Birkenwasser knits

This episode takes you to Punkaharju to a lovely knit retreat organised by Kässäkerho Pom Pom. You will see some of the most beautiful Finnish winter scenes, and get to see what happens when 25 knitters get together for a weekend.







Siri by Linnea Öhman: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/siri-4

Arctic Blizzard: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/arctic-blizzard

Knitlandia by Clara Parkes: https://amzn.to/2CnSuJt (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Vertices Unite by Stephen West: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vertices-unite

Tänään neulon podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWyIl4TupD0xXueXtAbIJAg

Obviously, one of the highlights of Oslo Strikkefestival was the marketplace and all the lovely yarn there. However, I had some extra days in Oslo, and of course that meant more yarn shopping! I had asked for some recommendations of lovely yarn shops, and I was advised to visit Værbitt and Pickles. I also heard that there are nice souvenirs at the Heimen Husfliden yarn shop at GlasMagasinet, so that got on my list also.



Pickles is located in Grünerløkka, at Markeveien 56. They have a lovely selection of yarns, mostly their own Pickles brand. I found it very difficult to resist these rows full of color, and ended up getting a colorwork cardigan quantity of their Pickles Merino Tweed. I should have taken the above picture before getting my yarns off the shelf, though!

Værbitt is a lovely little shop of children's books and hand-dyed yarn. It's located in Tøyen at Sørligata 46, which is within a walking distance from Pickles. The yarns were organised on the shelves by color instead of the normal brand/type categorisation. This really makes the shop look awesome! It might be slightly more difficult to plan colorwork if different colorways are found at opposite sides of the shop, but it's a small shop so it shouldn't be that difficult.


Heimen Husfliden is located at the bottom floor of GlasMagasinet at Stortorvet 9. It has the largest selection of yarns of these three shops. They have all the popular Norwegian brands: Rauma, Sandnes, Du Store Alpakka, etc. There was also a wall filled with rya yarns, and I did feel tempted to get a rya rug amount of them after my ryaknuter class, but somehow some voice of sanity in my head told me to practice with scrap yarns first. And maybe start with something smaller than a large wall hanging. Ryas were mentioned in the evening news just the other day, by the way: how they have become popular again and how people are learning to make them or hunt for old ones from flea markets. Maybe it's too late to make one now?


I had been wanting to knit a colorwork cardigan since the steeking class that I took earlier this year. With all the possible shades of Rauma Finullgarn, I was able to find the combination I wanted for the Cherry Bloom cardigan by Lene Tøsti. At the Strikkefestival I noticed so many Siri cardigans by Linnea Öhman, that I ended up buying yarn for that as well. I learned about a charity initiative going on in Norway at that time, #Oransjeskjerf ("Orange Scarf"), and as I saw a box of the orange yarns at Heimen Husfliden, I decided to buy these charity scarf yarns as well. And I got a skein of the lovely hand dyed mohair at Værbitt. And a gradient Kauni for no apparent reason (it's not even Norwegian, so it doesn't count as a souvenir). But then again, do you always need a reason to buy yarn? With these additions to my Strikkefestival purchases, I think I made good use of the piece of checked-in luggage that was included in my flight ticket!

It's Tour-de-Sock time again! Last summer I swore that I would never do it again, but by May I was just checking the schedule and yarn requirements, matching my stash with the sock schedule and not going to participate at all, and before I knew what I was doing, I had signed up for the competition.


The first round started on Saturday, July 15 at 2 PM. This was in the middle of a family vacation tour through the Baltic states and we were supposed to drive from Daugavpils in Latvia to Vilnius in Lithuania that day. I knew that I couldn't sit at the hotel and knit until the socks were finished, but I wanted to use the driving time for knitting. Luckily, the world's best playground is located in Daugavpils, so the rest of the family agreed to spend the morning in the park and head to Vilnius after lunch. I was able to read through the pattern before we left, and luckily it wasn't too complicated so knitting in the car was ok. I skipped the part of learning what Turkish cast on is, and used a more familiar one due to the circumstances. In Vilnius, I was able to knit a couple of hours more before going to bed.


Luckily, the pattern was easy to memorise, and I carried the socks with me, taking advantage of any playground stops or waiting times. Of course, I didn't get the socks done before leaving Vilnius, so there was more knitting time on the road, stopping in Trakai and Kaunas before arriving in Klaipeda. I managed to knit the easy parts during the day, and then for the unusual heel construction (afterthought leg - as in afterthought heel, except that here you knit the heel first and then pick up stitches for leg) and the fins on top of the cuffs I did in the evening at the hotel. The last fins I knitted on top of the Parnidis dune on the Curonian Spit, which, by the way, is one of the most amazing places I've seen. We stopped at a cafe to take pictures of the socks, and I tried to e-mail the pics and post them to TdS forum to claim my points. In the end, four days after the beginning of stage 1, I was 139th to finish. It didn't go that well, but I have to say that I'm happier for the day in Vilnius than I would have been for staying at the hotel and finishing earlier. Also, with the new point system it means that I still got 17 points. Let's see if that's going to be any good in the overall standing.

Four days in London should mean four yarn shops, right? Well, that was the plan to start with. I knew that I wanted to visit Loop London, so that was our first stop on the first day. And let me tell you, it was all you could wish for in a yarn shop!


The shop is located in Islington on a little street, Camden Passage, full of lovely shops. The area alone is worth the trip, and you can easily talk travel companions to join you for yarn shopping here. The only thing is that the shop is rather small, so on a Saturday afternoon it was full and there was a line up of travel companions waiting outside.


The shop has all those lovely yarns from around the world. I was only interested in souvenir shopping this time, and the staff was super helpful in not only pointing out the British brands, but also telling more about who is behind the brand and where exactly the yarns come from. Even if the shop was full of shoppers, there were enough shop assistants to wind yarn and help everyone.


The shop is organised so that fingering and lace weight yarns are downstairs, and DK and up upstairs. I was assuming that I would be more of a downstairs type of a knitter, but to my surprise I made some great finds upstairs. For example, this gorgeous Alpaca Tweed, made by The Border Mill exclusively for Loop London. I also happened to touch a skein of Old Maiden Aunt alpaca-silk mix, and after seeing the Blossom colorway just had to get some of that. I wanted to get something in fingering weight as well, and chose Shilasdair luxury 4ply, dyed with wild mushrooms.



The next shop on my list was Knit with Attitude in Stoke Newington. It's a shop for eco-friendly and ethical knitting, and who wouldn't want to support that? This shop takes a bit more travelling to get to, so we hopped on a double decker and thought of it as a sightseeing tour. However, the closer you get to the shop, the less sights there are, and the neighbourhood isn't really a tourist attraction. The shop is well worth the trip, though. Lovely yarns and a lovely shop that's half gift shop, half yarn shop as they share it with Of Cabbages and Kings. We actually walked pass the shop the first time, as we only noticed the posters and didn't see the yarns in the back.


There was a big couch in the shop, so in theory you could let your travel companion have a seat while browsing through the selection. In practice, the couch was taken. We were left on our own to browse the shop, but I found some souvenir yarns on my own. They were the shop's own I Knit or Dye brand, both sock yarns and merino singles. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention at the cashier, and only later noticed that she mistakenly sold the yarns as "books and magazines". In case you are a tourist in London and plan to get VAT refunds, do check your receipts! In the UK, there's no VAT on books, so accidentally selling yarns as books effectively puts your VAT refund in the shop owner's pocket.


By the fourth day in London I had this bag full of yarn, so I decided to skip the fourth yarn shop. It is London, after all, so there's plenty to see and do even if you don't go yarn shopping every day! I recommend the new Design Museum; they have an exhibition called Fear and Love that's interesting for knitters. There are knitwear items by Chinese designer Ma Ke and Fibre Market by Christien Meindertsma, an interesting installation showing the actual fiber contents of old clothes - not always exactly what the tag says. There's also an interesting fashion exhibition, The Vulgar, at Barbican Art Gallery. And Robert Rauschenberg at Tate Modern, although that one doesn't have anything to do with knitting.

Some of you might have wondered how I managed to take such a sunny picture of the Broken tweed stitch mitts for my previous post. Well, it wasn't in the darkness of Helsinki in November, but in sunny Saaremaa in Estonia. Our autumn holiday took us to Kuressaare, which is the capital of Saaremaa island. The last time I visited Saaremaa was some 20 years ago, so I had totally forgotten what a lovely place it is!


One of the testers for my Mesmeria dress is Estonian and she used Estonian Aade Long gradient yarn for the dress. I love the way it turned out, so I wanted to find some of that yarn for souvenir. Unfortunately, she didn't know of any yarn shops in Kuressaare, but as she put it "if there are yarn shops you will find them".


In a small town of 15 000 inhabitants you might not expect to find yarn shops, but Estonia is a country of knitters and there were "Käsitööpood" signs everywhere! Mostly the shops sell knitted items, but some of them also yarn. The first shop that I visited was Tiiu Tanu handicrafts shop on Lossi 1. I admired all the knitted items on sale, but I didn't find anything interesting in their yarn selection - until I looked under the table and that's where all the Aade Long yarns were!


I believe that I found exactly the yarns that my tester used in her project. Although, I have to say that I'm not totally sure: we didn't have a common language with the ladies in the shop, and either they didn't understand my question of how the colors look like once knitted or they just didn't have a sample. I'll let the yarn surprise me!

Unprocessed wool yarn and clothing at Nøstebarn

Tallinn has plenty to offer for knitters. Several small yarn shops and plenty of traditional hand knitted items for sale. We traveled to Tallinn to see Zemfira live, but while you are there, why not visit a couple of yarn shops also? On the first evening in Tallinn we were in Kalamaja neighborhood. We visited Telliskivi Loomelinnak hipster center in an old electrical engineering factory (with history going as far back as 1869 Baltic Railway factories) and found two lovely little shops: Rohelinevihmavari yarn shop and Minu väike maailm children's clothing shop. Roheline is a shop that sells ecological products and training. Their yarn selection is mostly Drops yarns, and they have KnitPro needles and tools. Next to Roheline is Minu väike maailm, a shop that sells kids' clothing. They have hand knitted alpaca and wool hats, mittens, socks, cardigans, etc. for little kids, as well as other clothes that have been designed and made in Estonia. Great place for souvenir shopping, that is! There's also a cool restaurant at Telliskivi Loomelinnak: F-hoone.



How to get there? Take tram 2 from the center (there's a tram stop in front of the harbor if you're arriving by boat from Finland): in one direction you come to Telliskivi, and in the opposite direction get off at Autobussijaam for Wool & Woollen (it's on the other side of Tartu mnt from Karnaluks, for those of you who are heading to the biggest yarn store in Tallinn). Buy a smarcard at any R-kiosk for 2 euros and a day ticket to public transportation for 3 euros. Alternatively you can take a cab that doesn't cost much, and both places are also within a walking distance if you are used to walking around.

I had the opportunity to spend one day in Stockholm and I wanted to visit Litet nystan yarn shop after hearing so much good about it, for example, reading Senni's report last spring. It's located near Slussen in Södermalm, a nice walk from Viking Line terminal. Unfortunately, I didn't have that much time to spend in the shop, so all I did was stroll around to see what they have. There were many brands that I wasn't familiar with, so I might return some other time to pay more attention to those.


This time I knew that I wanted to try the shop's own name brand handpainted yarns. They didn't have the lovely cashmere blend that I had seen another friend knitting with, and I wasn't too amazed by the colors in the otherwise lovely merino lace yarn, so I ended up with the same sock yarn as Senni did, only in a different color. Shocking pink that is!



After admiring the lovely selection of brands and yarns I wasn't familiar with I reached the last ones: Malabrigo sock and Madelinetosh tosh merino light. It doesn't make that much sense to buy these from Stockholm when I could just walk to my LYS here in Helsinki for that. But seeing these colors made me return to the shelf and pick up the skeins, and as I looked at my watch I noticed that I must be heading back to the ship. So, there was no time to think which skeins to buy and I just rushed to the counter an bought all of them. I'll have to start knitting more shawls now!




Oh, there was one new yarn on my pile, or new for me, that is. Madelinetosh Pashmina, a merino-silk-cashmere blend. Don't you just love that colorway! And it's called Flashdance, how cool is that!