Free Shipping on orders over €75 (Germany) | €125 (International)

0

Your Cart is Empty

Yarn
  • Our Favorite Fall Yarns

  • All Yarns

  • Spinning Fiber
  • Frau Woellfchen's Hand-Dyed Braids

  • John Arbon Appledore Tops

  • All Spinning Fiber

  • Notions & Gifts
  • Katie Green's New "Crafty Sheep" Tea Towel

  • Needle Stoppers & Stitch Markers

  • All Notions & Gifts

  • Books, Magazines & Patterns
  • Issue 12 - Art Nouveau

  • All Books & Magazines

  • About Us
  • We're here to help you stitch sustainability into every aspect of your making.

    With our carefully curated selection of non-superwash, plastic-free yarns and notions, we have everything you need to get started on your next project - and the one after that.

    Here's to a wardrobe of knits we love and want to wear for years to come!

  • Our Sustainability Pledge

  • Our Blog

  • Our Podcast

  • The Making Stories Collective

  • Designer Spotlight - Leeni Hoimela

    October 22, 2019 4 min read

    _N2A8098+%281%29.jpg

    Let me introduce Leeni Hoimela, the designer behind the gorgeous Hali Sweater from Issue 2! We thought it would be fun to get to know a little more about Leeni and her knitting community in Helsinki.


    Q & A With Leeni

    1.   Tell us a little about yourself!

    I'm a Helsinki based knitwear designer and a lifestyle journalist and photographer from nine to five. I have also dyed yarn with my brand Lystig Yarn. I have a six-year-old kid, a young Whippet and two Oriental cats who try to get my attention when I'm hiding behind my yarns for too long. The dog has lately been too keen on that. She tried to eat my latest sweater design, luckily she just tangled four skeins of mohair and merino. So that was a happy accident, haha.

     2.   How long have you been knitting and designing?

    I've been knitting for more than 30 years and I made my first sweater when I was nine. It was a crazy pink mohair dream, too short and too wide as they were at the '80s and I didn't follow any pattern, so it's really fashionable now and could be the next hot pattern.

    I've always been obsessed with the sweaters but I started my 'designing career' 3 years ago with stranded colorwork socks. I was a maniac and I still have brand new socks enough for a football team because I never released any of them. Then I wanted to design shawls, probably just because I couldn't grade and I thought it would be too difficult. When I realised I don't actually wear shawls that much it was time to follow my passion and jump to my uncomfortable zone, grading. 

    Well, math is the one I love. I love the feeling when I can solve a problem and yes, feel clever. I also frog a lot when the math doesn't work in real life as planned. In designing the most interesting part is how to make something unique but simple at the same time. I'm aiming to make simple designs with a little twist and I feel they are much more difficult to design than wild 'all in' patterns. 

    I have also learnt to trust my gut: if I have somehow a feeling that it might not work but I still make it, I know at the end it didn't. Well, it's a great lesson too. Somehow good things feel great immediately, like my Hali jumper in Making Stories Magazine Issue 2. It was pure love from the first stitches and I knew was going to be exactly what I wanted.

     3.   Tell us about your design for Issue 2. What inspired you?

    I've always been interested in repeating motifs. I also want to make wearable contemporary clothes. Hali is an ode for both.  

    I had a warm feeling about the submission call: it was about gathering and about the community. I wanted to use our cool brand Tukuwool from Finnish sheep that is local for us. I also like the stitches on the front kind of hug each other and are gathered. Hali means a hug in Finnish.

     4.   Do you have a favourite type of knitting project?

    Well, sweaters! I also always have a sock project going on beside my main project (surprise, surprise: a sweater) but no more. They are a great place to test ideas for sweaters on a small scale. If I made more at the same time I wouldn't be as fast and effective with the process.

     5.   What is your knitting community like?

    I'm in two knitting circles. In one of them we talk about knitting and also share our tricks and ideas with my designer friend. In the other one, we talk about everything else but knitting. It's more like 'wool and wine'. I need both of them.

    The knitting community in Finland is really active. We have a knitting festival in Central Finland every summer, and most of us, active knitters, know each other. I have also made new friends through knitting. Knitters are really supportive here: I have asked help and guidelines from a couple of famous Finnish designers and they have always helped me unselfishly. So many have supported me that I try to be as helpful if someone asks any tips from me.

     6.   What is your favourite making tool?

     I love my basic, ugly looking, plastic (sorry!) yarn winder. Using it means I soon have a cast on party. I love new beginnings. They feel everything is possible and I can do whatever I want.

     7.   Anything else you want to share?

    I know knitting and making is a true love for many of us (me too!), but I'd also ask how much do we actually need what we do. Yes, we knit for many needs: just to feel creative, just to see that we can, just to fill some void or just because we need a sweater, but I feel it's important to understand why we make. 

    My motto has always been 'less is yes', but do I need dozens of sweaters? I wouldn't buy that many from a store so why do I make them? To be happy? Is that a reason good enough? To be honest, I feel it's quite controversial nowadays to not want unnecessary things and to want to save the planet by consuming less. 

    I know we are in the slow business and I don't think there're are right or wrong answers but this would be a great topic to discuss more. 

    8.   How can we find you? 

    On Instagram: @leenihoi 

    On Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/leeni-hoi

    Leave a comment

    Comments will be approved before showing up.


    Also in Blog

    All the knits I finished while recovering from surgery
    All the knits I finished while recovering from surgery

    October 28, 2024 8 min read

    About three weeks ago, I had surgery. Nothing major, and it was planned - but it was my first time undergoing general anaesthesia and facing an uncertain recovery period, both of which made me quite nervous. I knew that I was going to be in the hospital for two days, if everything went well, but then it was between one and three weeks of recovering at home, depending on how fast my body was going to heal.

    Needless to say, I packed knitting for the hospital, but I didn’t feel like picking up my needles until my second day in the hospital. And then I knit. I knit, and knit, and knit. Curiously enough, I always get the urge to clear off my needles this time of the year - something about the weather changing, sweater season approaching, maybe? And this year, this urge coincided with me wanting to do something while watching copious amounts of Netflix without having to think very hard about what I was going to knit. Win win!

    Read More
    Art Nouveau Sample Preview Video - Issue 12, Fall & Winter 2024
    Art Nouveau Sample Preview Video - Issue 12, Fall & Winter 2024

    June 26, 2024 1 min read

    Let’s wander the streets of Brussels and Paris, searching for the hidden architectural Art Nouveau gems – houses, doors, windows, street lamps. Let’s explore Berlin’s Jugendstil tile art, marvelling at the colors and shapes taking form. Let’s get lost in the work of water color artists, glass blowers, jewellers, embroidery artists, and myriads more, who dive into the shapes and curves of plants and flowers, moving, flowing, mirroring.
    Read More
    Issue 12 – Art Nouveau | Official Pattern Preview
    Issue 12 – Art Nouveau | Official Pattern Preview

    June 26, 2024 15 min read

    Hi lovelies! I am thrilled to dive into the gorgeous, intricate world of Art Nouveau with you in our Fall & Winter 2024 issue: Issue 12. Issue 12 holds 12 stunning, artful, wearable knitwear designs inspired by this unique time period as well as 3 essays and one poem that explore different facets of Art Nouveau.
    Read More