About free form

I started making these pouches last month. I call them folk bags as they remind me of the small bags women used to have in the past. I think that most of the countries have their own versions of drawstring pouches like these. In Finland they were mostly crocheted.

My design combines crocheting, knitting and fabric. They are fun to make. I have finished 11 by now and have few on the needles. Every pouch tells a story and I think they really reveal the romantic side of me.

You see, I have started to love stories. I do not mean fairy tales but small stories told everyday everywhere. They can be straight forward, often boring, sometimes funny, but in general I find them very inspiring. In the same way than the form can vary from geometric and controlled to free and organic, I think the existence has its own variations.

People can try to present everything in a formal and organized way. Still, we will never loose stories. They will never die. We can develop data systems but what is stored in them. Stories! Blogs are a great example of the power of the storytelling.

The pouches have a clear design concept. The bottom part represents a form, the center part represents an ornament and the top part represents a free form. All these together are telling the story.

Have you ever thought of how organized you need your knitting to be? Sometimes it is difficult to analyze one's own work but look at this decorative wooden distaff, made by my father. You can see that my father liked his world be in order!

I still find this object endearing. The three windows are like three generations - me, my father and my grandfather. The story would be perfect if only one window would be open, letting air in and out. That free flow would made the object a part of the real world, true stories and great design.