Biofore Magazine 2020

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t could almost be called a whittling accident – except that no one was injured. As Mari Leppälä , better known as Molla Mills , was finalising her third book about the art of Virk- kuri crochet in 2015, she decided to add an extra feature: a step-by-step guide for whittling a crochet hook. After all, the book was inspired by ideas aimed at en- couraging men to take up crocheting. She thought maybe the option of making your own hook would do the trick. “It was a light-hearted way to end the book, my dad and I wandering in my brother’s forests in North Karelia,” Mills recalls. “Itwas a lot of fun, andpeople have really liked it.”

you don’t need to be an expert woodcarver to enjoy it; even the simplest experience can bring tradition just a little bit closer. All they needed to get the message across was someone to do a bit of teaching and encourage everyone to give it a try. EnterMollaMills. A DIY family To the general public, Molla Mills is best known for her work promoting crochet- ing. In addition to numerous Virkkuri books about the art, which have been translated into about a dozen languages,

Then, in 2020, the Finnish Crafts Or- ganisation Taito chose whittling as the craft technique of the year. In the press release, director of the organisation Min- na Hyytiäinen said that while in earlier times people learned to handle knives as children, now traditional whittling skills have been forgotten bymany. “The skill of whittling is part of folklore that is at risk of disappearing,” the press release reads. In the announcement, Taito empha- sised that the aim of choosing whittling as the technique of the year was to show that