DAY1: today started the Handicraft Tour to Old Võru County in Estonia. What a pleasure to see old friends again and make some new friends. We stopped for lunch in Tartu and I had a little walking tour there. Then we continued to Võru Kubija Hotel and Nature Spa. Had our first handicraft workshop on honey comb knitting. The evening most probably brings more knitting and a lot of joy in a good company of similar minded cool people. Not to forget the dinner and some spa treatments.

DAY2: our handicraft tour took us to Rõuge today. But first we stopped at the local museum and heard about Võru history, language and textiles of course. Then we had a hike in the woods which took us to the only canyon in Estonian in Hinni. The spring water was really tasty and refreshing but the mosquitoes were vicious. In Rõuge we got lucky and we were the first visitors of the season in the local handicraft store. Before lunch we also visited Ööbikuorg and we’re fascinated by the perpetum mobile water pumps vesioinas. The lunch at Ööbikuoru villa was delicious and their premises so very beautiful located between three lakes. The afternoon brought us the workshop of sprang belt weaving. Marit Kylv is a great teacher and everybody ended up liking the difficult technique.

DAY3: today we visited the Estonian national museum in Tartu. It really is an amazing museum and every time I go there is something new. I like that it really focuses on every day life of simple men and women, today and yesterday and hundred years ago.

DAY4: today was flax to linen day. Thanks to Margit Pensa and Marit Külv as our wonderful knowledgeable skillful teachers we learned all the tricks how to turn a stiff dried flex stem into silky material. We used all the old tools from beautiful Karilatsi Põlva Talurahva Muuseum, also drop spindles and spinning wheels to create linen yarn. We also toured on the museum premises and were served tasty lunch by Taevaskoja caterers. To finish the day we took a nice hike to see natural wonders in Taevaskoja.

DAY5: today we had two workshops and therefore had no time to drive around, stayed put at the Kubija hotel. Our main topic of the day was the inlay knitting. It is called Roosimine in Estonian and is very widely used in Tõstamaa area in Western Estonia. We also had a workshop on cyanotype printing. As the hotel is located in the middle of the woods it was great source of plant material to be used. We each arranged a beautiful setting, placed it on the prepared textile, put a glass sheet on top of it and let it sit in the sun for 10 minutes. The UV rays reacted with a chemical leaving beautiful prints on the textile.
Thank you, Lüüli Kiik for teaching us all the tricks.

THE LAST DAY: our final workshop was on ancient copper spiral decoration. We have seen these findings of Kukruse lady at the national Museum, now we had an opportunity to make one of our own. But at first we strolled through Kreutzwald’s homestead, which is now a museum in Võru, and our teacher of the day Marika Sepp showed us all the fine handicraft items in their household. The workshop was fun: required some logical thinking and a lot of patients but we all succeeded. The next stop is Riga and the annual grand handicraft market at the ethnographic museum!
Bon voyage my friends!
See you next year!

Please read more about the tours here https://nordicknitters.com/handicraft-tours/
Welcome to Estonia! More info at info@nordicknitters.com