Former top-biathlete Kaisa Mäkäräinen on crafts: “I might have ruined many athletic performances by knitting too much”

When Finns watched Kaisa Mäkäräinen compete in biathlon at winter events, few suspected what she was doing before each race. She would knit, crochet, or do cross-stitch to calm her mind. She still travels extensively and knits while on the road. The finished piece doesn’t have to be perfect, and sometimes a sweater might evolve into a vest.

What is your favorite type of craft?

I spend a lot of time browsing pattern books and magazines, and I love starting new projects. I usually have several in progress—maybe too many. Right now, I have three different sweaters on my needles.

I get bored if there’s a tedious part, like a long stretch of stockinette stitch or when I have to knit an identical second sock or mitten. I’m a bit impatient and can rush things, but I’ve learned to slow down. I’ve also learned to be kinder to myself about my own work.

“I can’t draw or consider myself particularly artistic. Knitting is how I express my creativity,” Kaisa says. She used Novita’s Hehku yarn to knit this sweater following Myssyfarmi’s pattern, and it became her favorite summer knit last year.

Kaisa chooses colors for her knits based on if she can picture herself still wearing them ten years from now.

Kaisa makes knits for herself and as gifts. Next, she’ll whip up something small for a friend’s baby.

Where did your passion for crafts begin?

There has always been a lot of crafting in my family. In junior high school, we had an amazing craft teacher, and crafts was one of my favorite subjects. We sewed T-shirts, sweatshirts, and even a long white satin dressing gown. We learned how to make pockets by sewing cargo pants.

About 15 years ago, I got back into crafting. During my sports career, there was a lot of traveling and hotel downtime, so I needed something to do. At that time, we didn’t yet have social media on our phones. At one training camp, I made mittens, and they actually turned out fine. Since then, I’ve been knitting a lot.

None of my teammates got into it; the guys played PlayStation. But among my international competitors, especially those from Norway, Sweden, and Germany, there were a lot of knitters.

Last winter, Kaisa made a very long scarf, trying intarsia knitting for the first time. It turned out so long that it’s slightly impractical. “You never know which things will become your favorite,” she says.

On competition mornings, focusing carefully on cross-stitch would transport me to another world; otherwise, my thoughts would have kept circling around the upcoming competition. I’m sure I’ve ruined many performances by overdoing it, ending up with a stiff neck from knitting. Sometimes the masseurs banned me from knitting. During Christmas gift rushes, I never confessed that I kept knitting anyway. I certainly felt it in the precision of my shooting when my neck was loosened up.

What do you love most about crafts?

I love that something new and tangible can take shape with just yarn a couple of wooden sticks. I’ve always been a hands-on type. I’ve always been a hands-on type. You can erase a computer file with a press of a button, but you can’t do that with a craft project.

There’s always a personal touch in a piece. If I got stressed out about my mistakes, my ex-partner would remind me the piece is unique.

The best feeling is when the person receiving a knitted gift really loves it. One of my male friends still wears the beanie I made him more than ten years ago. It’s nice to know who you’re making something for, because you end up thinking about that person a lot. Now that I’m knitting a sweater for my brother’s girlfriend, I notice I keep thinking of her.

Kaisa's follower count on social media is in the hundreds of thousands, so naturally many of them are also craft fans. Kaisa’s posts about her projects attract a lot of attention. You can find her on Instagram as @kaisamakarainen. The yoke sweater she’s wearing here was a gift to her brother’s girlfriend.

This teal-green cardigan was Kaisa's big project for the fall. While working on it, she learned to make a button placket.

What successes make you the happiest?

Completing big projects, like a rocking chair cover. At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, I crocheted colorful hexagons from thin cotton yarn. Later I found an old rocker, fixed up its wooden parts, and decided to use the hexagons as a cover. Finishing it felt great, and the chair ended up in our family’s little cottage.

In sports, you get the feeling of success from adrenaline. Crafting maybe doesn't provide such memorable experiences. In competitive sports, success is measured against others, but in crafting, it’s measured more against yourself.

What things have gone wrong?

It’s surprisingly tricky to size a hat correctly, as yarn stretches and I knit loosely. Once, I had to unravel a men’s ribbed sweater I’d worked on for quite a while, only realizing late in the process that it was turning out huge.

I’m a risk-taker and enjoy improvising. For instance, I find Icelandic sweaters too wide, sleeves included, so I shape the sleeves to look right to me and then try to match the stitches to the yoke. Sometimes my work changes direction: Sometimes my pieces change as I go: when I ran out of yarn for what was supposed to be a long-sleeved sweater, so I turned it into a T-shirt. Once, I got bored making a sweater and it became a vest.

“Sometimes I daydream about making a living as a fitness instructor and crafter. But I’m not super fast, so I doubt I’d earn enough from my projects,” Kaisa says.

Kaisa loves discovering different ways of making things by hand. She made this macramé plant hanger herself.

What kind of dreams do you have for your creative pursuits?

I’d like to do more woodworking, like building an outdoor dining set, and I’m interested in ceramics too. When we built our log house, I helped paint and saw. I enjoy projects whose end product is something you can see. When you make things yourself, you become more attached to them.

Kaisa loves soft, non-itchy merino wool yarns the most.