Atelier Veini’s Patchwork Pieces on the Main Stage of the Finnish Craft & Design Fair

A little over a week ago, the Finnish Craft & Design Fair took place in Tampere, Finland, drawing more than 46,000 visitors. I had the opportunity to design and create striking stage decorations for the Fashion & Design stage — tall patchwork pieces standing over six metres high. Many visitors were amazed when they realised that the towering surfaces were actually patchwork textiles and not giant printed fabrics.

The stage at the Finnish Craft & Design Fair 2025 was decorated with patchwork panels designed and handcrafted by me. The radiant host of the stage is Sanna Laitinen.

Me with my partner in the project, visual designer Emma Kinnunen.

The collaboration began with an idea from creative designer Emma Kinnunen. She had followed my work for some time, and while working with Tampereen Messut on the event’s stage concept, she came up with the idea of using my work as the basis for the stage décor. I was thrilled by the proposal, and it was a joy to join the project and create something completely new for such a large event. And truly — what could be more fitting for a craft fair stage than handmade textile art?

Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

What made this project especially new for me was not only the massive scale and the new purpose of the pieces, but also the constraints that come with working within a brand’s visual identity. The challenge was to design something that reflected the fair’s brand image while still looking unmistakably like my own work. Although I always take clients’ colour preferences, for example, into account in commissioned pieces, working with a brand meant following a much more specific and clearly defined colour palette and style.

The main colours for the Finnish Craft & Design Fair 2025 were bright green and both dark and light pink, with yellow, white and blue as accent colours. This palette definitely took me outside my comfort zone — I naturally gravitate toward more muted, earthy tones in my work. But it was refreshing to immerse myself in a world of bright colours and vibrant combinations.

My design process began with studying the fair’s visual identity for the year. As I looked at it, my mind drifted toward summer, flowers and flourishing gardens. Through many sketches, the final outcome became a joyful, abstract view into a paradisiacal garden — glimpsed from just beyond a fence, with its flowers, paths and stone textures.

On stage at The Finnish Craft & Design Fair, fashion shows from Molla Mills / Laine Publishing and Sarianna Niskala.

As with all of my work, the fabrics used in these pieces are made entirely from recycled textiles: old curtains, tablecloths, bedsheets and more. As stage decorations, these materials gained a second life — and they will soon have a third. The plan is to repurpose them into interior items such as quilts and cushion covers.

Patchwork Named as Finland’s Craft Technique of the Year 2026

These patchwork pieces were an especially timely choice for the stage this year. By a wonderful coincidence, on Friday 14 November, the Finnish Crafts Organization Taitoliitto announced on the same stage that patchwork has been selected as Finland’s Craft Technique of the Year 2026.

I’m absolutely delighted that patchwork will step into the spotlight in Finland next year. I’ve aimed to highlight the technique in a fresh and engaging way through my own work. It’s a beautiful way to give old textiles new life — and imagination is the only limit to how discarded fabrics can be revived into something surprising, expressive and completely new.

Long live patchwork!

-Juulia