Yarncat Fiber Trip 2009 (4) MardiLaat Craft Fair, Tallinn

I didn't even know about the Craft Fair until the German knitters told me they came to Tallinn explicitly for this.

I asked my Estonian friend Helen what it was all about, she said, "ah, it's just craft stuff, nobody cares..." Then I told myself, "that's what usually the native says about interesting things. I used to say the same thing about Eiffel Tower, I'll go and have a look".

The fair is a bit outside the city centre of Tallinn in the Saku Suurhall stadium. But Helen's driving class is in the area, so we go there together. She goes to her class and I go to my fair.

The moment I enter the fair, I am so glad that I came! Look at this!

Everything is traditional Estonian and with your trained knitters' eye, you should have spotted YARN already, haven't you?

Before going crazy on the yarn stuff, let's have a look at the other passion of mine, food! They are all local products from farms, I already know what I was going to eat for lunch, hehehe...

Here you have this nice gentleman selling traditional Estonian smoked meat and sausages...

Ok, we can't wait any longer, we have to look at YARN! This year's theme apparently is about weaving, they decorated the venue of a lot of weaving stuff...

Look! KNITTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notice that she is actually starting an Estonian shawl?

Of course, there is yarn everywhere!

This lady made really nice Estonian gloves with traditional embroidery. I don't normally buy gloves made by other people because of knitter's pride, but I know I can't do embroidery like that, so I decided to support the knitter and bought a pair. The blue flower on this pair of gloves that she is holding is the Estonian national flower.

Here you have spinning, notice the people are wearing traditional Estonian clothes?

No, I didn't buy the whole fleece, no...

Felting...

Weaving...

Here you have some finished products, Estonian traditional weaving used in a modern context...

Apart from different kinds of fiber arts, there are other crafts in the fair too. Like traditional Estonian music, I don't know how to call this instrument, I wish someone can tell me.

There are quite a few of metalwork counters too...

(more photos to come tomorrow...)