Himmeli

Have you ever heard of himmeli? I hadn't until I happened to stumble across some on etsy. I had no idea even really what I was looking at - all I knew is they were beautiful, geometric mobiles.

(a photo of a group of himmeli from HRUSKAA on etsy)

Himmeli is actually a traditional Finnish Christmas craft - a mobile created with hay/straw threaded on strings. You build the lines of your geometric shape using lengths of straw and tension from the string to hold everything taut. Modern himmeli are created substituting plastic drinking straws for the hay. The word "himmeli" comes from the Swedish word "himmel" meaning sky or heaven.

Visually the effect of the clean, minimal aesthetic is very appealing to me. However, the price tag for the himmeli I saw on etsy were NOT so appealing (haha!). So I googled a tutorial and made my own attempt(s).

The tutorial I found actually suggested trying wire instead of string, so the first himmeli I constructed I used wire. I also couldn't find black drinking straws (and I wanted black), so I settled on coffee stirrers (worked just fine, btw).

For my first himmeli, I followed my tutorial to the letter creating the shape of the bottom portion (the tutorial was only for a single himmeli shape) - for the top portion I did more of a "freestyle" geometric shape that evolved as I built it.

(an in-progress shot of me building my himmeli on my bedroom floor)

The result was BIG - and a bit busier than what I wanted. However, it was an experiment and I was just happy that it all came together:

I ended up hanging this creation in my little brother's room - sometimes I make things and randomly hang them from his ceiling. No, really I do. So when he found this was in his room, he had a minimal reaction to it (the life of having an artist as a sister, right?).

Before starting on my next attempt, I took a minute and visualized what I wanted my end result to look like. I knew I didn't want anything too elaborate or complex, since my wall space is pretty busy (in fact that blank white wall that is setting off the himmeli in these pictures usually has a giant oil painting on it)  - something simple and dramatic, with a touch of minimalistic whimsy. I knew I had seem diamond shapes and decided to include one of those in my design (wasn't hard to figure out how to make that shape from the shape I had the tutorial for). Also, knowing that string and not wire is the more traditional way to build a himmeli (and feeling that using string would eliminate the complaints I had about the process when I was using wire), I decided to use string for my next design.

The result was two (much) smaller mobiles I hung next to each other:

I was VERY happy with my end result. I felt it's perfect for the space, and it's so cool to look at. Plus, it was 3am by the time I finished these, so I was too tired to really be anything but satisfied with the night's work and ready to sleep!

I plan to hold on to my tutorial and extra supplies - when I have more space to call my own, I think I could happily share it with a few more himmeli ;-)

~md