Fresh from Finland
Meet the design team at Novita, who love to blend traditional Nordic styles with modern colours and shapes to create stunning contemporary knits
SCANDINAVIAN
style has been hugely popular around the world in recent years, and no one captures the ‘New Nordic’ aesthetic better than Finnish yarn company Novita.
The brand launched its yarns in the UK this autumn through John Lewis stores, and its design team combines traditional and modern elements of Scandinavian knitting to offer patterns that are cosy, stylish, practical and fun.
Based in Helsinki, the Novita design team is incredibly hardworking, producing more than 500 patterns each year for its magazines and website. “All our in-house designers are from Finland, although we do also work with Swedish and other European freelancers,” explains Erika Appelström, Novita’s brand director. “We plan to cooperate more and more with Scandinavian and European freelancers in the future, too - we are always looking for new talent.”
Key members of the Novita design team include Minna Metsänen, known by her colleagues as the ‘Queen of Wool Socks’. “Minna loves to design socks, and has created hundreds of them since she has started at Novita more than 20 years ago!” says Erika. “Sisko Sälpäkivi is passionate about colour, and she enjoys coming up with bold colour combinations in her patterns. She also loves to try out new techniques and trends, such as colour pooling, Tunisian crochet, and macramé.
“Päivi Tissari is our technical genius, and is as focused on details as an engineer – she writes all of our patterns and instructions, and checks all the stitch counts for each size. Mari Kangas coordinates our marketing materials and also does some designing. Sara Rönnback produces all the content for our social media pages and our website, Novitaknits.com, and she work as a stylist on our photoshoots as well.
“As for me, as well as managing the brand, I come up with moodboards and guidelines for each season’s looks and themes.” One current source of inspiration is the Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, who created the Moomins. “We especially love her colour combinations, her creativity, and the great stories she produced between 1940 and 1960,” says Erika.
Novita’s pattern magazines are produced four times a year in Finland, and are filled with projects for men, women, children, and the home. The photography and styling are just gorgeous, and the magazines are filled with scenes of Finnish landscapes and appealing homes that just make us want to move to Finland! “We plan our photoshoot locations to achieve the mood that we want for each collection,” says Erika.
“Each of our collections is like a little story we want to tell, and the location makes an important frame for those stories. Our favourite place for shooting is in the countryside; among our peaceful forests, beautiful coastline, and our thousands of lakes – and of course, in magical Lapland.”
The seasonal magazines are only available in Finnish, but the Englishlanguage version of Novita’s website is packed with patterns for British knitters to try. John Lewis is also selling an exclusive range of Novita
pattern booklets - Nordic Cottage
Life, Nordic Wool Socks, and Nordic Baby - which encapsulate the best of Novita’s style.
There’s an impressive choice of stranded colourwork projects drawing on Finnish and Nordic traditions, as well as pretty textured knits, and thoroughly modern shapes. “Colourwork has always been popular among Nordic knitters, but cable knits and lacy shawls are popular today,” says Erika. “Finnish knitters have traditionally enjoyed creating simple cable patterns, along with colourwork yoked pullovers with strong colours inspired by Revontuli, the Northern Lights.”
Novita’s choice of sock patterns is particularly impressive; that’s because, as Erika explains, Finnish knitters simply love their wool socks! “They are so handy here in the cold weather, and quick to make. Knitters love to put their personality and their favourite colours into their socks.” – To try Novita’s online patterns, visit www.novitaknits.com/en/en/yarns – John Lewis stocks Novita yarns and pattern booklets. See the range at www.johnlewis.com or call 03456 049049 for details.