Textile Travel: Estonia

Estonia has a very interesting and rich textile tradition that deserves its own blog post. It may not be as well known as the famous Latvian mittens but nevertheless, there is actually even more to discover in Estonia if you are interested in textiles and especially knitting!

Folk costumes

To start with, once only has to have a look at the colourful folk costumes that are specific to each region of Estonia and which are an important part of the national identity and consciousness. We were lucky enough to visit during the 12th Youth Dance and Song Celebration ( XII noorte laulu- ja tantsupidu) which takes places every four to five years, alternating with the general Dance and Song Celebration which is a national institution. Through work I was able to attend the general rehearsal of the dancing celebration which was a truly impressive experience: almost 5000 children and young people dancing different traditional and modern choreographies and all in the different regional folk costumes. Such a beautiful, colourful, inspiring sight I can hardly describe it!

 In the pictures you can see a small selection of the costumes I spotted in the parade that led up to the singing celebration but one of the most impressive things was the logistics of it: thousands of kids, some as young as 7 or 8 from all over the country travelled to Tallinn to sleep in schools and practise a whole week with their dance teachers to form this enormous dance celebration. Many of them were away from home for the first time without their parents and you could tell that the parents were extremely proud, watching them from the sidelines. In the stadion were the dance celebration was held it was most impressive how they managed to get the kids on and off the field on time and in order to be precisely where they were supposed to be. It involved a lot of running and sometimes I felt bad for the little ones. But everything went well and I have a lot of respect for the teachers to manage everything so well.

Anyways, I can definitely recommend attending one of the Dance and Song Festivals to get to know the Estonian culture and tradition better, even if it is only to look at the beautiful traditional costumes. Sometimes it was a bit too nationalistic for my taste but maybe that's just me as a German, for historical reasons I think we're often quite uneasy when too many flags are being waved around but I give it to the Estonians that their history is quite different in many ways! 

Embroidery

As you can see in the pictures above, embroidery is one essential element in the beautiful designs of the costumes. Since we didn't travel to all regions in Estonia I will take as an example the traditional costume of the island of Muhu, which is also one of the most "spectactular" ones because the decorations are so lavish and the colours so vibrant and recognizable. Muhu also has a particular knitting tradition which I will describe in more detail below.

Joking around at Muhu museum: traditional costumes for both men and women

Muhu embroidery is famous for its intricacy and also for its colours, which are mainly orange, red, and pink as well as yellow for the woven fabric of the skirts (you can see this best in the picture above at the parade). We visited the Muhu museum which showcased some very nice examples of the embroidery both on the folk costume as well as on blankets and other textiles. Some are more geometric based patterns in cross-stitch such as the apron in the picture above and another tradition is the flower embroidery which is more free but equally beautiful. Unfortunately I'm not the expert on embroidery or folk costumes but I really recommend reading this blog post on the blog "Embroidery and Folk Costumes" which gives a lot of details and is a great resources. 

Knitting

Handknitted mittens for sale in Tallinn

I didn't know this book but it looks like the equivalent to the "Latvian Mitten Bible" 

Of course, knitting! When I arrived in Tallinn I immediately made a plan to go yarn shopping (see also details below) which led to Thomas' suspicion that I had only chosen to go to Estonia in order to fuel my addiction. Not true, but I did spend a fair amount looking at and shopping for yarn.

The Estonian knitting tradition is very rich and similar to its neighbour Latvia: multi-coloured patterns mainly used for mittens but also used for socks, hats, vests, sweaters, and other garments that are typical for each region. Since my mum is a regular visitor to Estonia she has often brought me books and yarn which I have already used in different projects such as this one or this one. One book that I liked in particular is Aino Praakli's "Kirikindad - patterned mittens" which is a great resource for traditional patterns, based on original mittens she documented in museums.

Knitting is everywhere in Estonia and many small towns have shops where local people can sell their handknit products for next to nothing - and they are beautiful! I was so tempted to buy a pair of mittens but I restrained myself because I already had 1.5 kg of yarn in my suitcase. Nevertheless it was a lot of fun to check out the colour combinations and styles. 

Muhu knitting

I'm picking the Muhu knitting as one example of regional styles, partly because we happened to go there and see the samples in the museum ourselves but also because it is one of the most beautiful ones.

 Even within Estonia, the Muhu style sticks out because of its flashy colours and some typical pattern elements such as birds, plants, and certain geometrical patterns. You can see some examples in the book pictured above. What is also interesting are the stockings - because they are actually knee-high - which don't feature in all the Estonian regions but which seem to be typical for Muhu, too.

You can read more in Kate Davie's book review which has a lot of additional information which I wouldn't be able to cover all in one blogpost. (I'm actually not sure if she reviewed exactly the same book pictured above because I forgot to note down the title but I think it is.)

Haapsalu lace

The second knitting style I wanted to highlight is the tradition of knitted Haapsalu lace shawls. It is very different from the traditional mittens and the Muhu style described above, and also probably "younger" since wikipedia defines the Haapsalu shawls as  "a knitted lace shawl that originated in the seaside resort town of Haapsalu, Estonia during the early 19th century."

Indeed, we had the pleasure to visit the Haapsalu Lace Centre and check out some of the samples you can see above. Besides the fact that Haapsalu is a cute little seaside resort, the Lace Centre is an excellent place to learn about the shawl tradition and even learn how to knit one yourself! I'm personally not a big fan of lace so I skipped this opportunity but I think it would be a real achievement to finish one of those masterpieces - just to prove that you can!

Other crafts: woodwork

Finally, I can't really leave out another important Estonian craft which really impressed me: woodcarving and woodwork in general is everywhere. It kind of makes sense - considering that much of the country is covered with trees. But still, the skill is remarkable and I admired the smooth buttons and jewelry as well as the cutting boards and hand-woven baskets.

Especially the baskets made from birch bark are wonderful but unfortunately I couldn't take back as much wood products as yarn - airline luggage restrictions suck. But I couldn't entirely resist and bought a necklace and a bracelet similar to the ones pictured above.

The carved buttons totally made me swoon and they felt amazing but I decided against them because Thomas had already promised to make me some himself. Now, this will be a difficult challenge to live up to!

Useful addresses and information

Flyer of the Estonian Handicraft Association with the addresses of the different regional handicraft centres

Map with the location of the regional handicraft centres

I have to admit that I relied heavily on the information my mum collected on her extended trips to Estonia and then passed it on to me and she even wrote an own blogpost about it but unfortunately it is in German.

The two pictures above show a publication by the Estonian Handicraft Association (Eesti Käsitöö) which has its main centre in Tallinn and then local antennas in the different regions, as you can see on the map above. It's definitely worth visiting if you are looking for affordable handknits but they have only a smaller selection of yarn. The focus is on knitted products.

But of course there are also regular yarn shops and the ones that my mum recommended are actually all within 5 minutes walking of each other, very close to the new Tallinn bus station. Here I'm summarizing the addresses and directions for the Tallinn shops, translated into English:

• Karnaluks (K.A. Hermanni 1, Tallinn, Entrance C)

An amazingly huge shop with everything that the knitters' (or crafters') heart could desire. It resembles a warehouse and has stacks and stacks of yarn boxes that reach up to the ceiling so you need some time to go through everything. It has a lot of acrylic rubbish yarn but also some Rowan (I saw felted tweed, fine tweed, and fine lace) and the prices are very good. Of course they also have the traditional Estonian yarn in many colours that you can use for mittens or jumpers. Besides the yarn it also has the biggest selection of needles and other knitting accessories I've ever seen in a single place and again, you have the choice between well-known brands at decent prices as well as cheaper local makes. The shop is a bit difficult to find and the entrance does not have a sign (to be honest, it doesn't even look like a shop) but if you stick to the C Entrance and take the stairs up to the second floor you will know immediately when you're there.

• Abakhan Fabrics (Tartu mnt. 63, Tallinn)

Supposedly on the same block as Karnaluks but I couldn't find it - maybe it was closed? It definitely confirms the general trend of Estonian shops and restaurant that like to be hidden and ideally do not look like anything special from the outside!

• Wool and Woollen (Tartu mnt. 60 d, Tallinn)

Accross the street from Karnaluks, this is a small and cosy shop completely dedicated to yarn. It looks more like what I expected a yarnshop to be like - unfortunately it was also closed due to the summer holidays. But what I heard from my mum and what I could see through the window was very promising.

If you happen to travel to Estonia and you want more knitting-related advice feel free to get in touch!

Dyeing speckled yarn

Another yarn dyeing experiment and a very successful one indeed! As there has been somewhat of a recent hype (if you can call it like that in the micro universe of indie knitters, spinners, and dyers) about speckled, gradient, and marled yarn I have to admit I have also been affected. Pretty pictures on ravelry and instragram do not help, either, and so I suddenly felt the urge to try and dye some speckled yarn myself. For those who are not part of above-mentioned universe: "speckled" refers to small splashes and bits of colour in an otherwise naturally white or uniformely coloured yarn. Some nice examples that I like can be found here or here. 

As one nowadays does, the first step to starting my project was googling a good tutorial. I found this one by "Fiber Artsy" and it seemed pretty straight forward, so I followed it. I only adjusted a few steps, such as mordanting with alum and using textile dye instead of KoolAid (sadly not available in Belgium). To show what I did exactly I summarized it step-by-step below:

Preparation

I used a 100 % wool yarn which I think was treated to be "superwash" but really nothing special. It was already wound in skein so I had to unwind it to be able to dye it (see picture above). I used my swift but honestly, I think it would have been faster by hand. Except that I was missing a second pair of hands. Anyway, the swift did the job.

Mordanting

As in my previous dyeing experiments (with rhubarb root and with avocado)I used alum as a dye agent, which is potassium aluminium sulfate. You can buy it easily in a good arts supply shop or in a classic "droguerie" such as "Le Lion" in Rue de Laeken in Brussels. It's not dangerous to use but it is a chemical substance so it's better to take precautions and definitely do not use it in a normal cooking pot! Any old pot will do, provided it is big enough and preferably made of steel so that it doesn't leak anything into the dye bath. In the picture above you see I'm using en emaille pot which is actually not the best but the biggest I have. It's important that the yarn is floating freely, otherwise it felts very easily and your yarn is ruined.

 I used a solution based on 10 % alum based on the dry weight of the yarn, in this case it was 10 g of alum to ca. 2 l of water. However, I think less would also work so next time I'll reduce the amount. In my workshop on dyeing with natural ingredients, we used citric acid as a mordant which can be bought in the supermarket. Vinegar solutions can also work but usually bring out less vibrant colours than chemical mordants like alum (saying that, technically all mordants are "chemicals", even if they occur naturally because they all start a chemical reaction. But I leave it up to the experts to make a proper distinction between the natural vs. chemical discussion).

Preparing the yarn for the dye

I used our kitchen for the dyeing procedure but I made sure everything was wrapped safely with cling film to avoid splashing the dye everywhere (not healthy). I also wore plastic gloves, which is the reasons why most of the pictures look very dodgy! In order to get the yarn ready, I removed it from the mordant bath after ca. 15 minutes, let the yarn cool down and removed access liquid by letting it drip off over the sink and gently pressing the yarn. Again, don't be too rough and don't hold it under cold water because that will cause it to felt.

Let the fun begin!

After spreading out the still humid yarn on the tray, finally I could start the fun. I used the textile dye pictured above which is pretty standard dye that you can use also for bigger dyeing projects, including in the washing machine. It's the first time I used this kind of powder dye so I had no idea what to expect. I basically did it the same way as the KoolAid was used in the tutorial: I sprinkled some of the dry powder onto the yarn but the effect was not visible at once. Then I became a bit more adventurous and dissolved small quantities of the powder in water and started splashing the dye over the yarn with a paint brush. In the end I even just "painted" the yarn with the brush directly to cover bigger surface areas. I used red, yellow, green, and blue dye.

I turned the yarn around several times to makes sure most areas were covered. For that, the skein has to be bound together very loosely, otherwise you have white stripes where it is gathered too tightly. Mine was maybe a little too loose, which resulted in my skein almost disintegrating in the end. So something in between those two situations would be ideal. 

Fixating the colours

Sorry, no pictures of this stage. Again I followed the tutorial on the website and it worked like a charm. I wrapped the skein into cling film and put it into an oven dish. I put it in the microwave, first 1 minute at a time to test, three times, and then 5 minutes. So 8 minutes in total. The dish did get hot and so did the yarn inside the film so I think it's better to check regularly because I don't know how easily the yarn can catch fire. When I thought it was done, I removed the yarn from the cling film and let it cool down. I then rinsed it in the sink to see if there was any excess dye coming out but it was almost nothing. 

The result

The result was way better than I had expected. Beautiful colours, gradients of all kinds, and more or less evenly distributed! I was surprised that the dye which were only the primary colours, merged so nicely and created this whole spectrum of different shades, as you can see above. 

Of course, some sections are better than others and in some places there is a bit too much dye. I didn't distribute the colours very evenly, which results in some very intense colour-blotches. Next time I would probably use less dye in general and fewer colours, leaving the natural white as the dominant colour. I like the yarns that only have a few highlights, but I'm always so tempted when I start the process. Less is definitely more in this kind of dyeing process, though.

Birki - the struggle was real

After a solid 5 years of experience in knitting lopi sweaters I have to admit I was surprised I still can make real beginners' mistakes. But it's possible. Impressively showcased at the latest example, the Birki sweater pictured above.

It all started very innocently and easily and I followed my regular basic pattern based on the "Aftur" I first made in 2012. The yoke pattern is from an old Istex pattern and originally used in a childrens' model - I think this is where the mistake originates. I usually knit up to 38 cm of the bodice, put it aside, and knit the sleeves (42 cm length). Then I join them in the round and continue the yoke from there.

This time, however, I concentrated too much on the chart of the childrens' sweater and didn't realize it was actually spread over more rows than the "Aftur" pattern, but with the same number of stitch decreases. I knitted straight for another 5 cm or so and THEN started the pattern, and that threw the whole composition of the sweater out of balance. After I initially finished the sweater it had saggy armholes and was far too long. Well, exactly those 5 cms to long to be precise.

I didn't want to unravel the yoke because I remember after unraveling my "Luxembourg" cardigan that the Lopi doesn't react too kindly and loses a lot of fibre fluffiness. Instead I thought I'd fiddle a little bit with different techniques that I have used in the past but not in this combination: The plan was to take the yoke apart again from the bodice, unravel the excess 5 cm of stockinette at the bottom of the yoke, and then join the two parts together again.

It worked surprisingly well. Following a tutorial of the TechKnitter that I previously used to replace a stretched out hem, I was brave and cut the thread in the middle of my finished sweater. Not for the faint-hearted! The tricky bit was picking up the stitches evenly on both sides and not missing any. I had actually used a lifeline (the orange piece of thread you can see in the picture) to avoid dropping stitches but I was worried that I would pick them up the wrong way round after all, so I paid extra attention to avoid twisted stitches.



Then came the Kitchener stitch ordeal. I had previously only used this method (as shown in the Knitty tutorial) to join the stitches of the hole under the arm, which is only 10 or so stitches. Now I had over 250 stitches to join! My fingers were hurting and I needed to do it over a couple of days because it requires a lot of attention in order to keep the correct rhythm. But I did it!!

It's not perfect, as you can see in the pictures below, but it does the job. I saved myself the unraveling of the yoke and I feel I master two new techniques properly. So in spite of this project taking waaaay longer than planned, I can at least say I'm finishing it with a good feeling. And now I can finally appreciate the cool colour combination that drew me to this sweater in the first place.

I probably should also mention that shortly after I figured all of this out, I saw that there is an adapted chart for the yoke for adult sizes on Ravelry...

***

Pattern: "Birki" by Johanna Hjaltadóttir
Yarn: Istex "Létt Lopi" (ordered via www.islandwolle.de, including the children's pattern)

Rhubard root dye

After my first experiment with avocado dye and following the great workshop on dyeing with plants this summer I decided to try one of the recipes at home. I really liked the colours that we got from working with rhubarb root, especially when we did a test with an older dye bath (already a bit smelly and covered in mould) which gave a very surprising dark red instead of the orangy-yellow of the fresh bath. While I didn't manage to recreate quite the exact colour it was still a nice result.

I got a whole root - which is huge, by the way - and chopped it up in very small pieces. I then left them outside in the sun to dry for a few days until they were really hard and felt like wood. I wanted to preserve them for future dye-projects and my freezer was to small for these quantities of root-chips.  I think the result is the same but maybe the colours are a bit more vibrant with the fresh root.

I used my hand-spun yarn (the first attempt ever so excuse me if it looks more like a rope than actual knitting yarn) and I divided my skein to be able to work with different shades. I also used alum for mordanting as I did with the avocado because I forgot to buy the citric acid - less "natural" but it worked just as well. As you can see, the first dye-bath resulted in a  much darker, mustard yellow shade.

The second dye-bath produced a lighter shade of yellow but had patches of much more orangy colours as well. I wonder if it had turned into something even more reddish if I had left it longer?

Now it's just the question: what to knit with this unreasonably chunky yarn?

Finally, a note to myself: When dying yarn in cooking pots on the kitchen hob next time, wash them properly and stash them FAR away from actual cooking pots. I'm not sure how poisonous alum is but the boyfriend was definitely not happy when he noticed that he had been cooking (and eating) spaghetti from a pot that I had mordanted my yarn in.... and I was worried that I might have damaged his health permanently. My bad!