Course description
Get excited about eco-printing and design textiles with plants found in nature.
Learn to make lotions from nature's products. Strengthen your mental skills and experience the well-being effects of nature through the Metsämieli exercises carried out in nature.
And all in the same course! During the course, you will learn the basics of eco-printing. You can renew your own wool socks, mittens or even a scarf by designing them with the eco-printing technique. The teacher will also have ready-made scarves that you can redeem (made of thin, dense wool fabric or silk). You will learn the work stages related to the technique from the beginning, i.e. washing and undressing the fabric, selecting and collecting and arranging the plants, using color blankets, rolling technique and finally fixing by steaming. The course will teach you how to make oil extracts from natural plants and, in turn, creams and ointments from them. Pre-dried plants are used in oil extractions, but at the same time you will learn how you can collect and utilize plants yourself in home cosmetics in the future. The course program also includes an important part of outdoor activities, i.e. moving around the nature near Valamo and identifying and collecting plants for plant printing within the framework of everyone's rights. At the same time, you will learn about the therapeutic effects of plants in natural cosmetics. During the outdoor activities, Metsämieli exercises based on the well-being and health effects of nature are also done, with the aim of strengthening your own mental skills. The instructors are nature instructor, forest mind instructor, art historian and master of theology Minna Koistinen, and artisan Raila Koponen.
The Epassi mobile application is used as a payment method for this course.
Course program
Monday 15.6.
15.00 Arrival at the monastery and accommodation. Dinner at Trapesa.
16.00 Course opening: Introduction to the course and review of the program, theory and preliminary preparations
- Introductions to all areas of the course and presentation of additional material
- Preparations for printing: protecting the space with plastic (tables), soaking the dyes if necessary, selecting materials / reviewing what everyone has brought with them and presenting the options to be purchased if necessary
18.00 IX hour, evening service, small post-evening service and evening prayers in the main church
19.00 Preparations continuing
20.00 12.00
14.00 Work continues (4 h).
- We put the fabrics used as color blankets in the dye solution to “make themselves”
- A break between work, during which you can go buy coffee/tea and a snack.
- Forest mood / nature walk, during which we get to know what plants are in nature at the time and what plants each person would use for their work, and at the same time we talk about how plants could be used in the manufacture of cosmetics – plants are not yet collected in this context. During the walk, a few Forest Mindfulness exercises will be done.
18.00 IX hour, evening service, small post-evening service and evening prayers in the main church
19.00 Work
- Preparation of oil extracts from dried plants. Making lip balm while the oil extract is simmering.
20.00 Evening meal
Wednesday 17.6.
06.00 Midnight service, morning service and I moment
07.30- Breakfast
09.00 Work (3 h)
- Let's go out into nature, that is, collect plants for the upcoming printing work and at the same time relax by doing a few Forest Mind exercises.
- Plan the arrangement of plants, the arrangement of color blankets and the folding of the material.
- Plan the arrangement of plants, the arrangement of color blankets and the folding of the material.
- Plan the arrangement of plants, the rolling of the material and tying.
12.00 Prayer service in the main church
12.30 Lunch
13.00 Work (5 h)
- Plant arrangement, rolling and tying of the material continues
- Rolled / tied materials for steaming
- During the steaming (1-2 h), ointments are prepared from the oil extracts prepared the previous day.
- Unroll the plant material from the roll and let the selected textiles dry
A break between work, during which you can go and buy coffee/tea and a snack.
18.00 IX moment, evening service, small post-evening service and evening prayers in the main church
19.30 Evening
Thursday 18.6.
06.00 Midnight service, morning service and liturgy in the main church
07.30- Breakfast
09.00 Course summary (1 h)
12.00 Final lunch and end of the course
Room handover no later than 12.00
