Jyväskylä Summer Knit Festival 2021

It’s a while since the festival weekend, but only now I have the time to write about it. I took photos of my yarn purchases a week after the festival. It’s mostly because of the photos that I’m writing this: I simply must share a glimpse of those scrumptious yarns.

I first went to the festival on Thursday, July the 8th. It was wonderful to chat with other knitters, after such a long break. I went in the TitiTyy brick and mortar store, too, to check out the yarns. I even tried a couple of skeins next to each other to see if the colorways looked good together, but didn’t buy anything, yet.

On Friday I woke up from my nap a bit too late, half past four. The knitting parade would be at five, so it was a bit too late for me to catch it. At least, if I wanted to wake up properly, first, and also eat a bit before hopping on my bike.

I found even more friends at the festival on Friday. We watched the Heavy Metal Knitting event while we chatted at our knitting. This time I actually bought the yarns I had been petting the previous day. They will become a shawl. I took a photo of them and the beginning of my shawl a week after the festival:

Saturday the 10th was the market day. There were many Finnish vendors at the Toivola yard and inside the small buildings at the edge of the yard. (I constantly typo yard as yarn.) Before heading to the market, I had checked my bank balance to know what the budget was. When I got to the Toivola yard, I went straight to Handu booth. It was the first booth one would come across, but I might have gone there first anyway. I was delighted to find a shopping basked idle at the entrance. It was clearly there for me.

I took a photo of the Handu booth right before the end of the market time:

There was still plenty of yarn left, so there would have been enough for several more yarn fans.

It was difficult to choose which skeins to buy. Ilu had dyed plenty of bright yellows, so I was in heaven. Eventually I managed to weed down my basked (the basket itself was certainly needed). This is what I ended up buying from the Handu booth:

Another vendor (Pynja) was in the same tent with Handu, but there was such a crowd in front of the yarns that I decided to check it again later. I walked through the booths admiring (and buying) yarn and chatting with old and new friends. The knitting festivals are great in that you can chat with anyone just like you already knew them! Everybody loves yarn and understands the crafters world.

I found several wonderful things from different vendors. Here is a photo of them:

The brown and the two pale skeins at the bottom of the picture are 90 % merino and 10 % linen. It’s the same base as the blue-green sweater’s worth I bought from Handu. I’m looking forward to knitting with the interesting fiber combination.

Here is a photo of all the yarn I bought from the festivals:

Now I notice that on Friday I didn’t only buy the four skeins for the shawl, but also two others for another shawl. They are the ones at the center of the picture, the pale and muted variegated Walk Collection skeins. The colorway is really interesting. I can’t wait to see what kind of knitted surface they produce.

The weather was rather hot for us Finns through the weekend. On Saturday it rained a bit and it was cloudy, but the rest of the time it was sunny and hot. With cold beverages we managed, though, and altogether the weekend was amazing!

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