Finishing date: October 2024. Photographed by Natalia Salazar in October 2024
And so, the blazer. It took forever to make. Crocheted from mustard linen yarn. Natalia has photos of me working on the sleeves, in the oddest of places, all over south-western Finland, during our road trip during the summer 2023. And then again, while embroidering it, during the summer 2024.
Originally, the plan was to just add some flowers and maybe one small fern leaf to the front. Once I got started, though, I could not stop. Eventually, the flowers and ferns covered most of the back and half of the front. And I had discovered a new technique I love: free hand embroidery!
I hand-stitched a dark green lining, had Natalia photograph me in it among the ferns at the top of Cecilia’s garden in Stockholm, and then I wore it for the first time while facilitating a workshop on how to work locally with the global biodiversity framework in the Nordhordland biosphere reserve, Norway.
It was meant to be worn for those kinds of professional settings, with me thinking: I need a blazer to wear at workshops. All the ones in the stores are so boring, why don’t I make one myself? It took years to finish it, and then: it’s too warm to wear indoors. I always end up taking it off within the first hour of facilitating.
Anticlimactic. But still, it’s pretty.
Katja Malmborg 