I’m Going Home...

Parnu, Estonia was the last city we visited on our trip to Europe. One beautiful day, Cathy took me to a nearby park for a photo shoot! She took so many pictures and posed me in so many ways that I felt like a super model! It was kind of like our goodbye to each other. 

When Cathy dreamed me up back in her yurt in Hawaii in the spring of 2017, she says that she had no idea I would be such a hit and such a special part of her trip to Europe.

We were supposed to only be gone from the United States for six or eight months, but we have been traveling companions for 14 months! And look at the stats:

• Over 200 contributors
• 6 meters long!
• 8 Countries
• 35 Blog posts
• Youngest knitter: 13 years old
• Oldest knitter: 94 years old
• Over 25,300 kilometers/15,700 miles traveled
• We stayed in over 35 different places 
• And, most importantly: we made many, many new friends!

Cathy kept track of every contributor in special little journals (which she had to have reprinted and bound twice during the trip!). And quite an assortment of knitters they were—from one non-knitter (Jude) who insisted on contributing in an interesting way, to the old masters of lace knitting in the Shetland Islands and Estonia. We knitted in front of the Scottish Parliament on Women’s Day, helped out at the Roscommon Ireland Lamb Festival, attended a Sheep Dog Trial, and made a knitter’s pilgrimage to the Knitted Lace Center in Haapsalu, Estonia. 

We saw the summer solstice in Iceland and knitted cozily in a tiny pub on Inish Mor, Ireland while a 90-mile-an-hour January storm raged outside. We met knitters in the Outer Hebrides, funky hostels in Ireland, on English trains, and on ferries to remote islands. Some knitters added their own handspun yarn. We even occasionally allowed some crocheters to contribute—including a blind lady with her guide dog in Belfast.

Cathy is continuing around the world, but she is sending me back to Vashon Island in the United States to the welcoming hands of our dear friend Emily MacRae for safekeeping. Cathy has some kind of plan to take us on a road trip around the U.S. next year. For now, I will wait patiently with Emily for her to return to me.

Cathy, it has been an extraordinary and astounding sojourn. Thank you for inviting me along!

A special note from Cathy:

Hamish's Birthday

Estonia Part 4: My Last days in Europe…

With a tear, we left Conny near the bus station in Tallinn so she could catch a tram to the airport. Cathy and I returned to Parnu for 12 more days. It is a quiet and beautiful town with many parks and a nice beach. Cathy would be able to make plans for visiting Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, catch up a little bit on blog posts, and relax a bit. These would be the last days Cathy and I would have together for a long time. 

Over those days, a few knitters shared the hostel room with Cathy and I got a few more inches added to me. 

Karmen showed up in the dormitory first. She is a physician in Tallinn but was in Parnu to take part in a Flamenco workshop over the weekend. She was dancing every day, but she took out time to make a special addition to me—a traditional eight-pointed star pattern.  

In my journal, Karmen wrote, “This pattern has been used in Estonia at least 1000
years, especially on gloves, pullovers, and vests. It was meant for protection
especially from diseases.”

Astrit, a beautiful young Estonian woman who Cathy had met on the Camino de Santiago in October, came over to Parnu to spend the night with us before she started a hiking trip. It was a delightful time and she added some rows of white Aran yarn in a garter stitch while sitting on the dorm bed. 

On one weekend, three women were in the dorm room. They had come to Parnu to take part in the International Lace Festival. This was a bobbin lace conference and exposition with master bobbin-lace workshops. 

Cathy wandered over one day to check out the exposition. There were some truly extraordinary examples of lace on display. We were invited in to watch part of a masterclass where the women were making lace from metallic thread! Some of them worked so fast you could barely see their hands move! It reminded me of our visit to the Shetland Islands where the women could knit so fast.   

Look at all the great loot Cathy gathered up in Continental Europe! She got all this and carried it around since she left Ireland in May. Well, most of it she bought or received as gifts in Estonia.

And here are the contributions that were made to me while we visited Estonia…Wow!

Up next....“Going Home”...my last post from Europe.