Hello! Together with a friend, I visited the Handwerkbeurs last weekend – the textile crafts show of the year here. I came home feeling incredibly inspired and thought I’d share some of that inspiration with you. There was lots of lovely weaving, felting, crochet and quilting, too, but I’ll focus on yarn and knitting. Plus a few other things that made me stop, stare and think, ‘maybe, someday…’ Let’s start with some yarn.
The yarn at the top of this post and in the photo below was dyed by Marianne of Lindelicht. She dyes yarns in beautiful jewel tones:
I absolutely love her yarns. Marianne’s studio is close to my home, and I sometimes visit her on a Saturday, when her studio is open. I’ll tell you about that some other time. She sells most of her yarns only at markets and fairs, but her sock yarns are available online (as well as other lovely things).
The mannequin in her stall is wearing the Briornate Shawl designed by Stephen West – so many interesting stitch patterns:
The yarns below were dyed by someone else – totally different, but equally beautiful:
It’s fun to see how every dyer has their own signature. These sweet pastel shades were dyed by The Mindful Creators. This young dyer, Fem, told me that she doesn’t have standard shades she dyes, but collections she develops around a theme. If I’m not mistaken the soft shades above are from her ‘Dearest Gentle Yarn Lover’ collection.
It struck me how several young stall holders with new businesses have a slightly different approach from the older generations. They seem to operate not so much by intuition, but from a carefully thought-through idea. It leads to very tasteful results, I have to say. Take this designer of embroidery kits:
She is called Karin Fast, and her designs are centred around themes like ‘rooms’, ‘seasons’ and ‘textures’. Very clever and so pretty.
Every now and then, I do a small embroidery project, mainly because I love working with lots of colours.
The embroidery floss above is silk. The mother-and-daughter team behind Batts and Threads have provided me with some lovely knitting yarn and spinning fibres in the past, and are now branching out into embroidery.
And here is a different style again – Swedish wool embroidery:
The Handwerkbeurs hosts workshops in many techniques – weaving, felting, embroidery, quilting, knitting, dyeing, spinning…
This year, I just browsed around, but another time I attended a short workshop in Swedish embroidery led by Ditta Blom of Blomsterstuga. That’s one of those things that make me think, maybe, someday… That, and these darling dolls in their summer dress and Swedish costume.
Many people want to go travelling when they retire. I want to stay at home and make things. And now and then leave home to take a workshop or course. Something else on my list of techniques to try is sashiko. Quiltwinkel Marij specialises in sashiko and Japanese fabrics:
Well, time to steer back to yarns and knitting. There were also a couple of stalls with naturally dyed yarns. One of them is Wolstudio Haren, where you can go for e.g. dye stuffs, fibres, spinning wheels and courses. They have published Kleurenpracht met Kruidenkracht, an interesting-looking book about the use of herbs for dyeing (yarn, fabrics, ecoprinting) and wellbeing (in Dutch).
There were also people all the way from Finland with their naturally dyed yarns. Aurinkokehrä dye wool from Finnsheep in a fabulous range of colours:
Besides yarns, there were also many sweaters and shawls to inspire us. Here are a few. The Aase sweater from Isager, with just visible on the left in cream the Gerda Sweater and Skirt:
The Kinderdijk Shawl, with Dutch icons like windmills, wooden shoes, cows and polarded willows:
And the amazing Cherishing Every Aspect of Life sweater:
Wow! That’s another one for my maybe-someday-list.
Strangely enough, I didn’t buy any yarn. What I came home with, were two gifts that I can’t show you, several lengths of Swedish ribbon…
… and this book:
A Very Beautiful collection of 20 cardigan patterns by Maja Karlsson. Original Swedish title: Koftor. Just appeared in Dutch: Vesten breien. English edition: Cardigans. German title: Schwedische Strickjacken für jede Jahreszeit. It can be found here on Ravelry, unfortunately with photographs of just 6 of the designs. I hope to tell you more about it later.
I realize that I may be sending you down a huge rabbit hole by adding all these links, but it’s a very nice kind of rabbit hole. It is also my way of saying ‘thank you’ to the lovely people behind all these small (often one-woman) businesses that provide me with the inspiration and materials I need for making things. Thank you, too, for stopping by, and I hope to see you again soon!
Oooh. Ik kan mij voorstellen dat je enorm geïnspireerd weer thuis gekomen bent! Prachtige fotos zeg. Wat een kleuren! En die truien…. Zo ontzettend leuk! Bedankt voor je leuke verslag.
Heel graag gedaan. Ja, er was zoveel moois te zien. Daar kan ik weer een hele tijd op teren.
Beautiful things, finished projects, yarn & embroidery. I am inspired to try some new things, and think about possibilities. Thank you. And Happy Thanksgiving to all.
I’m glad you’ve also found inspiration at the Handwerkbeurs, even though you couldn’t be there in person. Happy crafting and Happy Thanksgiving!
Ik heb nog gekeken of je er toevallig ook was. Helaas hebben we elkaar gemist
Ach, jammer dat we elkaar niet gezien hebben. Wel leuk dat je het ook aan tijd had om te gaan.
Wat een mooi verslag van de Handwerkbeurs in Groningen.
Gezellig dat jullie even langs kwamen.
Prachtige foto’s!
Er was zoveel moois te zien. Jouw kraampje zag er ook weer prachtig uit. We hebben genoten.
Lovely things! Looking forward to hear what you think about Maja Karlsson’s book. I like it even though I’m not a big fan of stranded projects. So far I’ve made the Dahlia cardigan and I’m planning to make Novell, Mirage and Siluett – soon, any decade now! Too many projects, too little time!
(Saw your mail just yesterday, thank you!)
I am completely smitten with Maja Karlsson’s book. The Dahlia cardigan is beautiful – so romantic. It’s funny how you choose the least ‘Swedish’ of the patterns (except Mirage), while I tend to go for the more traditional Scandinavian ones. I’m leafing through the book every evening, dreaming of all the cardigans I’m going to knit (if I can find the time).