liked to work from home. So in the future I wouldn't mind having a studio connected to our house again. I am the kind of person who needs to get busy with my hands all the time so now when my work is out of reach at night, I have suddenly been in an "I have nothing to do"-situation, which is very rare to me. This is why I've taken up crocheting :) This is and stays a hobby, I've promised myself not to make it a jobby too...

At work I've been doing a lot of this lately. Today I sent one village to Spain and another one to Portugal! Tomorrow I will start to working with a large quilt for a new project I'm very excited about (more about that later). It is not everyday that I have the time to make larger quilts so I am quite eager to get started with this quilt. As soon as I get my fabrics from customs... Remember this quilt I made last year? It is now hanging above our dinner table brightening up this darkish corner. The fox and the snow had to go, it's Spring! 

The sun is shining from a blue sky today in Helsinki! I hope you are well where you are!

Updating....

Why, oh why do I not blog more often! More and more things pile up that I should blog about, which makes me procrastinate even more. So this is an update post to let you know what I have been up to lately. The Dad is picking up the kids today so there is no rush, I am going into town for an Etsy meet-up later, I am so excited! It was so fun last year. I love when people arrange these things that makes me get out to meet some wonderful creative people!

 

This is what I have been up to:

♥ I got seven new cards printed as always with a positive attitude! They are in the shop!

♥ I went to see the team at Gummerus, my Finnish publisher. The atmosphere was very welcoming and they are happy to have me so I am very glad that I teamed up with them! I blushed when I saw this huge picture of me in their Fall catalogue :) 

♥ The brooches are nearly ready, trying to finish them along side custom and wholesale orders.

 ♥ I have been interviewed at the Petite Purls blog as part of their renaissance Mom series. I talk about being a mother and about running a craft business, I hope you enjoy it!

Phew, I made it! More updates coming soon! Now I'm off to meet the local etsyans AND Matt, founder of Etsy.

I'm a model?

Last Autumn I joined a project for local crafters, Jag syns och säljer! that's Swedish for 'I'm seen and I sell', which is an awful translation, but you get the idea- we are thought how to sell our products and our brand. And ourselves :) When you work as an artist/crafter you are an important representative of your brand. Our group meet once a month around different subjects, last week we had our pictures taken by the lovely Katja Kuorinki-Väänänen. She will show off pictures from the shoots at her blog, I love the pictures of Marjaana that she has already posted! 

At our previous meeting we planned our pictures and presented them to our fellow crafters. I thought it was great to discuss our thoughts with the group, it gave me the confidence to go with my ideas! And it is always good to get someone else's fresh perspective on your work. It was very good to be prepared and I nearly stuck to my plan. Katja took this picture of me while we were making the background. We had our make-up done by Diana, a professional make-up artist and I felt so pretty. 

I love this picture! It is wonderful to work with professionals! I felt like a star in their hands. Mariella, our project manager, was a great assistant and did a great job with the hairspray :) Oh, and that's one-eyed Agda I'm holding, there's going to be Agda sewing kits available in a couple of weeks (including 2 eyes).

I wanted the pictures to look like comfy me so I combined my new thrifted linen jacket with gray hair and knitted wool socks. I was thinking about dying my hair for the shot, but I trusted T when he said it was unnecessary.

 

Now you've seen comfy me, but who is this business woman??? I wouldn't recognise me on the street, but I'm glad to know that I can look this professional, thank you Katja for making this camera shy woman feel comfortable and gorgeous!

All photos ©  Katja Kuorinki-Väänänen 

 

 

 

A room of my own

Hi lovely ladies (an the occational male vistor)! I hope you had a good day yesterday! I celebrated Women's day at the theatre. Two days in a row I got to see two wonderful plays with a feminist agenda (which was much more inspiring than it sounds). I admire my friends who work as actresses and are trying to give women a voice in theatre, which still seems to be a very masculine and conservative place. I also overheard a group of clever female artists discuss the theme "A room of one's own". So today I feel the urge to jot down some of my own thoughts around the theme.

I feel that I have spent the last few years building my own creative room, some days it has been all about the physical space. The kitchen table doesn't work as a work space in the long run! However most of the time I think it is about finding a symbolical room or mental space where you feel comfortable. I feel that I have found my place in what I do, which I think is the reason why I hold on to this Syko project of mine, despite of the financial challenge. I'm quite happy not to spend any money on myself as long as I can stay in this "creative room" everyday. Looking back I feel proud of myself for daring to think outside the box and the comfort zone (my old work/network/education/status...) to create a room where I could be honest to myself everyday. It is no coincidence that my work is positive and happy, I want to share the joy! It took some courage to move into the happy Syko room from the intellectual chambers at the university. Becoming a mother gave me lots of confidence. In my book I put it like this:

If it weren't for my children, I would probably still be looking for my deep artistic expression. Having children helped me realize that sometimes scratching the surface is enough to find your creative flow, Art can be playful and happy, and what would be more important than finding the simple joys in life?

When I was younger everything felt more complicated, but now at 34 with a family and business to run and an often chaotic schedule I feel much more at peace with life and myself. Because I have found my own room. Do you feel that you have a room of your own?    

Apples!

Those of you who are quilters might have seen my face in the latest issue of American Patchwork&Quilting? I was thrilled when they wanted to do an interview with me for their Global perspective column, it brought my quilting to a whole new level ;) I felt a little off spirit this morning and it kind of helps to get back on track again to take some time just to look at this magazine page. Why is it so much easier to focus on all those things that need to be done and want to be done than to stop for a minute and be happy for all the things you have achieved? Are you like that too?

It is my turn to work at Hantverkargården (a craft shop run by a collective of crafters that I joined in December) tomorrow so I made a couple of apple cushions to take with me, I need to fill up my shelf in the shop! I decided not to put any writing on the cushions this time, it was kind of hard, but I think they look more graphical and less cluttered this way.

And here is another shot of the cushion in my new surrounding :) I will show you my corners when I have had the time to organise it all, it might take months, but I can live with it, one step at a time.

How has your day been so far?

Pouches, pouches and maybe a quilt

Thank you all old and new readers for visiting my blog during the last days! I know many of you are hoping for more frequent posts here on the Syko blog, so I will do my best to pop in more often. This week I have made myself at home in my new studio and started to make a bunch of zippy pouches, because I know I need to stock up on them for my resellers. Trying to foresee future orders, need to become better at that! 

I have been making these animal pouches for years now, which is the reason why I would avoid blogging an ordinary day like this, however I realize that what's old to me might be new to you! So here's a grumpy kitty pouch, she doesn't seem to much appreciate the lovely fabrics she's surrounded by, strange thing! 

I would rather be making a quilt...like one of the Red Pepper Quilts, so since I end up with a lot of 4 1/4" leftover pieces when I cut the strips for the animal pouches I thought I'd start stitching them together on the side so maybe in a few weeks or so I will have a colourful quilt top to show off :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! And don't forget -- the sale still goes on in the shop, everything -25% off with the code JANUARY11!

Have a lovely weekend!

 

 

JANUARY11

Hello everyone! Nice to be back! Happy new year! Before I say anything else, the heading is a coupon code for my Etsy shop, by entering it you will get 25% off everything in my shop (sale items too). I will add new items to the shop every day this week, mostly old produce and printed seconds. The code is valid until the end of this month.  

Now sorry for my long absence! Last Autumn was busier than ever for my business + my first book was released which meant a lot of work and e-mails so I decided I needed a long break over Christmas and I think it has made me good! I didn't sew anything for 3 weeks, so long that I started to miss it very much and new ideas started bubbling in the back of my head. I love that feeling and have missed it when I've been too busy to slow down and be creative. The mosaic above is proof for myself that I actually managed to create a few new things in 2010. The best thing that's happened however is that I've finally moved my studio out of our home. 

You can tell how happy my kids are to have a dining room, can't you? We have a small home, but with all my crafty stuff away it feels so light and airy! I got the "new" table on huuto.net, which is the local ebay for 5 Euros and I love it! This is how this room looked before.

This ikea shelf has been in our home a long time, and the paint is fading, but it's practical! I came up with the idea to put  hooks underneath it when I decorated my daughter's first room and now I could finally put some of my Etsy prints on display, easy piecey, I never get to frame them anyway so better enjoy them in this simple way... Click on the pic to get links to the Etsy shops where I got the art!

Syko now resides in a small room at Whyprint, the place where all my cards are printed. I finally have more space and room to create + the light here is so much better for taking pictures. It does feel a little  strange to go to work in the mornings like a normal person, but I can live with it :) I have already started planning my first projects....

Talk to you soon again!

 

Blog tour - may I introduce...part 2

The book tour continues today after our little weekend break, which actually wasn't so much of a break for me, I'm totally knocked out after 3 days at the fair. It was so much fun, but you get so tired after being über-social for three days in a row. It was especially giving talking face to face about my book with people. Everyone was so happy and encouraging and even proud. I guess it doesn't happen every day that a Finn gets published in the US :) So Thanks, Kiitos and Tack to everyone who came to see me! See more pictures here.

Now I'd like to continue with my presentation of the hosts for my blog tour!  Friday's stop was at Pikaland. Amy is a real talent at finding new talents in art and illustrations! If you want to start collecting art, Pikaland is the place to go to find the fresh, new names! If you're an artist yourself you might want to take part in the pika package project! I participated in the first project 2 years ago already!

This morning I stopped by at Amy aka Lucykate's blog to answer a couple of tricky questions. I can't really remember when Amy and I first 'met', but I think she was one of my first regular blog readers! Thanks for being there, Amy! Amy is a felt artist and creates the cutest little creatures, this new fox pillow with a relief appliqué is just amazing! She has some really sweet tutorials available on her blog, I might have to make the elf hat for little e for Christmas! Head over to Lucykate Crafts now to win your copy of my book!

I'll be back soon to introduce these lovely ladies (these are also the last dates for the book tour):

 

Tuesday 23rd : Whip Up

Wednesday 24th : Peikonpoika 

Thursday 25th : PatchworkPottery

Friday 26th : Allsorts