After Aino, The Siren

The nearly countless rivers and lakes of Finland and the magical nightless nights of its summer time.. It seems more than likely that in such a setting the myths and the enchanted beings live in the shade of the tree leaves and look back from the water’s surface.

Crocheting had always seemed interesting to me: how with just a delicate hook and a simple straight thread countless of different shapes could be brought forth. There seemed to be an infinite number of possibilities. Only the imagination would be the limit of what could be done with these ordinary tools. In addition to this, the crocheting was also excelling in being a completely zero waste technique.

Approximately four years ago I didn’t have any experience with crocheting, but that was about to chance. There was two bundles of blue yarn in the closet and a lonely hook in a drawer. Without much further thinking, I set to familiarizing myself with the crocheting techniques. Starting with a simple chain of pillars, I created the first two, palm sized pieces of what then was but a work of curiosity. After those two, I looked for the next interesting looking pattern in the Internet.

The color of those two bundles of yarn was the royal blue, bought years ago for a completely different project, which had nothing to do with crocheting. Perhaps it was the color of the yarn or maybe my fondness of the water element, but the second pattern ended up resembling a row of seashells. In this point an image of a strange, crocheted outfit was forming in my mind and with it, a story. The seashells were followed by what resembled the fish bones, the fins, the scales, a fishing net, a fish’s tail…

In Finnish national epic, Kalevala, there is a young maiden named Aino. Her brother promised her to be married off to an old, powerful wizard called Väinämöinen. However, Aino chose to drown herself rather than marry a man she didn’t want.

There are few mentions of what came of Aino after she went to the waves. In my mind, as I was letting the crochet hook lead the way, Aino was transformed from a maiden of the land to a lady of the lakes and rivers. Perhaps the god of waters, Ahti, took a pity on the young woman: instead of letting Aino drown, he transformed her to one of his folk. A water maiden, who you might see sitting by a lake side or frolic in the river’s flowing stream. Or perhaps a siren, who would lure an incautious passer-by to the water’s depths.

This one of a kind crochet outfit was completed over a span of four years and it’s stitched together from several individual parts. In it, 23 bundles of yarn have become this strange water maiden. The work was done without following any patterns or counting the loops. Instead, I looked at the whole, drafted the next geometrical shape I needed on the dress form, and set to fill that area. In the headpiece the simple chains made out of the yarn are circling around a tiara of the blue mussels’ shells.

A little before the midsummer of 2024 there was a lovely day in the middle of a heath wave. With but a little warning, the photoshoot of After Aino, The Siren, was thrown together, the blue scales were painted on the skin, the dress went in the water and the cameraman to the beach. Amusing the onlookers at the lakeside of Näsijärvi, we ended up with numerous wonderful shots of the dress and a pleasant evening swim under the birch trees.

Please find the selected few of these shots in the Gallery section of this page.

Until the next time,

Sincerely

Iina