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