Marianne Seiman
Interviewer Annette Petavy, a fine designer in her own right who lives in France
Embroidery on felted bags
Embroidery on felted bags
"Although my mom and my granny were excellent crafters, they still followed so-called rules and were pretty strict about how things (craftwise and in life generally) were supposed to be done. I think that my modeling career, travelling, seeing different cultures and meeting people from all over the world has had a great impact in changing my view on life. It has also given me the courage to try different things in my craftwork."
Annette Petavy, a fine designer in her own right who lives in France
This interview is also available in French.
While browsing the gallery of the last issue of Crochet Insider, I discovered the astounding work of Marianne Seiman, an Estonian crochet artist. I immediately wanted to know more about her and her works. I marveled at her Flickr album and became an avid reader of her blog (in Estonian, but partly translated to English). It wasn’t enough. I had to know more. I also wanted to make her known to more people. Luckily, for me as well as for you, Marianne agreed to give an interview to Crochet Insider.
-- Annette Petavy
ANNETTE: Hi Marianne! Let’s start at the beginning: Who are you? Could you please tell us a little about yourself, your situation in life right now and what you have done before?
MARIANNE: I’m Marianne Seiman, a 31 years old Estonian, and the mother of three small children (6 yo, 4 yo, 8 mo). I was born in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, but moved to the countryside 7 years ago. In my youth I was a swimmer, competing for the Estonian national team, and in my early twenties a fashion model, traveling between Milan, Paris, New York and other cities. Right now my main focus is on my family and also on crafting.
ANNETTE: For how long have you been crocheting? Who taught you?
MARIANNE: I learned to crochet at the age of five or six. I’m not sure if it was my mom or my granny who taught me, since they both were very good crafters. My grandmother always had one project or another in her hands, either crochet, knitting or embroidery. And my mom was the one who sewed clothes for herself, me and my brother. At that time it was mainly out of necessity. It was the time when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union, and there was a deficit of clothes and much else.
ANNETTE: I have seen on your blog that you do wonderful embroidery too. Do you do any other needlearts?
MARIANNE: Actually I‘m just learning the embroidery stitches! And I will do that the whole year long, one stitch per week. It's the Take a stitch Tuesday challenge [http://inaminuteago.com/blog/index.php/take-a-stitch-tuesday-challenge/] run by SharonB from Inaminuteago.com [http://www.inaminuteago.com/blog/]. She introduces a new stitch every Tuesday on her blog, and people from all over the world can join in and stitch their samplers. I chose to stitch on a crocheted and fulled bag. This one will be done pretty soon and I’m thinking of continuing with stitching on crocheted bags. That way I’ll have a nice collection by the end of the year!
See why I love the internet? It offers so many possibilities to learn something new without leaving the house.
Now, back to your question… I know how to knit, but it takes me forever these days. Also I’m able to sew some basic clothing items. To tell you the truth, seven years ago I was equally good/bad at knitting, crocheting or sewing. I picked crocheting only because it was easier to do with my first baby in the house. She was the kind of baby who always wanted to be near me, so I was holding her and crocheting! Knitting and sewing were left behind.
Later I learned on the Internet how to wet felt. In the future I‘d like to learn how to spin, and also start playing with fabric. Do some work on a needle felting machine. Ahh, there are so many things I want to do!
ANNETTE: You're Estonian - which means you live in a country I think most Crochet Insider readers know very little about. Could you tell us a little about the textile tradition in Estonia? How has it influenced you?
MARIANNE: Our textile tradition goes centuries back. Women wove fabric and made clothes from it. The main materials were flax and wool. Because of the cold climate, knitting socks and mittens was done everywhere. Nancy Bush has written a book about folk knitting in Estonia. [http://www.interweave.com/knit/books/estonia.asp]. Women also decorated their clothes with embroidery, as seen in Estonian national costumes. I have two links on this subject to recommend if anyone’s interested: Crafts and Arts in Estonia [http://www.einst.ee/publications/crafts_and_arts/woman.html] and Estonian Folk Culture at the site of the Estonian National Museum [http://www.erm.ee/?lang=ENG&node=403&parent=202].
But I think I’ve been more influenced by my grandmother‘s and my mother’s work than by traditional Estonian folk art. In my childhood reusing and recycling was part of everyday life, not because it was hip or anything - it was just the way things were. Materials, if you were lucky to get any, were very plain and crafters really had to use their imagination to make something unique and beautiful out of them.
ANNETTE: If I should use one single word to qualify your creations, it would be "inspirational". From where do you get your inspiration?
MARIANNE: Although my mom and my granny were excellent crafters, they still followed so-called rules and were pretty strict about how things (craftwise and in life generally) were supposed to be done. I think that my modeling career, travelling, seeing different cultures and meeting people from all over the world has had a great impact in changing my view on life. It has also given me the courage to try different things in my craftwork.
These days I get my inspiration and also knowledge via the Internet. From different blogs, artist‘s homepages and also from flickr.com. I can get inspired by great color combinations, shapes, textures seen in some textile artist’s work or jewelry or some cool photo etc.
ANNETTE: I have discovered that your blog is more than a place to showcase your own art. It is also a wonderful source for links to beautiful craft sites. As a mother and prolific artist, how do you find the time to surf the Web?
MARIANNE: I guess it has to do something with the fact that we don’t have TV (by choice, of course)!
More seriously, I’ve surfed the web for many good years now (6-7) and my methods have changed over the time. At first, I just googled about crochet or some other topic, and as a result spent more time with less efficiency. By now, I have my favorite bloggers who gather lots of information and links on subjects that are of interest to me, and I don’t have to spend that much time on the net myself.
ANNETTE: What kind of items do you prefer to make?
MARIANNE: When I picked up crochet again about seven years ago I crocheted doilies just like my grandmother used to do. Pretty soon I moved on to crocheting bikinis and tiny halter tops. At that time I was thinking about selling my stuff in Estonia, and picked these articles because the cost of material for these itsy-bitsy items was low and you could make at least some money. As so many Estonian people still know how to knit and crochet, handcrafted items are not a luxury here yet, and people are not very willing to pay a decent price for them.
Then, somewhere along the path, I discovered freeform crochet, started a blog, stopped thinking about sales and that was, in a way, a breakthrough moment. I started to crochet bigger items such as skirts, handbags, hats and scarves. Also jewelry. I uploaded the pictures with my stuff to flickr and got some nice feedback, and a few interesting proposals as well.
ANNETTE: Your pieces have what a writer would call "a voice", your own, personal, style. How did it develop?
MARIANNE: Don’t know about that! (smile) I’ve been impressed and influenced by the works of Sylvia Cosh, James Walters, Prudence Mapstone, Myra Wood, Margaret Hubert, and also by many others.But what you see now is just the beginning. Actually I haven’t had the chance to just sit down and create-create-create for hours without worrying about anything else. Why are many of my works built up with circle motifs? Because it’s something I can do while walking with the kids or looking after them or waiting for the food to cook. It’s easy to pick up and put down when needed. (smile)
ANNETTE: So you work on-the-go! How does this fit into your creative process? Do you start with a plan for the motifs you make, or do they come first and the bigger plan afterwards? Please, tell us a little about your creative process.
MARIANNE: Well, usually I have some picture in my head of the finished piece. Not a very detailed one, just the outlines and the feeling. Then I just start working. Without calculating, just using my intuition. After crocheting a decent amount of motifs I lay them down and see what‘s missing (regarding color, size etc), fill the gaps, add here and there…
I'm not the frogging type. If something doesn’t look right I think of ways to make it better by adding stuff to it, never ripping it. That is also the reason why I don’t enjoy writing patterns so much - writing patterns asks for some planning firsthand and also making it all understandable for other people. That’s why the designs I make for an Estonian magazine are way simpler than what I would normally do. Of course, I’m well aware that I’m just a beginner when it comes to writing instructions. Hopefully it will get easier with some experience!
ANNETTE: Your color combinations are magnificent. How do you make your colour choices? Which colours and colour combinations do you prefer? Which ones do you dislike?
MARIANNE: I love colour. All colours. I don’t have to think about what goes together, it just comes naturally. My preferences change with time. A couple of years back, I was into pinks and purples. After that, a combination of reddish-browns and oranges. Then greens. And blues. It doesn’t matter. I really love them all. I can’t think of color which I really dislike.
ANNETTE: Do you work with Estonian yarns, or with yarns for other countries? What yarns are avalable on the Estonian market?
MARIANNE: The wool from Estonian manufacturers is a bit too scratchy in my taste, but it fulls nicely. I also work quite a lot with local pencil roving. I use it to make purses or hats. First, I crochet from the roving, then full it in the washing machine, and finally embellish it with crochet, embroidery and beads.
For crochet I use yarns made in other countries. Of course, the assortment of yarns available now cannot be compared with what it was 15 years ago, but still it‘s far from being as good as in States. The Finnish brand Novita is available everywhere in Estonia. Bergere de France is also quite well represented, along with Austrian Steinbach Wolle, German G-B Wolle, Toptex from Czech, Spanish Katia and a few Italian lines.
ANNETTE: I think Crochet Insider readers would love to know about your techniques in greater detail. For example, I am looking at the garden -- the felted flowers with pistils and stamens coming out of them. How did you get the shape of the flowers, how did you make the stamens and how did you attach them? Also, in your freeform, you use some techniques which gives it a very special look. For example, in your turquoise skirt adorned with flowers, the long stems from the flowers-- is this surface crochet? And the leaves are motifs?
MARIANNE: Flowers are wet felted. First I lay down 3-4 thin layers of wool from wool batts, sprinkle them with warm soapy water, cover with tulle (to prevent wool sticking to fingers) and start massaging it gently with my hands with round movements. When layers of wool are sticking together I remove the tulle and continue rubbing wool with my hands. To shape the flowers I stick my finger in the middle of wool piece and start felting around the finger.
To give the flower a final shape sometimes I cut the petals with scissors, sometimes leave them as they are. Felting is great, you can really sculpt the piece the way you want.
Stamens are crocheted and handsewn to the flower.
In my crochet work I use a lot of surface crochet and crochet embellishments. The main body of the garment or accessory is usually crocheted from motifs or with simple double crochet, that’s because I have small kids to look after and I can crochet motifs on the go, without thinking. But for freeforming I need to sit down in the middle of my yarns and concentrate without any distraction. To spice up these plain items I use surface crochet and embellisments. And you are right about the skirt, that’s exactly how it is done.
ANNETTE: How do you connect your circles and other smaller pieces? Do you use a variety of methods?
MARIANNE: Circles for the main part of the item I usually crochet together using chain stitch. Embellishments I sew on by hand. Many times I also add some beads and/or a little bit of embroidery.
ANNETTE: You have recently started to work professionally as a designer. Can you tell us about that?
MARIANNE: I started to work for the Estonian craft magazine „Käsitöö“. About a year ago, I wrote an article about free form crochet for this magazine and crocheted some items to illustrate that article. After that, the editor-in-chief asked me to design some patterns for future issues. And somehow I agreed, although writing down the patterns is really not my cup of tea (smile).
It’s a quarterly magazine, and I’ve had my designs (purses, scarves, jewelry and a skirt) published the in last two issues. Right now I‘m finishing up items for the next issue.
ANNETTE: Can you tell a little more about your experiences as a model -- how that happened, how long you were involved, what it was like. Models are oftten given a bad rap , they are depicted as drug-addicted anorexics. You seem to have had a good experience.
I entered the modeling world via one contest in Estonia in 1994. My friend urged me to send my pictures and I ended up winning the whole thing and was soon flown to Hawaii for the international “Supermodel of the world” contest. That’s how it started. All together I modeled for about five years, but in the beginning it was complicated because of visa rules, and for a citizen of a brand new country, what Estonia was at that time, it involved lot of paperwork and waiting.
I loved modeling cause it allowed me to travel (again, now every other Estonian can go on a skiing or snorkeling vacation whenever and wherever he wants, but in the early nineties it wasn’t like this), meet people from different cultures and opened my mind in many ways. I liked best living in New York for about 8-9 months. Just loved this city! It felt like a small compact model of the whole world. I loved the fact that you can literally walk from one culture to another. From Chinatown to Little Italy to Soho to Alphabet City etc etc. I was a downtown girl!
Actually modeling itself soon became secondary, more important for me was to see and feel the different places and cultures.
The modeling world is big, there are thousands of girls. Some of them want to make it to the top, some are just having fun, some are happy to travel, etc. Of course there is a pressure to stay in shape and look good, but it doesn’t mean that all the girls have some sort of eating disorder or drug problem.
ANNETTE: What plans do you have for the future? How would you like your work to evolve?
MARIANNE: At this moment I’m taking it slowly and waiting for my kids to grow up a bit. Craftwise, I’m still at the beginning of the road. My head is full of ideas which just have to wait until I can fully dive into creating!
In a while, I‘ll probably open a web-shop to sell smaller items like crocheted and felted jewelry and accessories. Along with that, I want to make some bigger pieces in crochet, felt, and mixed techniques, just for the pure joy of creating and testing the boundaries.
ANNETTE: I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I'll be following your work closely. Thank you Marianne!