Part of my Christmas is always having a sauna, and preferrably one with a wood stove. We are incredibly lucky to have one right in our yard.
After having lived in an apartment in the center of Rovaniemi we found our current home a few years back. The lot with a sauna sitting in the yard was a major plus, even though it postponed the idea of having a small cabin further north in Lapland anytime soon.
So the sauna is in traditional Finnish 50s style a little building with a sauna and a spare bed room inside. The small room fits my 150cm wide loom which was gifted to me last summer and I am still in the process of setting up.
I think at some point after the Lapland war there were as many as 3 families living in our current home, but now it's just us and a steady flow of houseguests that come from near and far.
The sauna itself we use all year round, but the spare room has been going through several different forms over the last few years. I haven't quite figured out what to do with it yet. As it's looking now though, I'm probably going to make it my full time home studio for weaving.
But today it's Christmas Day and weaving is occupying but a small part of my brain; that maker's part which is always processing new ideas to turn into projects.
It's nice to sit and dream for a while waiting for sauna to warm up... every now and then I find something funny in the paper trash which I usually start the heating with.
Today it was a chinese tea-box proabably left over from Husband's recent trip to our Chinese friends in Malaysia. It's a good box, I wonder why he threw it away?
There are still a lot of the old details left in the sauna, for example the whole changing room is a weird shade of pale blue, which I originally intended to change, but it has quite grown on me. There are some old keys too, but I actually don't know what locks they open!
In the sauna room itself we had a carpenter fix up a new rigging of the benches, we went for a triangular shaped bench giving more leg space. Been very happy with it.
Even though the weather suddenly went to a balmy +2C it's still feels crisp to cool off outside. The sauna heats up quickly and it's time to cozy up.
It's been a great year, and I can hardly wait what next year brings.
Merry Christmas!
Thanks for all Your support up til now
and see you again in 2016!
-annika.
