I was delighted to be invited back to Strik Bornholm, 2 years after the first knitting festival on the divine sunshine island in the Baltic Sea. Just as last time my husband wanted to join me and take on the long drive from Oslo to Ystad, Southern Sweden – 6 hours but since we needed several breaks it took us close to 7 hours. We stayed one night at Hotel Continental from and were thrilled to find it upgraded to pure luxury. The next day, Thursday 1. September we were ready for the ferry – an Australian catamaran – from Ystad to Rønne, which takes only 1 hour and 20 minutes. Strik Bornholm was held in the small town of Allinge, approximately 20 minutes drive from the largest town Rønne at Bornholm. Above is the Woolspire stand with designer Charlotte Kaae talking to Diana Belea and Ann Vindelev from Woolspire. Ann, the Woolspire intern, learnt to knit while at Strik Bornholm, have a look at the photos in this blogpost: woolspire.com

Some of the 16 workshop holders – in charge of the 53 workshops – met up on Thursday evening just before the first of two evening knit cafés. Charlotte held a short talk and demonstration on the different cast-on methods. Yes, she does have her own YouTube channel in Danish. Above you can see me demonstrating how my Quamara jacket can be worn in 3 different ways depending on how you fold the long attached loop collar. Next to me is Mary-Ann Astrup, editor of the largest handicraft blog in Norway www.tusenideer.no and now also part of the Woolspire crew. I was so happy to be able to look at all the Brooklyn Tweed yarns and colors displayed at their stand. Of course I had to order some that will arrive in my mailbox very soon.

Strikkehjornet is the local knitting shop from Allinge which I discovered last time I visited. Owner Jette Jensen has for the first time made her own yarn, pelt wool from Bornholm, displayed at the front in three natural colors. Yes, it was one that had to follow me home. I was holding four workshop this time, all in Norwegian. Design your own sweater in part 1 and 2 as well as Japanese Patterns twice in one day. An extra Japanese Pattern workshop was added due to popular demand, while my Lace workshop was cancelled of the opposite reason. I was happy to meet several of the participants from the previous Strik Bornholm and even got to see some completed projects based on my workshops I held in 2014. Pure bliss! This time I was not teaching at Allinge Røgeri/Smokehouse on the beach but we were tempted and had to go there the first night for a portion on fish and chips.

Instead I was teaching at the old schoolhouse now called “Kærnehuset” but still marked as “Borgerskolen” on Friday and at Høiers Iscafe on the Saturday. As you can imagine the old school was perfect for a workshop while the Iscafé was a bit busy with ice-eating customers on the Saturday afternoon. Above is another photo from the large sportshall, Nordlandshallen where the sales area was offering a total of 24 shops. The yarn on offer is the locally hand dyed Fredsmindegarn. This year a number of German knitters visited the event together with a few Norwegians, a large number of Swedes and Danes. A total of        1750 visitors came by the sales hall during those three days.

Here is another photo of me and Mary-Ann, taken on the Saturday since I am wearing Oydis sweater with the cowl. I was so happy that Mary-Ann was coming and that I had the opportunity to meet the Woolspire crew myself since I now have a number of my patterns for sale in both Norwegian (on their Danish and Norwegian site) and English (on their English site).

This year the evening knit cafés and the party dinner on Saturday was held in a party tent at Storløkken Feriesenter. On Friday evening, Michael and I stayed in the same apartment hotel as last time, Klintely, with a lovely sea view as you can see from above. Unlike last time we did not have the opportunity to have breakfast with Norah Gaughan. And she was sorely missed by many of us. The star attraction this time was the Danish designer Vithard Villumsen, also known as the Prince of Knitting and as one of the judge on the Danish television series “Den Store Strikkedyst/The Great Knitting Challenge”. You will find a few episodes with English subtitles here on YouTube. He offered four different workshops, but the only one I had the opportunity to attend was an introduction to English knitting terms and that is one that I do not need. But to sum up the knitting festival: I had a great time! Thank you to all of you who I met, and to the organizers Team Bornholm!

I had some time on Thursday when we arrived and also on the Sunday to do a spot of sightseeing together with my husband. Here is one of the many lovely beaches on Bornholm, on the southern coast. But what really left a lasting impression was the Bornholm Art Museum, and it is coming next.