It was a lovely Easter

And now it's over. Back to the goldmine, so to speak. We had a lot of guests, some sun, I took a great trip to Arhus, and had a bit of crafting fun, even though I don't see where I found the time.

As you can see, there is always some kind of Easter Tree thing going on in some corner, this year on my beloved birch branch (dry and old, but I can't bring myself to throw it out). 

I had some yellow paper flowers (from a shop), but they looked a bit lonely. So I made some very yellow Easter Himmeli (well, why not?), and got into making flower pompoms, which is something I have been wanting to try for a long time. I saw them on the brilliant blog Mr Printables, and they are such fun to make. A bit tricky, so follow the instructions very carefully.

Here is Mr Printables Flower Pom-Pom tutorial - and here are my first attempts!

Giant red himmeli

Readers of this blog will know that I am obsessed with all kinds of mobiles, and for a long time I have been into folksy ones, such as the Finnish 'himmeli' or the Polish 'pajaki'. I tried making various himmeli myself, and have gathered some practical advice on this page.

It's fun making them, and I keep saying that I will get some natural straw in the late summer, but for two summers I haven't been able to pick any - all the fields in my summer neighborhood seems to have only wheat and rye grown with straw-shortening chemicals. Sad, in so many, many ways. One of the lesser, for sure, is that it makes himmeli-making tricky. So I go for the plastic version, and every time I come across interesting plastic straws, I buy them! I found some silly maxi ones here (70 cm. long!) in a beautiful red, and decided to make a BIG and very Christmassy himmeli. I really went all the way, and decided on tissue paper tassels as well. Very festive.
 

Here it is, and it's almost too enormous for our otherwise relatively spacious bed/work room. 

Himmeli Blingeli

Yesterday I went shopping for plain grey t-shirts, but I had to give up. I got too distracted.
I went to the popular high street shops, where t-shirts are abundant, but all I could see were himmeli, whereever I looked. Do you see them too?

No doubt the triangle remains the shape du jour.

From top:
hexagon earrings: Topshop / triangle earrings: H&M / gold-silver necklace: H&M /
gold-silver earrings: & Other Stories / two rings (from a set of three): H&M /
golden triangle bangle: Topshop - and the necklace at the bottom is found on Pinterest.

Maria Huhmarniemi

I came across a contemporary Finnish artist, Maria Huhmarniemi, who makes enormous himmeli-installations (among many other things) - they are really impressive and beautiful.

Here is what she says about her himmeli - quite interesting:

"I started making the series of Himmeli-sculptures in reaction to a comment in 2011 by the True Finns Party, proposing that only Finnish nationalistic fine arts should be supported by the Finnish state. They admired fine arts from the period of National Romanticism, (the Golden Age of Finnish art), but ignored the fact that Finnish art has always been influenced by other countries and cultures. Himmeli is a traditional Finnish decorative mobile. It is made from short strips of rye straw tied together with string to form a complex and symmetrical three-dimensional structure. It is used as Christmas decoration that hangs over dining tables in many Finnish homes. What is less well known is that the origin of himmeli is thought to be a canopy decoration used in Medieval and Renaissance festivities in Central-Europe. The word himmeli has origins in the Swedish and German language: ‘himmel’ means ‘sky and heaven’. I began making Himmeli-sculptures by extending traditional decorations that my mother made from rye and lake straws. I morphed these symmetric forms into free and wild sculptures using coloured plastic drinking straws."

Here is some of her fantastic work:

Hello again, and rauhallista joulua*, if I may say so

It is the last, or almost last, day of November, and it is a foggy and wet night in Copenhagen.

The last couple of days I have dared to look at the blog 'count-o-meter' and it seems that people are up for a little bit of christmas fun and random rantings at this space again this year! As usual I sort of stumble breathlessly into the seasonal blogging, as this is (as mentioned before) a very busy time of year, and this year, all is as nuts as usual. Home renovation, work deadlines on top of each other (after a very quiet summer with not much to do - maybe I should start a summer blog?) - and as usual, we have a lot of these small crafty christmas fairs in Copenhagen, and as usual I try to produce something in the line of christmas finery (and start working on it in the latest of possible minutes. Of course).

Usually I try to come up with at least one thing I haven't done before, along with the jewellery and paper things, which I always do. This year, I decided to do some simple himmeli-style ornaments. Some of you have read about my rather mad obsessing over these lovely (mostly) Finnish christmas decorations - I wrote about them here, here and also a bit about making them here.

I figured it would be reasonably easy to produce a whole bundle of simple, small ones, as hanging ornaments, but decided against natural straw or drinking plastic straws (too flimsy), and started to look for some more sturdy materials. I managed to get my hands on various types of brass tubes, found some pretty black thin carbon fibre tubes in one hobby shop, and some white plastic ones in another.

When I started to work on my little project, it quickly dawned on me that it would take forever to produce the hundreds and hundreds of small bits of tube, that I needed, with my little hobby saw and my old chopping board. To cut just one bit of brass took me at least a full minute - so multiply that by a gazillion, and understand my despair.

But luckily, I have a sister who is a teacher, and she simply took me and my bundles of tubes to her school woodshop, had a really nice woodshop teacher introduce me to the many nifty powertools and workbenches, and just a song and a dance later all my little bits were cut!

So this blogpost is dedicated to my lovely sister and heaven sent himmeli-factory-assistant - and I managed to get a fairly big batch made for todays market. If you live nearby, you can buy them here....

So this - among other things - has kept me busy. But I will be back, with both words, images, and nice things for you to make.

*And what's with the 'rauhallista joulua' - ????

Simply my excuse to post this darling old Finnish christmas card. It means 'merry christmas' - duh!
Do you see the himmeli?

My himmeli

Here it is - and it was such fun making it!
I have made a long boring explanation somewhere else, should any of you like to give it a try.
It's right here. Now I'll just go to bed, and consider my days work done.

Crazy project? Well, we'll see.

I have decided to make myself a himmeli...!

Not being able to get hold of proper straw in the middle of winter (and, frankly not quite sure which
kind to use, is it supposed to be wheat or rye..? It is not that obvious, when you read about them, but
I'll find out later!) - so I found myself a couple of bags of narrow plastic straws. Now, even these were
not that easy to find, since all supermarkets seem only to carry the rather large, wide ones.
But in a specialty party shop I found some okay white ones, with mixed pastel stripes. These will do
for now, and I will make this a practise workshop, and get back to the proper material next year.

If you are not as determined to drive yourself nuts as I sometimes am, there are modern versions of
himmeli to be purchased, for instance in the Etsy shop AM RADIO. And they are beautiful!

Right now I have little bits of plastic straw all over the place. I made a kind of a loose sketch, and am
now cutting all the dozens and dozens of fairly accurately measured little tubes, and found some thin,
strong and red cotton thread, I think will be suitable.

I am very exited about the project, and hope to post a grrreat plastic himmeli tomorrow. Perhaps?

So you must imagine something like this... Well, sort of like this.

Straw mobiles

Back in december 2005 I took this picture of a beautifully laid christmas table at Skansen in
Stockholm, in the museum village. It was the first time I noticed this kind of straw decoration -
a sort of cubic straw construction forming a lovely, fragile mobile, moving and twirling by the slightest
draft from the door, or in the heat from the candles. As you can see, it was trimmed with small, red
woolen tassles - and I found it just lovely.

Later on I did some research, and found that these decorations are found in variations in most of

Scandinavia, though I personally have never seen them in Denmark. Straw was always

a symbol of a lot of different magical and religious aspects - many to do with harvest, fertility, and 

wealth of course, but straw is also said to represent the struggle against dark forces. 

In various parts of Scandinavia, some bundles of the very first or the very last (both seem to be 

particularly auspicious) corn to be harvested, were kept in the house, and sometimes twisted to form 

a kind of doll, that would keep the household safe from the devil.

We also know of straw animals, wreaths, and such - and they seem to have become especially connected

to christmas, even though they were originally to do with winter, darkness and the winter solstice.

These fantastic mobiles are made of long straw stems, soaked in water for strenght and carefully

dried - and strung on thin thread in all these wonderful prismatic diamond shapes. They are sometimes 

done up with paper roses, metal tinsel, dried berries, strips of fabric or, as above, wool tassels.

In Finland, they are called Himmeli - derived from the word 'himmel' that means 'heaven' in both 

German and the Scandinavian languages. My research leads me to the conclusion that they tend to

be more undadorned in Finland, more basic - and that I find especially charming, I think. 

In Finland, they also seem to be a christmas thing only (nowadays), whereas I find that they are made

for many occations in Sweden (and please tell me if I am wrong, as I am only an amateur

historian, and I would always love to know more about such things!).

Let me show you some stunning Himmeli:

Top: By Flickr user 'sjwhidden'

Middle: modern Himmeli from www.mums.fi

Last: source unknown, but I believe this one is from Norway.

In Sweden I have seen many variations of these Halmkronor or Oro, as the Swedes call them.

They are made for weddings, baptisms, easter, and - of course - christmas.

Some look a lot like the Himmeli, but others are very romatic and baroque - and also fantastic!

This particular man, Per-Åke Backman, from Leksand in northern Sweden, is a bit of a straw 

crafting legend. His website is here - and below a series of mobiles, all made by him. 

All five above: mobiles by Per-Åke Backmann (photo: Lennart Edvardsson)