300! Bool! The end.

I've really written 300 posts in this blog. Four years, 300 posts - not very impressing actually.

It's a long time since the last post, and I only came back to tell you.. that I'm moving my business elsewhere! I finally got my website www.outiouti.com established, and since this regular blogging doesn't really satisfy me much anymore, I decided to heck! leave it all behind me and begin true artsy-fartsying. :D This meaning that there will be at least almost daily content over my site in form of the renowned Doodle of the Day. Maybe occasional photo, too. The site is mainly my portfolio, but I don't see much point in having many separate websites, such as a blog and a portfolio. Why not bring those two together? My main goal is to concentrate on developing my skills on drawing, photography and design in general, and this is the change I feel I need to make in order to achieve what I want. Blogging, mainly writing just takes up too much time since I_just_can't_make_it_short. But it's good to remember that I started blogging four years ago mainly because I wanted to have an outlet for writing. And after that I wanted to practise my English skills and begun blogging in English.

Anyway, from this day on you'll find me here:

WEB: www.outiouti.com
Etsy: outiouti.etsy.com
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/outi/

Honestly, just quitting this thing now doesn't mean I won't never take it up again. I'll probably make a comeback within the next year or so. Who knows? Or then I'll start something I just can't understand the point of at the moment, like twittering or tmblring - that's the way my mind usually works. I'm one regular vastarannankiiski. ;)

See you! Oh, and please if you have the chance, visit Design Forum this month - there'll be an exhibition from our school, and the church textiles I've been making with a classmate will be there too!

Wow. I actually feel relieved. :)

So wrong

I know it's wrong.


Couldn't there be at least something good about it? At least it's sustainable (meaning: from the fleamarket and old as hell)

You know what I mean. It is, after all, a fur collar you're seeing there. Leaving the collar alone, the coat is very lovely, dark green wool that reaches my knees (a fact that doesn't really show from these marvellously taken pictures above).

All the while you're pondering on whether it's gross or o.k. to wear even second-hand fur (as am I, mind you), I'm trying to think of things you can do when you're sick - yes, I'm sick again. All that I've come up with so far is the internet. Sad, huh? Today I:

• Found a new blog: Darling Dexter (although there are plenty of those I'm "following" already; I just keep adding up to my iGoogle reader obviously not remembering that I just can't be blog-faithful).
• Drooled over delicious brownie-recepies over at Bakespace. I wish I had the energy to bake. I've subscribed their newsletter for about a year and this was honestly the first time I ever actually opened the mail :D - all it took was to name their letter "The Brownie issue" this time. That's just how good I am at "following" blogs and communities!
• Found that The Ting Tings are good! I'm also waiting for that Jenny Wilson gig later this spring. And how about Eleanoora Rosenholm? Quite haunting, and yet intriguing.
• Fell in love with Eleanor (what's with the theme here..?) Hardwick's photography! And she's only 16! Goddamit.
  

I keep promising myself that I'll stop blogging because it takes so much time and is, frankly speaking, quite useless. But I just keep coming back here again and again.

Favourite things

Some things I got from the ethnic food stores back in Helsinki

I do like the font there.

A find from a fleamarket in Kuopio

As were these darling little mugs.

I'm back from my 1,5 month long trip to Helsinki. I'm glad I went, had the opportunity to do the work I most enjoy of, and met so many wonderful people. Making new friends actually made me feel a bit more human again. Now, for the next few weeks it's home life: cleaning, arranging things in the house and getting stuff ready to be sold at a fleamarket booth.

Score

3 euros from UFF. Totally compensates the Outi-shoes I found on my last birthday from one fleamarket and couldn't buy them because there was no one there from who to buy from.

Listening to: St. Vincent, Wye Oak and Jenny Wilson.
Reading: Lady Chatterley's lover.
Dreaming of: a weekend with my husband (the next one)
Planning to: make changes.

An article (Feat. yours truly)

I was recently featured in an article about tea towels and their makers over at Etsy. Please check out all the wonderful teatowelers in here! I'm the last in line, looking a bit uptight. This was the deadline I was talking about in January, which I made in spite of my continuous health problems. Good for me.

I'm working long days (I'm still in Helsinki) and being too tired to blog most of the time. I did update this one tea towel pictured above to my Etsy store. Pictures of other towels are still being held captive in a camera. Pathetic, isn't it?

But today I'm going to visit UFF three euro day before going to work. Hopefully I'll find a thing or two.

I spy

with my little eye,

iconic features

tales of a whole lifetime

pretty houses of Kumpula

A rosy dress for a Valentine's Day's ball.

Brighton

Visited the seaside of Great Britain last week. Sea makes me silly, I like it so much. Until 15 minutes later when the wind freezes your ass off.

There was a gift for me in the shore! A pebble with either "3" or om-sign in it. I took it with me along with some seashells.

This picture was taken by R next where I found my 3-stone. It's so amazing I wanted to post it, I hope she doesn't mind. Thank you R! It was once again sooo good to see you :).

Love love love

I have a new toy now.

It's called ixus. Ixus 90IS. This is what I use for my photography while I'm on the road - otherwise I always prefer using our new-ish Nikon D60. It's not pro, but it's good. I'm madly in love with this gadget, and also _the_ Orla Kiely from the post before I'm wearing every day. I've had my wellies on every day since sunday too. It's a good wellie weather here in Helsinki. Very useful purchase.

At work: printing fabric and stockings. I really like it in there :).

Orla Kiely Sale

Finally, in London. I've been fine the whole week, been to work and now, as planned, visiting my dear friend R. in London where she lives. Today we bumped into amazing Orla Kiely Sale by accident, it's just off Brick Lane, near the venue of Spitalfields' sunday market. I recommend it to anyone who's around at the moment, the sale is great: most, if not all of the stuff is -50% off. The address might be Grey Eagle something, I really don't know the exact address.

I got these:

wellies, via room6

this dress, except in petrol base color, not grey. Via Izaac Mizrahi Ny.
Also I got a laminated tote bag in flower oval print, of which I couldn't manage to find a photo of. All this in 65 £! My daily budget for the trip is already busted. Three days to go ;).

Endless fever

No news, really. I'm still resting in my friend M's beautiful apartment (she agreed to host me while I'm staying in Helsinki) and didn't go to the doctor's today. I'm preparing to doing that on monday, when the meds I'm in now end. There's not much trust in penicillin in me anymore. I just wish I'll have enough strength to socialize in the weekend, sitting inside is so boring...

At least there's one deadline I beat today. The end results you'll see in Etsy in the end of January :).

Helsinki

I got here but I'm still variably ill. I'm guessing that tomorrow is doctor-day again :/. But work seems nice, today was my first day in a workspace that is occupied by two entrepreneurs. One of them is Zukale&Huoviala, the other makes recycled products. I don't have a camera yet, so it'll be a while until photos in my blog again. Net week: London. Can't wait to get better!

Sorry about all this bluntness. I'm feeling feverish, yet again... Thanks for all your get-better wishes, I will! :)

Recovery!

If you've ever wondered where are all the cute young male doctors you know should exist since they're apparently schooling more of them all the time, but you've just never seen one yourself, welcome to Kuopio. They're all here, working at the hospital. I should know. I just came home from there.

Yeah, I spent last night in a 5 star hotel where the staff's really nice and willing to fulfill your every reasonable wish, you get food regularly and can eat it in your bed without feeling guilty about it, and just hang out in your jammies all day long. The downside is that there's not much to do besides reading and sleeping, plus the staff although very nice, will probably prick you regularly with their needles and take your blood and drug your ass off.

What did all this have to do with the male doctors? Not much, I guess. Two of them treated me, they were both young and the other one was cute, too. Never seen that species before, and if I wasn't already married I'd probably be a bit embarrased now of the fine species seeing me in my hospital stage - jammies, no make up and scruffy hair :D. You know, doctors are usually middle-aged, bearded men or young females, aren't they?

I had three different throat infections last week, the last of them ended me up in hospital. Don't you think that's enough for one week? No wonder I was so crabby the last time I made my blog post. And what a way to start the new year..! My night at the hospital was nothing too intense though: they treated the boil in my throat which didn't take too long (won't go into the gross detail here - I think most of you know what I'm talking about already) and gave me my drugs through IV. Today the (cute, tee hee hee) doctor told me that I was doing fine, the boil was healing and if I wanted I could go home. Totally didn't expect that to happen so soon! So here I am, home again - couldn't wait to get that IV off my left hand, I can't stand those things!

So, after all this I won't be leaving to Helsinki until monday or tuesday. Maybe it's for better, but I'm still a bit pissed all my plans for last week got ruined. But now it's time to look forward, now backward. I'm feeling alive again!!

Oh, did I mention I have pink eye, too? :D

Sick

I'm sick, for the fifth day now. I'm having a nasty and persistant throat infection, that just won't die. I haven't been able to sleep properly and I'm feverish on and off. This really sucks, I can't tell you how much. I had plans for these few days before leaving to Helsinki on Friday - or, as it seems now, on Saturday - and I can't see any of it happening now. It just.. sucks, with no end.

I've been reading and watching tv for the last few days, because that's really all I'm able to do. We watched Mighty Boosh seasons 1, 2 and most of the 3 yesterday, and last night everytime I closed my eyes it was all Boosh.. disturbing :D. (thank you Reea! I love it though)

I think I'm ready to get back to sofa. I feel so crappy, tired, unprepared.. I'm just no fun today. I'll get back when I'm feeling myself again.

Homemade Clothes

I designed a skirt this fall in school at the pattern making course, which was an optional learn-the-basics kinda course from the fashion design department. I liked it very much and really got everything I hoped for from the class: the math how to draw patterns for clothing, an idea of what makes a functioning garment and a better understanding for the shapes and proportions of a human body. We had only a couple of sewing assignments during the course and only two tasks in which we actually designed a garment and made it. Since there was little time, I only made the skirt - which I finished last friday, just in time to wear for the first time to the annual 26th of Dec party of my friends.

It's my puffy skirt, very renaissance-y! It's lined with red satin seen in the first picture.

Of course I always wear it with the hideous Aino-slippers.. ;) No, really they're my home-at-mom's slippers. I wear them all the time whenever I'm here at mom's, inside the house and only inside the house.

Another project that only takes half an hour: a skimpy jersey tunic with batwing sleeves. I designed this one myself, too, but honestly.. there wasn't really much to design. I love easy, fast sewing projects. I think the main reason why it takes only half an hour to make this tunic is that I left it unfinished.. but you know, one reason I like jersey so much is that it doesn't really fray! ;)

Oh the pictures are so bad today, I'm sorry! And as you can see from the strange bulge on my hip there, half an hour-projects are most likely not very flawless. Oh, by the way:

* Happy new year everyone! *

In a couple of hours I'll be blowing up tons of small fireworks with my husband, two cousins that are like little brothers to me, and one of my bestest friends - it's a good way to get the new year started... It's allowed to start blow things up here at six p.m, and we'll head to a safe distance from the houses to the nearby beach where there's no one else around and just watch our fireworks crackle and make loud noises and blow up above the lake. I for one can't wait to get my year 2009 up and rolling. I feel (hope?) there are many fabulous thing in the horizon for me.. at last. :)

Merry Christmas!

It's snowy here in the Eastern part of the country. We're spending the christmas at mom's, both me and Jussi this year. Usually we spend christmas with our own parents, but this year J agreed to sacrifice his family christmas and spend the eve with me and mom.

As usual I've not been idle during the first couple of days of my christmas holiday, only this time it's been kitchen instead of sewing machine that I have been occupying. I'm such a terrible christmas person, I always start preparations the day before christmas eve... I made some candied orange peels. I was inspired by Small Object and also by the book Chocolate by Trish Deseine. I used this recepy by Martha Stewart. They taste awesome, like marmalade times ten and leave a fresh aftertaste lingering in your mouth.

They taste even better this way, covered in dark chocolate. Like orange truffles. They are crisp on the outside and soft and jellylike on the inside. They go best together with coffee.

My christmas cake of the year was going to be Dark Chocolate and Almond Gateu with Chocolate Fudge Filling (also from the Chocolate book mentioned above), in order to emulate one best-chocolate-cake-i've-ever-tasted-if-the-one-in-my-wedding-doesn't-count that I had a month or two ago in cafe Vanha Vanilja at Tampere. I didn't really manage to get the fudge to behave as a cake filling, so I'm calling it Chocolate Cake in a Puddle of Goo now. It doesn't matter, it'll taste good anyway, I bet.

The tree is decorated. With a pile of crap, like it seems ;). I guess there's no one else to blame for that but me though. Maybe I should start making/buying decorations that don't look like a pile of crap. I'm enjoying the tree anyway - I think it's not so much about the decoration itself, but to take out every year the same old decorations you've had for decades, adding something new every year. It's a tree full of memories.

I've been momentarily ridiculously happy, like when me and J were walking home through the woods yesterday, carrying the christmas tree we had just bought. The trees were as white of snow as they can be, the air was crisp and we both were feeling a bit hung-over (yes, it's a good idea to have a last minute christmas party with your friends), and the moment was so ordinary and beautiful. So I'm feeling better. I want to say thanks to all you who have commented on my ranting about depression and all such stupid things in the holiday season; I really appreciate your support! It's also very important to know that you're not alone, and it's not the end of the world if you're feeling down a bit more often than normal people.

Because I know now that we are many, even manier than I thought. It's crazy how common it is to be depressed! And that's what actually makes me feel less sad about myself; in one sense I am normal the way I am. I'm glad I have feelings and have quite an intense personality. It's just the dealing with your emotions-part that I haven't learnt yet, but am learning as we speak.

I feel serene; things are going to be good, for all of us!

Merry christmas, happy solstice and gracious other holidays.