AT HELSINKI VINTAGE

I suppose a lot of Finnish bloggers already have or will cover this on the days to come and I'm joining the club.
So; here's what I did last Sunday:
I finished the loading of the morning ship and made a slight change of style.

Into these and some red on the lips.


And took a break from work to go to Helsinki Vintage. The fair is held twice a year at Kaapelintehdas. (I used to study painting there before I changed to graphic design. Can't believe that's ten years already!)




Eddi also came before heading out to the farm to do some stuff, you know, harvesting and such that farmers do.

And Ina too, of course. It turned into another meeting for the "photo club" as usual. Blog nerds, hehe.

Beautiful Pia getting her hair done by Pinkki Paplari. Pia hosted the event. (She plays in The Patsy Walkers and hosts a lot of our shows too. This time however, you only got to see her feet...)


Pretty Mirkka and her designs.


Deco-jewellery from Hoochie Mama Jane. The same series as these!


Some items from good ol' Ansa Vintage. My lovely newly wed friends from Vaudeville were also there but I had some problems getting decent pics so Mimi and her beautifully growing belly has to be seen some other time here...


Tamara 1965 from Tallinn, familiar from the Tallinn retro fair last spring. (We recommended them :) (Note the team-posing by the people from Fast n' Loud in the background :)


Vintage and cupcakes always seem to appear at the same events... But why not really, looks good, tastes good, so yeah!


Eddi has the coolest T-shirt in town.


Ina bought a great pair of shoes, or, boots, from Americana.


As usual, there was a lot of great stuff...
...which mostly means I end up buying nothing, as there is so much to choose from. I'm not able to. You know, can't stop for just one item, I rather just enjoy the atmosphere and browisng around. I did get something though:

A 1950's napkin holder.
¨
And a fifties umbrella holders. (That's a lot of holders for one day.)

Then I went back to the harbour and loaded and unloaded some more ships (and took sneaky pictures of myself).
And then it started raining a lot.

KASHMIR AND THE COLD HARBOUR

In late 2006 the company I worked for merged with another one and I started working in a new harbour. Our work teams split up and all routines and systems were new. It was cold and dark late November and we supervised a freight ship that took hours to load, sometimes having to stay at work until two in the night. I was waiting for my winter gear to arrive and froze in my short workwear jacket and rather tight pants (asa they are designed for men there's not a lot of space for the trunk-junk) and hated the fact that the stevedores were checking out my derrière. One of my old colleagues had made a mix CD that we kept in our work van and listened to trough the night. I hated that period and I missed my old work mates.


This song was on the CD and every time I hear it it makes me think of cold those dark nights in the harbour, the cold wind, rusty ship and the big waves splashing up on berth. And now I almost miss that!

PATTERNS, LINES AND ICE IN THE HARBOUR

Stripes on my window.


Rusty squares by berth.


Clear lines, clear blue skies.


Bird feet pattern on a frozen water pool.


A lot of ice.


A little less ice but some more water.


Now I don't know about you but ice-mash like this always makes me think gin tonic.


No ice (if I wouldn't know better I could fool myself it's summer already). You know all these ice pictures are taken within 250 meters of one another; ice can act pretty strange.


(I just put this picture here because I thought it looks nice with a little red among all the blue.)


I was here.


Yours truly.

~

edits,

updates

& such stuff

and more questions if you so like

As pretty as the cardigan is, I decided not to buy it it - over 100 euros is still quite a lot. Of course, now that I decided not to get it, it suddenly feels like I've saved, or even been given 108€ to spend on anything with a price below that. Strange logics you may think, but that's the way it goes.

So I decided on buying a new camera. It does cost eight times as much as the cardigan, but I get it for five times as much. So here again I go gain, saving money! You may think this does not make much sense, or that the two things aren't even connected, but in a strange way it does, and in a strange way the are..

Then I've been getting some questions about my job. And such. And my car underneath all that snow.

How do I know it's my car under there?
Well, I sure hope it is - since that's where I left it :) And I've been checking up on it every now and then, to see it's still OK under there.

How do I get around?
Fortunately we have rather well-working public transportation here in Helsinki. (Although today bus drivers will go on strike. About the only bus line affected in the Helsinki traffic is the one I take to the harbour. Great.) And in winter, this one at least, it's probably easier without a car - I'd say 50% of all parking spaces are gone due to the snow, and it's easy to get stuck in it (the snow). At least if you live in the centre like me. This will btw be my last winter in the centre of town, but more on that later.

Was that me in the pick in the winter post?
Yes. That's how I look at work. I remember someone sometimes ask for an "outfit" post from work. Well there it was. In minus 20 celcius, may I add.

Do I/we at work have to stay out all day long?
That depends on our ships but the maximum is about three hours. Which is a lot in winter of course. I have a lot of things to do in my office too so I have to stay indoors more than the others. Have to, in summer. Can, thank god, in winter :)

The winged-sweater in this post is from H&M, from December last year.

Well anyway, if there are any questions troubling your head you may ask them now and I'll answer them next week! Time to ask until then!

Oh, and a little update on the updates:

if you're a frequent reader and commenter and I for some reason haven't added you to my blogroll and you'd like to be there, please let me know. I'm a bit un-organized when it comes to these things!

MY WINTER

My building.
(You know ice like that can actually kill.)


My car.
(I wonder when I'll actually be able to see it?)


My work.
(Not much to add there.)


It's getting warmer now, for a while at least. Imagine all the fun I'll have when all of that snow starts to melt. Luckily I have my waterproof shoes to use when there's more snow than water on the ground...

A 40 MIN LESSON IN FINNISH - AND BURLESQUE

(Long manicured nails and workwear don't go well together. Practically, that is.)

I talk about the contrast between burlesque and the harbour, among other stuff ( I babble on a lot, jeez!), in a documentary about the Finnish burlesque scene. It was shot over a year ago, but aired on TV4 this week. You can catch us backstage as well as members of Helsinki Burlesque / Hula Pirates crafting together, reflecting over burlesque in all its forms, as well as clips from acts in Helsinki and NY. (It's all in Finnish though so why not take it as a lesson in Finnish as well :)

View it here:
http://www.ruutu.fi/video?vt=video_episode&vid=202846

I'm not one hundred percent about weather it can be viewed from abroad so you might have to try it trough a proxy then.

EDDI AND THE BOATS

I'm looking at pictures from warmer days and soft evenings last year. Oh summer!


At a time when you nostrils freeze together after standing some two hours outside loading a ship it always feels as strange to think that six months earlier we were, and six months later we will be walking around in sandals and short sleeves. The temperature difference will be some 45-50 degrees C. Sometimes even as much as 60.
That's pretty extreme.

Although it's very very beautiful outside it is still painfully cold and I can't wait for warmer days again (when I don't have to stuff myself that much anymore- or at all). Oh summer!

NEW SHOES

Oh the thrill of opening up that fresh box of shoes that's just arrived.
You know I love it, as seen before!


Exciting...

Ta-taa!


Ehh... what?
Hehe. I just had to. I can't be too serious here all the time now can I.
And these really are new shoes of mine you know. Workwear boots for the harbour.

You can't really beat workwear boots when it comes to keeping warm and having you feet feel, well, stable. Sometimes if the weather's real shitty I put my heels in my bag and let my boots take me home from work.

FRIDAY RAINBOW IN THE HARBOR

It has been raining here so mcuch lately that it apparently has to rain even when the sun is shining. But at least you get pretty rainbows that way. (And apparently the divers who are fixing the dock from underneath should've found a big bunch of gold.)

ONE DAY IN PHOTOS

Last time when I made my ’photo an hour’ I got some comments on the fact that I didn’t seem to work that much :)

Well, that’s true for some days, since I work periodically – when I work in the harbour I work a lot and thus have almost as much free time after that, when I normally work with my design business. But sometimes I work with both things during one day. On top of that I do burlesque related things almost daily during a more hectic period, weekly if there aren't any new numbers or shows coming up. (And no I don’t sleep that much). But then again I have the advatage of sometimes making my weekend five days longer if I wish to!

So, this time it's time for a different photo an hour (from a few weeks back actually since I postponed this one a bit); Thursday.

****
9:00I have breakfast by the window and read about all those festivals and jamborees I won’t have the time to visit this summer (but about the gigs I will!). Then I finish a design job I've been working on and send the final files to print.

****
11:00
I go for some jogging in the allotment gardens nearby - I love to watch the tiny over decorated houses and their plants! (When I am outside and look up to my window my cats are always sitting there. I wonder if they recognize the tiny little me on the ground through the window?)

****
12:30
I drive to another part of town, where all the houses are in pastel colours and have small towers and pinnacles. I go to see to a seamstress (I guess in this case I'm entitled to write my seamtress :). She's making me a corset for an upcoming number of mine.

****
14:00
And then it’s vroom vroom off to work

****
14:30
Time to change
Then I go on with the loading hundreds of meters and hundreds of tons of cargo on to ships. Or, I do not load myself. I organize and supervise.

****
17:00
I receive a strange but pretty sweet gift from one of the harbour guys. A framed portrait of Marilyn and some smoothies.

****
20:00
Time for the obligatory milkshake of the day!

****
22:00
There's a nice sunset in the harbour. Sunsets are always nice by the sea.

****
00:30
I come home to two waiting kitties, some trash mail and a sea of shoes.

Pretty much how this Thursday's been so far too, except for I went to the doctor's and not the seamtress before work. And no gifts received today...yet.

EDIT : Amazing - a while after posting I did receive a present! (yes I blog during work hours). I got a book this time. From the same guy.