Browsing by Subject "handicrafts"
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(2003)The aim of the study was to find out, how the craftsmen of textile of the archipelago reach for ecological sustainability. In addition, what does the ecological orientation mean for the craftsman and how to understand ecological handicrafts. Both the product and the creator serve as a narrator. To answer these questions interviews were made with nine craftsmen who live in the Archipelago. The interviews were analysed with content analysis method. The research report proceeds in a dialogue between theory and the analysis. The relationship between the sustainable development and the handicrafts of archipelago was observed as the theoretical basis of the research. By investing in cultural, social, financial and industrial sustainability the fundamental aim of ecological sustainability is possible to attain. Values, skills and knowledge of a craftsman have an influence on the various sectors of the development. The operational environment of the craftsmen is the archipelago, its nature and the culture created by man. One objective was to work out, how the archipelago and its notion played a part in their way of working and telling about their products. Ecology in the handicrafts of the archipelago appeared in various ways. Cultural and social sustainability materialized better than economical and industrial sustainability. Education seemed to be the best way to get intermediate goals on the way to the sustainable development. Handicrafts was seen as a part of the culture of archipelago and the networks in a sparsely populated area is experienced as an important thing. The ecological acting is commonly connected to the material of handicraft and its methods of production. Values take shape, when the craftsman talked about his family and told his story about growing into the craftsmanship. Striving for ecological sustainability in handicrafts aroused also mixed feelings. Craftsmanship is lifeblood on the market, which is ruled by the global market economy. Does it mean that striving for ecological sustainability is an attempt to reach for truth?
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(2014)It is possible to participate in leisure activities and handicrafts with different levels of commitment and devotion. Dimensions of handicraft activities can also vary along with hobbyists. The aim of this research was to get an overall picture of the dimensions that are typical for Finnish handicraft leisure and what separates hobbyists from each other. The research was descriptive and explorative. Leisure handicrafts were approached through five problems: 1. To what extent different handicrafts are made as leisure? 2. To what extent craft hobbyists seek for inspiration, information or instructions from different sources? 3. To what extent different dimensions of serious leisure occur in handicraft activities? 4. To what extent different social actions occur in handicraft activities? 5. To what extent different motives guides handicraft activities? Quantitative data was collected using web survey during spring 2013. The survey was advertised through craft-themed webpages and Facebook-groups. The data (N=3009) was female oriented. It was analyzed using statistical software SPSS 22. Central tendencies and frequencies were observed. For further analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, K-means cluster analysis and correlations were computed. The aims of these analyses were to deepen the results and observe the connections between the dimensions of the research. Handicrafts were made mostly daily and 1 2 hours at one time. Knitting, crocheting, and making accessories were the most popular forms of crafts. Making crafts in company varied between respondents, but making crafts as gifts was quite common. Making holistic and ordinary crafts varied between respondents and weren t connected to the dimensions of serious leisure. Most respondents found their skills and ways of doing crafts positive. The extent in which the respondents participate in craft activities was connected to identifying with leisure pursuit. Inspiration, information and instructions were often sought from webpages, -goups and -blogs and from craft books and magazines. Handicrafts were mostly made for process-centered reasons and uniqueness, but the manufacture-based and experiment-based motives were also present. Respondents could be grouped to four groups whose results varied within the key parts of this research and within background variables. For example, respondents differed in their identification to the hobby and in their overall activeness in this pursuit. However differences in seriousness of the leisure couldn't be defined. The results of this study, along with the methods and terminology used in this study, can be applied to future studies and developed further based on more specific designs.
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(2020)Purpose. In today’s society we have a lot of pressure on us and have fast-paced lifestyles. In this hectic goal-oriented life, handicrafts, representing slow living, have gained popularity and attained media attention. However, handicrafts are not acknowledged in scientific fields as well as music and visual arts. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between handicrafts and well-being, as well as how handicrafts have been implemented in rehabilitation or therapy of clinical groups comprising different mental health disorders and progressive memory disorders. Methods. The data for this thesis were collected from Google Scholar, Scopus and PubMed. The following keywords were used: knitting, handicrafts, handcrafts, well-being, wellbeing, psycholog*, therapy, stress and anxiety. The Finnish keywords käsityö, psyykkinen hyvinvointi and terapia were also used. Results and conclusions. Since most of the studies in the field are descriptive, we cannot talk about causality but only correlation. Nevertheless, it has been concluded that the handcrafters report handicrafts having many positive effects on their well-being. In addition to the direct mental health benefits, handicrafts seem to have indirect effects on well-being through different kind of cognitive and social phenomena. When it comes to different clinical samples, positive correlation between handicrafts and well-being has also been detected. These results support the hypothesis that handicrafts may have therapeutic effects. Based on the studies conducted so far, it seems justified to use handicrafts in therapy or as a part of therapy or self-care. However, more experimental studies are needed to be able to tell how we can use handicrafts more effectively and for whom it is most suitable.
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(2014)In this study I examine how textiles were patched and darned in Finland from the 1920s to the 1960s, and how changes in everyday life affected it. Modernization, the following of fashion and the rise of ready-made clothes industry in the 1920s declined into a shortage of textiles and a demand on self-sufficiency during the war years in the 1940s. After the war clothes were bought ready from shops and their value related to people's assets was reduced. Alike, people's attitudes towards textiles and mending them changed. The data for my study consisted of articles from Kotiliesi, Omin käsin and Emäntälehti from 1924 to 1959, contemporary guidebooks from 1920 to 1966 and craft teacher students' samples and notebooks from the the 1920s to the 1940s. In addition I interviewed four women who were born between the years 1918 and 1938, three orally and one with written questionnaire. Because mending textiles has hardly been studied in previous research, I needed to gather the information from many sources. I used different qualitative data analysis and discourse analysis methods to put together pieces of the story. In the 1920s and the 1930s mending textiles was considered almost a platitude. Especially in the countryside the majority of clothes and home textiles were self-made or made to order, although in the cities ready-made clothes could already be purchased. The value of a single cloth was considerable and because of that a lot of time was spent on mending it and different instructions how to darn by hand or with a sewing machine were published in women's magazines and contemporary guidebooks. New textiles were hard to purchase during the depression caused by the Winter War and the Continuation War, therefore good care had to be taken of the textiles already found from homes. Instructions and articles focused especially on advices on how to patch socks. After the war mending of textiles was often emotionally connected to the shortage of the wartime and the amount of mending instructions given in women's magazines decreased. New type of nylon socks reduced the need to darn and patch them, but Kotiliesi still published articles on how to mend different types of clothes, though the instructions were directed to skillful light-fingered women. Publishing articles about mending in women's magazines ended in the 1950s, but the women I interviewed told that they have continued mending until present-day. At the end of my study I consider why mending is still current in the 21st century.
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