Each Visuvi scarf is a unique item

If you are interested in Visuvi scarves, please call or send me an email!

I design every Visuvi scarf to be unique; each scarf differs from one another. The colours and their rhythm as well as the warp and the weft of the weave vary. I give each scarf a name, and as if part of a natural process, the names arise from nature itself. Nature also influences and inspires the scarves' designs. I weave Visuvi scarves with a loom in the village of Visuvesi in Ruovesi, Tampere Region.

I prefer to use Finnish wool and small Finnish spinning mills because of their quality and environmental sustainability. In particular, I use wool from our native breed, the Finnsheep, but my scarves also contain grey Finnsheep and even Gotland sheep wool. For the warp I favour undyed, long-fibred combed yarn.

I dye the weft yarn for the woollen scarves with plant dyes. Finnish nature provides many plants and mushrooms suitable for dyeing: tansy, St. John's wort, birch, nettle, cortinar mushrooms and tooth fungi, to name a few. In addition to the plant dyes that I make, I use traditional natural dyes from overseas such as indigo, madder and cochineal.

In addition to Finnish wool, I use yarn spun from silk and alpaca wool as well as pure silk for the weft. Like wool, the silk entices with its characteristics: shine and weight. The silk-alpaca yarn that I use is 70% baby alpaca wool from Peru and 30% mulberry silk from Italy. The yarn is spun and dyed in Norway.

The weave creates the scarf's texture and pattern, which are supplemented by the materials and colours. The scarves play with texture and colour, pattern and rhythm – as well as the imagination.

Design by Pirjo Talvio-Pasanen

My background is a long career in communications, firstly as a journalist, then in the TTT Theatre and the public service broadcasting company Yle and lastly as a communications entrepreneur. I graduated as a textile artisan from SASKY Municipal Education and Training Consortium in 2018. The first Visuvi scarves were created during my studies.

Natural materials and wool in particular have always appealed to me. The simultanously coarse and shiny wool and its ability to absorb colour in a way that makes the end result always intense and full even when pale is enchanting. Wool – in the same way as silk – asks to be touched and felt, since the character of the material can be grasped best with one's skin.

The scarf charms with its timelessness. It is an ancient garment for both women and men that combines warmth and beauty. At its best, the scarf tells a story about its wearer's personality.

For me as the maker, the scarf embodies several things: the materials feeding my hands, the meditative process of collecting the plants and dyeing the yarn, the joy and freedom of designing and on the other hand the uncompromising precision that the weave and construction of the cloth demand.

In this age, the Visuvi scarf is also an ecological act both for its maker and wearer thanks to its materials and longevity.

Contact information:
Pirjo Talvio-Pasanen
M.A., textile artisan
Tel. +358 40 728 5260
pirjo.talvio@pointtia.fi