DIY: black and white storage boxes

I’ve been very crafty this weekend. If I’ve not been in the garden digging and moving plants, I’ve been crocheting a rug, barbecuing, or embarking on new DIY areas of crafting.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw some beautiful boxes made of leftover plastic floor at the Recycling Factory. The boxes are made by Think Today. I suddenly remembered that I’ve been keeping some leftover plastic floor in the cupboard for about a year or so. After seeing those Think Today boxes, I just had to make some.

What I used is more or less here: a piercing tool (please don’t ask me what it’s called), scissors, thick yarn, thick sewing needle with a blunt tip, and a pencil.

So after cutting the box-shaped piece (bottom and sides all in one) from the floor material, I pierced the sides with that fantastic Black & Decker tool that I can’t name, and started stitching the sides together from the bottom corner. I left the knot inside.

I was first thinking of putting the box together with press fasteners, but my tools are simply not big enough to make it through two layers of plastic floor.

Once I had stitched the sides together once, I started adding a second round.

Three rounds of stitches finalize the look. The stitching looks the same from both sides and is strong enough.

I wanted to leave the top knot outside, as I could not have hidden it nicely on the inside. So I left it out in the open.

And here are the finished boxes. As you’ll see from below, mine will be used for newspapers and magazines. What would you store in them?

♣ In the meantime: I almost can’t wait for the Eurovision song contest next Saturday. It’s one of the most social events ever, even if you’re watching the contest home alone. Must be online for that one.

♥ Song of the day: Usher, Scream

Rectangle crochet rug

I went to get some yarn yesterday. Got plenty of thick tricot yarn, as I suddenly realized I needed a bathroom rug. Went for dark grey, and here’s the result. The colour in the photos looks slightly bluish, maybe there’s a hint of blue in the yarn. Let’s call it smoky grey, shall we?

I needed a rectangle, so I made two squares and attached them together. I tried to look for nice patterns online, but could not find any. The internet is full of patterns for beautiful doilies, but much less for squares and rectangles. The one I found was for a square carpet, and I used it as an inspiration. Surprisingly, the inspiration carpet is made by a Finnish person living in Brussels. Nice coincidence!

This is how the carpet looks like when the two squares have been attached and there’s a round of single crochet around the whole thing to give it better shape.

A close-up for a better look. It’s mostly double crochet and chains, and one round of single crochet on the rim as mentioned.

After the round of single crochet, I added a round of chain and slip stitches to make the arches to the rim. Arches were simple: two stitches of single crochet around the slip stitch, and three stitches of double crochet in the middle.

A close-up for a better look. As I’m relatively lazy with counting, and go with freestyle when possible, the corners were made flexibly. Normally I skipped three stitches to create the arch, but I didn’t want the corners to be too tight, so there I think I skipped only two.

And here we go. Carpet ready. It took me a few hours: one movie and two albums of music. The carpet is approximately 62 by 112 cm, and it took two large skeins of yarn. Don’t know what it weighs exactly, but would say something around two/three kilos. One kilo of tricot yarn cost me 7,5 euros.

I’m pretty happy with the end result. The colour is perfect, the pattern is simple enough, and I managed to get the size just right. Perfect! One thing I forgot to do is ask the yarn shop where they get the tricot yarn from. I hope they don’t import it from anywhere far. Will ask them next time.

♥ In the meantime: Have you already read the article on Foreign Policy about the garment industry in Bangladesh? If not, you should. And then read the article about the woman who was pulled out of the ruins in Dhaka 17 days after the collapse. Yes, 17 days. I don’t even know what to say.

♥ Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Trampled Rose

Recycling factory in Helsinki

The 6th Recycling Factory took over Helsinki last weekend. Organised again at the old Cable Factory, this year the event brought together more than 10 000 recycling enthusiasts, which is pretty impressive on Finnish scale. Workshops, free services, ecological products, programme for kids, and of course, a chance to bring stuff for recycling. A great event in many ways.

The large free recycling market seems to be a big hit every year. You can bring whatever you don’t need, and take whatever you might need. I took some leftover cotton yarn to the tables, and got myself two new scarfs, a jacket and a hand bag. Good deal, I’d say.

The organisers came up with a great idea this year: get yourself photographed with your findings from the free recycling market. Check out the photos here (link to Facebook).

Anyway, I walked around on Saturday morning, and found my favorites from the abundant ecological and ethical market.

These iPad stands are made of old books. Genius! The pages are somehow glued together tightly, and then carved to hold your tablet. Made by O+M=G design. Excellent work! As we play a lot with first impressions, I’ll share mine: my first thought was André Brink’s books, which I have loved for many years. Many of them look like the bottom one, I guess they were/are published in the same series in Finland.

Another fab invention is to collect old coffee cups and saucers, glue them together, fill the cup with a candle and paint the whole thing. Or paint first and then fill with candle, don’t know which way, but doesn’t matter. These are brilliant! Also made by O+M=G design. First impression: salty licorice. Delicious! It must be the black color.

These small purses are made by PisamaDesign, a Tampere-based company. Their thing is to combine graphic design and traditional handcrafts. I’ve seen their products earlier, e.g. these, but there’s something about these purses that seems appealing to me. Maybe the old font, maybe the curvy old-style print, or the town names with old letters. First impression: history, early 20th century, long skirts.

And finally, these little darlings. Candle holders, made from small baby food jars, cut and sanded, covered in recycled and dyed lace. So cute I want them all. They’re made by PoniPoni, who’s just about to set up a webstore, but it’s not up quite yet. I’ll update the address here once it’s open. First impressions: ball pit. Can’t help it. I want to have all these on my kitchen table and just move them around. All day.

If you’re interested, I chose my favourites last year, too.

♣ In the meantime: TedXHelsinki took place today. I did not manage to get a ticket to see the event live, but luckily was able to see the second half via online stream, and read about the first half from tweets. Not so bad this way either.

♥ Song of the day: Rival Sons, All over the road

Triforce crochet purse

I could not help myself. As this project is so small, I had to finish it right away. The more I look at the triangles, trifoce they seem to call it, the more I like it. No matter what colours.

So here’s my purse step by step, except that there will be no stitch count, as I never bother to count. However, with this pattern, I had to count the stitches in the starting chain and during the first round of changing colours, otherwise I just followed the colours and the triangular shape. The inspiration for the pattern is from Virkkuri.

After the first round of full triangles. Done in spiral form with single crochet. The other coloured yarn is crocheted into the stitches, so it follows all the time and makes the inside of the purse look clean and cool as well.

Three full rounds ready. Somehow this pattern and the colours make me feel incredibly happy. Is it the yellow?

Finishing the bottom seam with a round of slip stitches.

Finally, adding a round of slip stitches to the top as well, and then attaching the 18 cm zipper. This is the only one I had, so black it is.

Ready! The purse is 13 by 21 cm. Now what will I use it for? Pens? No need. Money and credit cards? No, don’t have so much. Hooks? Naw, don’t want to hide them. Maybe I’ll give it to someone who needs uplifting. Or maybe someone Swedish, as these are more or less the colours of their flag.

♥ In the meantime: I’m going to embark on new DIY areas soon. The super cool ThinkToday products that I again saw at the Recycling Factory made me realize that I have leftover plastic floor at home. Must be made into boxes. Spring and crafts!

♠ Song of the day: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Southern Cross

Crocheting away

If you are ill and bored, as I am, what can you do? Lie down and crochet.

The small white basket I did already some time ago, but now I’ve done a larger grey one. Hook is size 10, and yarn is maybe 2 cm wide tricot, something you could easily cut from a t-shirt.

Baskets are handy with small stuff that’s always around. I use the white one for my bracelets. The truth is, I don’t really need the grey one for anything, but maybe I’ll figure out something (and make another one, too).

What is more interesting is this triangular pattern I decided to try. Not that I really need any more small bags or pouches either, but well, I might just make one more. I found a 18 cm zipper that kind of dictated the size. I’m working upwards in a spiral form, and will close the bottom seam and attach the zipper on top. Hook is size 3.

One the menu, we have bright colours for the spring. Had plenty of cotton yarn in yellow and some in turquoise, so here we go. Must use yarn from my storage. Simply must.

Btw if you want patterns for baskets or you want to see how the triangular pattern is done, check out Virkkuri, the cool Finnish crochet book that just came out.

While I was looking for yarn from my cupboards, I found several unfinished or nearly finished projects…Some of them are ok, but one of them was really cool. Something similar to a peplum, but not quite. Will post about it separately later on.

But why do I keep hiding these projects in the cupboard and forgetting them? Most of the time I guess I run out of yarn, can’t crochet anymore, then I clean up, move things, and whoops, forgotten.

♦ In the meantime: I went to the recycling factory earlier today. Saw wonderful things, took photos and will post about everything later. But I also got dizzy, out of breath and sweaty and I’m telling you, it was a relaxed and mellow event, not a sprint contest. Not quite healthy yet, so back to the sofa.

♠ Song of the day: Depeche Mode, Should be Higher

Frank Underwood follows you

I’ve been down with the flu since Monday. It is strange how I always get ill when I have days off from work. This was not the first time. I managed to do a few hours of garden work on Monday, and then suddenly feverish, with flu, headache, sore throat and whatnot. Tonight finally feeling a little better.

But what I really wanted to share with you is this:

Look closely to the ‘FOLLOWS YOU’ part. Now how cool is that? For those who might not know, this is a screenshot from Twitter.

And there’s no need to remind me that Francis here is a fictional character, a mean majority whip and not really a lovable people person.

But still. Frank Underwood follows you. This is almost as cool as someone I know playing Jed Bartlett doing the jacket flip. I’ve asked him to do it several times just because he can. Ever so cool.

[edit 10.34 p.m. Just had to add this.]

If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

— Frank Underwood (@Frank_Underwood) April 23, 2013

 

♣ In the meantime: The weather forecast says it could be +18 degrees next week. I would like to see that.

♥ Song of the day: Rudimental, Not Giving In

New types of job application: insert video here

I recently spent the most amazing get-away-weekend with good friends. Lots of relaxing and talking, plenty of delicious food and numerous glasses of bubbly.

One of my friends, who was there, teaches in a university of applied science. One of her many teaching topics is job searching: latest trends in her field, up-to-date tricks and of course, the basic understanding of selling yourself. She was saying that the traditional CV on paper is dying. Employers in her field no longer expect to see an A4, but instead they wish to see something fresh, like a slide show, perhaps with audio, or maybe even a video.

We don’t work in the same field at all, but I was inspired by the discussion and wanted to try it out myself. So I did a search for jobs that I would be interested in. I found two interesting jobs at Transparency International, a global movement working towards a world free of corruption. Then I started pondering what would be the added value of a video to the jobs I found: one related to audio-visual coordination and one to online communications.

My conclusion for the added value of a video is:

• Talk the talk, walk the walk
• Make your persona visible
• Show things you wouldn’t normally include in your CV

Here’s the audio slide show / video I made. I put the presentation together from still images, motion graphics, texts, background music, and an audio file with speech, all credits duly noted in the end. Maybe you remember that during the UNEP and Treehugger blog contest, I shared my real name for the first time in this blog, and now you get to know a little more, e.g. how I looked like when I was six years old.

Job search made interesting!

►

What do you think? Does a video add colour to an application? Does it bring the application to life? Of course you’ll need to use a little bit of imagination here: just pretend you are watching this after receiving an impressive cover letter and a CV from a top-notch communications professional

♣ In the meantime: When will practices change for fast fashion? How many collapsed factory buildings we still need in South-East Asia? In today’s New York Times the owner of the Dhaka building is photographed in handcuffs. But I wonder who’s the real culprit?

♥ Song of the day: Ben Howard, Gracious