Lamppu

 Yes, the title is in Finnish. It could also be in Kannada (or Kanglish, rather).

This might represent my move from Bangalore to Helsinki in late 2024.

The apartment we moved into was completely bare, and was missing even electrical fixtures. Thus for a while, I was able to see the northern lights from every room:

Aurora boreaLED at 60°N

While I was ready to stoically accept this lifestyle, it was brought to my notice that a lampshade was needed. I set about working on it, first by acquiring a second hand frame:

Making it easy for myself as always

I decided to upcycle the colourful milk cartons that we were otherwise throwing away (after consuming the milk of course). To avoid any other materials being used, I thought cutting strips and weaving through the frame would be a simple way to cover it. After a few no-goes, I worked out a pattern that left me a basket-case:

    

Houston, weave got a problem

The weave required a continous strip, which was managed using stapled joints at planned intervals. The joints were made explicit rather than hidden, because structural expressionism.

Staple and peautiful

Next were the lower squares. These were discrete, and could not use a continuous weave. I worked out a simpler back-and-forth winding for these:

Between the squares were the bottom triangles. Some mik cartons come with caps, which stay on even after unscrewing due to plastic waste disposal directives in the EU. I thought centering the cap in each triangle would create a dramatic pattern and reinforce the expression of the milk carton as structure.

The first trial was done using the same light blue carton, but I shifted to a red carton for some contrast. I had to work out a template to cut the exact shape of strips, the only place where this was needed.

Finally a single carton was used to cover the gap at the top and allow the cable to ascend to the ceiling rose. I worked out a custom weave here which crowned the structure (note the 'rubies').

     

The final effect is quite pleasant from above and below. 

While the process sounded logical and sequential, it was actually discontinuous and slow, and took me ALMOST A YEAR. It's position was briefly threatened by some IKEA riffraff:

Pitting Indians against Indians. Typical

P.S: This still holds, although the reason I may have no beer now is because it agrees less with me.

Cannibal Cloths

The distance from onepitcher might be simply because it has stopped agreeing with me. Consider my absence one long hangover, during which time I unfaithfully traversed other forms of media - Instagram, Youtube, and even – horror of horrors – the written word. However, at long last, I'm back, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt*:

This isn't just any t-shirt, little one! It's an organ donee - the pocket comes from an older tee that was on its way out. You see, I now need spectacles for reading, the glasses performing the functions of making me older, and visor. But since I don't need them all the time, I needed somewhere to slip them in. At the same time, my old graphic tees (many of them of long beloved metal bands) were faded, stretched out or torn, though not as much as I was about tossing them out. So I made a pocket-template and started selecting bits of the old tees and hand-stitching them on to new blank tees.

The result: Brand new tees with one-of-a-kind graphics and a pocket for my glasses. Once I figured out a workflow, I used the services of a local tailor in the very interesting but ramshackle Arihant Plaza building. A few more examples below, since you couldn't be bothered to click to a separate folder in this day and age.

*The concept being so lousy that the Wikipedia article is deleted but the discussion is retained as a reminder for future gimmicists (gimmnasts?)