I have been following Tuija's work for a good portion of time and thought I might share her work on the blog as inspiration, because she is no ordinary crochet artist! She combines her mind-blowing free form crochet with collage techniques to create unique, charming works of art with vintage Scandinavian feel. Tuija Heikkinen comes from northern Finland. She has a fashion & textile degree, but as she says - her heart and soul is in various fields of arts and crafts, hence she works as an arts and crafts teacher and she also has a small company for printed textiles. One cannot find a lot about her on the internet because, in her own words, she is an old fashion person when it comes to social media. What I could find regarding her work is the reference to becoming a crochet artist and creating her crochet illustrations: "I found crocheting by chance some years ago. My grandmother was a great crocheter, and her stitches would have gone around the world many times. My first main material was printed textile. It has all the essential things that drive my working. First there is an empty surface and an idea how to fill it with colours and shapes. The same goes with my crocheting. I don't do sketches, I just start with some theme and let the hook fly. I call my crochets hook pictures, hook sketches or hook illustrations. One could think of them also as print textile sketches, or book illustrations. I don't use much direct instructions or patterns, I get along just fine with some basic stitches." Her instagram is her window to the world. Dive into it if you were seduced by these images!