On the 30th of August there was a very lovely event in the hometown of Haapsalu knitting – Haapsalu 4th Lace Day. This was the first time I had the pleasure of participating and I jumped right in and also took part in the Lace Knitting Competition. The whole event lasted for five hours and was packed with interesting things to do. There were study groups where you could try different handicraft styles, sellers who besides handicraft also sold the supplies needed to make them (knitting needles, yarn etc.)

Siiri Reimann the author of the books about Haapsalu knitting (If you want one then go to the official publishers store) gave a brief lecture about the history of lace knitting in Haapsalu and also talked about the modern trends in lace knitting.

At one o’clock when the demonstration of knitted items was about to start it started to rain. But the women in Estonia didn’t let themselves be discouraged by such a small thing and also the lovely lacy umbrellas could be used appropriately. Sadly I don’t have any photos of this event as I was in the lace knitting competition at the time but you can look at the pictures on the Haapsalu Handicraft Society’s page. And please do look at them, the lace knitted items are wonderful! After the demonstration there were also dancers and a circus before the winners of the competition were announced at about four o’clock.

But here are a couple of pictures from the beginning of the day so you can get the feel of the atmosphere that was there.

This is me knitting after all the excitement (and rain) was over. I do want to point out my earrings, beautiful corn flowers (Estonian national flower) made by the super talented Kaisa from Sylph Designs. I just love these earrings!

But now to the main topic – the lace knitting competition. This year there were 27 competitors and we were given a beautiful brand new pattern by Siiri Reimann and Aime Edasi called “Browsing Aasa’s book…” The competitors came from all over Estonia and even from Latvia and Finland. The youngest competitor was 14 years old and the average age of the competitors was 39,59 not bad for traditional handicraft.

Below on the left is my work and on the right is the work of the winner who I’m glad do say is my second cousin – congratulations Riin! I did not make it to the top three this time but I learnt so much and will definitely participate again next year. When looking at the pictures then remember that the two pictures were taken at different times and angles so don’t represent the sizes accurately (my work was actually quite a bit smaller than Riin’s).

And here she is after the winner was announced:

And here are the winners of the lace knitting competition through the years.

I did take more pictures from the Haapsalu Lace Center but I will show them in next posts.