Balaclava Images

HI again,

I wish I had the time to update this blog more often. I thought that it would be good to put some of my older work here as well, better to put it in this point when the blog is only started recently,

These images are from last February, when I did a project with knitted balaclavas. I wanted to knit something what I can wear, but at the same time I came up with an idea with a surreal photography project. If you like these check out Leigh Bowery's work as well. The contextual side of these works is all about identity and creating identities which aren't necessary recognizable to any specific groups.

Thanks goes to Richard taking the pink mask images of me and

Thanks goes to Roshine for the beautiful and skillful face-painting and taking some of the images of me, and also for the fun afternoons we had with this project.

I hope you enjoy the images.

Regards

Valpuri

Sequin leggins

I am designing sequin leggins at the moment as well. Here, I hope you enjoy the images...

Jump in to a jumper. I mean in 4. All 4 of you, all at once!

Hello Again!

I have been wanting to update this blog all week, but I have been having some technical problems to upload a video, which is a slideshow of my last and this year's work. It caused me a lot of stress, and I will overcome it in some point when I have the time to go back to it, but meaning while, I decided that I don't want that to stop me to put some more exciting stuff on.

At the moment I am collecting woolly jumpers, or anything that is knitted with yarn material, even machine knits. It is going to be a part of a bigger piece and collection of work what is still in progress. I have been sewing the jumpers together, meaning to only construct a surface, but when I had sewn four jumpers together, I thought of, what would it look like if there was people wearing it at the same time. 

It was very fun afternoon, please look at the photographs.

Big thank you goes to my lovely models

Jennifer Lowler

Elizabeth Ralph

Ellie Greenwood

Lawrence Crompton

PS. Has to be said, that a Manchester band called Doris and the Jumpers, is looking to wear one big jumper, with three head holes in it. We might work together on that. 

Dear Readers,

I started a project about a year ago,where I wanted to try to knit the distance between Oxford Road and Piccadilly.I had just moved to Manchester and I was trying to illustrate my feelings about it within these two localized points in the city. It was a part of my course work for the artcourse I am doing. However, knitting the same thing day after day, as much as I enjoyed it,seemed pointless when there was so many different projects to participate on, and when all the equipment to experimental are available in the university,so I left this project aside for a while.

I have always wanted to go forward with this project,but I am struggling with time and I was wondering, for my academic statement for the project,what other dimensions does it have? As working with Artyarn, I have discovered new ideas to go forward with this labour intensive and ambitious craft. Especially when creating very big pieces,like this big knitted roll.
So I am now asking, if you the readers, would like to contribute for this project?

The roll at the moment is approximately 40 metres long, so about 960 metres of knitting to go. The piece is about 13 cm wide,knitted with 7 mm needles with 18 stitches and two double knitting yarns at the same time.The pattern is just knitting on both sides. This doesn't mean that participants have to knit with the same materials, just trying to give the idea of the thickness of the material. Acrylic yarn was colourful and cheap enough to work for this project, and as the piece is going to be rolled on the street to measure, I didn't want to use the most dearest of materials.

Everyone who contributes should write their names on a little fabric tag and sew this on to their piece they are contributing, this way everybody gets credited for their effort. Only rules for what the piece should be like, is that its 12-15 cm wide and strong enough to be rolled on the street. This project is ongoing,until the whole distance between Oxford Road and Piccadilly has been knitted.

The project has gained some interest from the media already, such as BBC and North West Visions. 

Contributions to:(with your name and where you are from, if wanted to be credited)

Valpuri Vihriala

E-mail me to the address below, and I will either send you the address to send the piece to, OR if you live locally,we can always meet up and you can hand me the piece that way.

More information: e-mail: rusakkokeitto@hotmail.com and mark the message "Knitted roll" as I am not opening messages which I don't know what they include. Please do not send images.