Who, what, why? Who writes this blog...

Hi, I'm Miu!

My English is a bit rusty, but bear with :D I'll try to write at least a short version in English when I blog, if my brain fog isn't too bad that day. 

I'm a 33 yo mother of one (and three furbabies), from Tikkakoski, Jyväskylä (Finland). I have always been a do-it-yourself kind of person. I discovered sewing and knitting again as an adult, after I had recovered from the trauma of compulsory knitting and sewing classes in school. In the kitchen I'm at my happiest, I love to cook and bake.

But why a DIY-themed blog, with cats? Does anyone even read blogs in 2022? If I had any brains, I'd just make TikTok content, but sadly I don't, so what do you do? The reason I've included my cats in this blog, is that it's really hard to keep three cats away from anything I do, as you can see from the photos below, and from my Instagram account @ominkapalinonneen

Lupu the lap cat is helping me to finish a knitting project

 The idea of writing a blog in the first place came to me when I started to make notes of my recipes, knitting etc for myself, but soon realized that they might be useful for someone else too. Kind of a learning diary, you know? And since learning usually occurs when you make mistakes, I'll write about mistakes and failures too. There's enough beautiful blogs that give you the impression that the blogger's life is just picture-perfect. Not this one :D

Orvokki (Violet) is helping me to make a salad.

In addition to having a chronic knitting addiction, I've suffered from a few other illnesses that cause tiredness, pain and memory/cognition problems since my early twenties. I will not get into detail about my health just now, but I have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, depression and possible CFS/ME (chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis) to name a few. it's quite obvious that this health situation affects my blog writing among everything else significantly, and it's really tiring to be hiding my symptoms. My illnesses are not going to be the centre of this blog, but if you have any questions or topic suggestions I'm very open to them.

I never thought it was something extraordinary, that you want to or need to create things with your hands even if they are a bit broken. It seems to confuse some people, that even if you can't perform all your daily tasks without help, you still want to have hobbies and interests. There is still a lot of prejudice towards disabilities and illnesses, and if there's any way I can break them down then that's great. There's an Instagram account @chronicallysewn for sewing projects by chronically ill people. I sometimes tag my knitting posts with #disabledknittersofinstagram, #disabledcrochetersofinstagram, #disabledmakers, #invaneulojat, #invakäsityö.

 

For some more dry humour and cat pics, follow me on:

https://www.instagram.com/ominkapalinonneen/

https://www.facebook.com/ominkapalin

https://fi.pinterest.com/ominkapalin/

https://www.ravelry.com/people/OminKapalin

A basket with crochet details in testing. Pattern coming next summer.