It makes perfect sense that I'm doing what I'm doing now. I have walked many side roads in the meantime.
As a child I was always busy with my hands, I was in ceramics class, drawing class, bookbinding class, leather crafting class, arranging flowers. At the (regular) primary school we also received extensive handicraft education... knitting, crocheting, embroidery etc. At home I learned to sew from my mother and I loved it, first I made endless fashion collections for my dolls and then I soon went for make my own clothes. I dove right in and was in another world, it felt like a waste to finally have to stop to make time for a meal. You would think- that was 80s in the Soviet Union. And that's right, the fact that you couldn't get anything anywhere certainly contributed to people's creativity. And you couldn't get that hip sweater or warm socks from hm, you really had to knit them yourself. And without social media and all kinds of screens, people just had time for that (sigh, a bit of nostalgia). But even in 2023 it is still normal in Latvia to make everything beautiful with your own hands and the women's magazines are full of patterns, recipes and creative inspiration. So that handiwork is definitely deep in me :-).
Although I lived in the beautiful capital Riga, I was lucky enough to spend the first 14 years in the green and quiet part of the city. I was always outside, building a cabin, playing, just cycling around everywhere, sitting by the lake staring into the distance. Nature was an important and natural part of my life. I couldn't imagine working with anything other than natural materials right now.
The reuse of materials is also no coincidence. That was an important part of creativity for us in Soviet times. Because (and it's hard to imagine now) there was very little to get at the store. Via via you could get a few meters of a beautiful fabric, but then you had to know the right person who will reserve it for you. Much trading happened under the counters. Or was there something valuable in the store, but you had to queue for hours for it (also for bread, soap and sugar). Disassembling something you knitted yourself (if it no longer fits or was out of fashion), combining it with other wool and knitting something with it again was quite normal. The jeans had all the people who were lucky enough to have relatives abroad and receive a package from them. They were also traded for a lot of (black) money. So very chic and luxurious. In the 1990s, when Latvia became independent, it slowly entered our country. But mainly through second-hand shops (old clothing that was sent to us from the west). That was of course also a reason to be creative with them and to restyle them to make them fit. My mother made us very nice school backpacks in patchwork style. These were so cool she still got orders from my and sister's friends. I think I was 13 when I sewed myself a hippie style flared patchwork pants out of old jeans. You don't know how happy I was with it! Now, many years later, I still can't keep my hands off my old jeans. True story.
4 comments
Oh Wow, so happy to see this beautiful, inspiring site and can’t wait to snuffle through what you are working on here 🙏🏽✨ Thanks always for being an inspiration and Light for so many!
Liefs
Lieve Ieva,
Van harte gefeliciteerd met het lanceren can jouw website.
Go get it!
Je gaat dit rocken.
Liefs,
bernadette
Happy Womensday lieve Ieva…Van Harte Gefeliciteerd met je nieuwe webshop 💗 en wat een mooie dag om deze te laten zien..🙏 Dank je wel voor de mooie dingen die je maakt en de inspiratie uit de natuur waar we toch allemaal deel van uitmaken…Ik zou ook iets meer met mijn handen willen doen 🙏 in de toekomst…✨ En jij mag best wel chocolade taartjes eten hoor & thanks for being a friend 🙏 Veel Xx en Liefs, Maaike
Cik jauki visu to lasīt!