Mission Yarnpossible: Tallinn

Our trip to Tallinn was a complete surprise and totally unplanned. We read about the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn in a brochure in our hotel room. The Old Town in Tallinn, Estonia is a UNESCO world heritage site for its architecture dating back to the 13th century. Since it was January 1st and almost everything in Helsinki was closed, we figured we might as well take the trip. It turns out that Old Town had lots of stores open and a Christmas Market in the Square. I was also keen to go because when I think of Estonia, I think of knitting

I made these 4 years ago and gave them to a friend.

I love multi-colored Estonian patterns. I’ve made a couple pairs of mittens using Scandanavian patterns. I discovered this through The Mitten Book: Traditional Patterns from Gotland, by Ingrid Gottfridson. My multi-colored knitting suffers from tension issues but I do it anyway. I’m sure there are differences in the colorwork knitting styles between Finland, Sweden and Estonia but I’m not clear what those might be. I was hopeful that I could find some yarn or some nice pieces to take home.

One of the first things I saw was a yarn-bombed bike in a window! Very encouraging! I love looking at yarn-bombed objects. How they do it is a mystery to me. One I intend to continue to enjoy as a mystery.

Yarn bomb that bike!

I found great looking at a couple of folk-art boutiques in Old Town. The yarn was really interesting but it was thin which means lots of work to knit; and coarse, which means really itchy-scratchy products. I can see how this wool would be great for blocking snow out, but I don’t like scratchy. But there are many wool-based souvenirs in Tallinn’s Old Town. My husband got a sweater, I bought a balaclava hat for a friend, and a pair felted mouse slippers for myself. The amount of felted work for sale was almost staggering.
Best Slippers Ever!

Where I bought the sweater and belaclava

Great selection of felt hats.

One of many stores with great knit and wool products

Gallery of felted objects

Sweater from Tallinn got good use in Tokyo this winter.

I completely adore my mouse slippers. I call them Ratti and Ratto (sort of playing on the Finnish word for rat or mouse, even though they are Estonian). They were 20 euros which was on the cheap end for what was available. They have suede soles. The wool looks scratchy but the pink insides are very soft on the feet. The pink insides aren’t attached very well and one eye fell off on the first day. But they are still fun. I have plans to make Ratti a pi-rat by putting on a black eye patch in place of another eye.

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