Textiles are clothes for the home. Just like when dressing myself, I like to use them in layers: pile up extra blankets, cushion, sheepskins and rugs in the winter and then strip them down in April, May to fit the airier spring and summer mood.

Familiar forms and textures bring comfort. Surround yourself with objects that feel meaningful to you.

Something green for every room of the house.

15 / 12 / 17

Christmas Sheets

I make the beds before noon on the 24th that, towards the afternoon, is the main holiday in Finland.

The sheets are waiting in the closet. Everyone in the house gets lovingly laundered and ironed bedlinen with a little gift under the pillow.

Though this may sound like a small detail, it is actually one of the few important holiday preparations that I do.

Everyone loves beds with freshly laundered bedlinen. Tired and happy after a festive evening, nothing beats the feeling of washing up and crawling in.

Our dog with her sharp primal, sensual intelligence is usually the first one to experience this pleasure. Happy on the floor daytime, she always gravitates towards the bed right after I changed the sheets.

Instead of going crazy about some flooding closet or things not being perfect in our home, I am mostly interested in this kind of not necessarily seen but easily sensed qualities.

Those are what form our life experience anyway, and define, if we like a place and can be fully ourselves in it, or not.

Familiar forms and textures bring comfort; I do not buy new sheets and blankets for Christmas but wash and freshen up the existing ones.

I also like to use flowers, such dried lavender or rose, to scent the bed. That requires not more effort than to put a lavender sachet in the linen closet or under pillow.

Sweet-smelling organic roses for bedside table. Sachets filled with petals in bed.

Or simply a few drops of essential oil on pillow: geranium soothes, while the smell of jasmine, rose or lavender has a calming effect on us.