A glance into Haapsalu Lace Center

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

In my last two posts I wrote a bit about the Haapsalu IV Lace Day and showed some pictures of the lace knitting competition and the knitted lace wedding dresses on display in the Haapsalu Lace Center. This time I have a couple of pictures more to show from the Haapsalu Lace Center. I am always amazed by the craftsmanship and the ideas that handicraft makers have. If you happen to travel through Haapsalu make sure to visit because there are so many things that I didn’t take pictures of and they also have different exhibitions going on all the time.

In the lace center there are some shawls that are knitted and on display, and I do have to say that the blue background suits the shawls perfectly (I may be biased because my favorite color is blue) and they also used a blue background for the entries in the kitting competition. All the shawls also have the name of the pattern included, for example this shawl is knitted with the pattern “Hagakiri”.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

Displaying the patterns on shawls is a beautiful way to do it, but as there are so many different patterns it would need a huge room where to put all of them so some patterns (and they are really only a fraction of the patterns that exist) are being displayed as swatches.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

The shawls for sale are packed into beautiful gift boxes and arranged on the shelves by color. Traditionally the shawls were knitted mostly from natural white yarn (occasionally also with black or grey yarn) but now you can find shawls in all colors. They are the perfect gift to give to a mother-in-law or a bride.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

Now this is what I love, we all know about lace parasols but this here is a lace umbrella! The lace has been put under a clear umbrella and so you can look stylish even in rain as was demonstrated clearly on the Haapsalu IV Lace day when it started raining during the lace demonstration. What a brilliant idea to use in your wedding instead of regular ones that can ruin your wedding pictures. The umbrella is knitted by Pille Schneider.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

I was really intrigued by this parasols color, what do you think was the yarn colored like that or was the parasol colored after it was knitted?

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

And a parasol does not necessarily have to be white…

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

The patterns of Haapsalu Lace can be used in so many places. Here is a beautiful lace cardigan and on the shelf to the right of it you can see socks and hats and all sorts of other things inspired by the patterns.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

And lastly something I know my girls would love – lacy clothes for dolls. They are knitted by Pille Schneider, Aasa Jõelaid, Miralda Piper and Mirje Sims.

Haapsalu Lace Knitting

Knitted Wedding Dresses – Haapsalu Lace Center

Knitted Wedding Dresses An elegant wedding dress is one of the things that helps to accentuate how beautiful the bride is. To me knitted wedding dresses are the most elegant ones of them all. I have not yet had the honor to knit one but luckily there are plenty of other talented knitters who have.

At the end of August I went to Haapsalu to the 4th Haapsalu Lace Day. I wrote about the day itself in my last post but besides the things I talked about there I also took some pictures of the lace dresses in Haapsalu Lace Center. I do have to apologize that the quality is not the best, my camera is pretty old and I don’t know that much about taking pictures. But I do hope that the beauty, elegance and craftsmanship of these lace dresses will be apparent nevertheless

The dress on the left is knitted by Ege Paju, to see the whole dress scroll down a bit.

This first dress is knitted by Marge Heeringas

Knitted Wedding Dresses

The dress in the center is knitted by Helmi Mändla and the bolero is knitted by Aime Edasi

Knitted Wedding Dresses

Knitted Wedding Dresses

And here is the full dress knitted by Ege Paju

Knitted Wedding Dresses

This beautiful dress suitable for flower girls was knitted by Merle Saulep

Knitted Wedding Dresses

The red dress was knitted by Pille Källe

Knitted Wedding Dresses

This last lace wedding dress was knitted by Ester-Vileida Viilup in 1974. At first the dress was white with pink underdress, but after the wedding it was colored so that it could be used for other occasions.

Knitted Wedding Dresses

As you could see from the pictures there is lot more to see in the Haapsalu Lace Centre than knitted wedding dresses. I do have some more pictures that I want to show you in my next post but even after these there is still a lot to see and they constantly add new items to their exhibition. So if you like lace and visit Estonia then you definately have to go there!

Lace Knitting Competition – Haapsalu 4th Lace Day

Lace Knitting Competition On the 30th of August there was a very lovely event in the hometown of Haapsalu knitting – Haapsalu 4th Lace Day. This was the first time I had the pleasure of participating and I jumped right in and also took part in the Lace Knitting Competition. The whole event lasted for five hours and was packed with interesting things to do. There were study groups where you could try different handicraft styles, sellers who besides handicraft also sold the supplies needed to make them (knitting needles, yarn etc.)

Siiri Reimann the author of the books about Haapsalu knitting (If you want one then go to the official publishers store) gave a brief lecture about the history of lace knitting in Haapsalu and also talked about the modern trends in lace knitting.

At one o’clock when the demonstration of knitted items was about to start it started to rain. But the women in Estonia didn’t let themselves be discouraged by such a small thing and also the lovely lacy umbrellas could be used appropriately. Sadly I don’t have any photos of this event as I was in the lace knitting competition at the time but you can look at the pictures on the Haapsalu Handicraft Society’s page. And please do look at them, the lace knitted items are wonderful! After the demonstration there were also dancers and a circus before the winners of the competition were announced at about four o’clock.

But here are a couple of pictures from the beginning of the day so you can get the feel of the atmosphere that was there.

Lace Knitting Competition

Lace Knitting Competition

This is me knitting after all the excitement (and rain) was over. I do want to point out my earrings, beautiful corn flowers (Estonian national flower) made by the super talented Kaisa from Sylph Designs. I just love these earrings!

But now to the main topic – the lace knitting competition. This year there were 27 competitors and we were given a beautiful brand new pattern by Siiri Reimann and Aime Edasi called “Browsing Aasa’s book…” The competitors came from all over Estonia and even from Latvia and Finland. The youngest competitor was 14 years old and the average age of the competitors was 39,59 not bad for traditional handicraft.

Below on the left is my work and on the right is the work of the winner who I’m glad do say is my second cousin – congratulations Riin! I did not make it to the top three this time but I learnt so much and will definitely participate again next year. When looking at the pictures then remember that the two pictures were taken at different times and angles so don’t represent the sizes accurately (my work was actually quite a bit smaller than Riin’s).

Lace Knitting Competition

And here she is after the winner was announced:
Lace Knitting Competition

And here are the winners of the lace knitting competition through the years.
Lace Knitting Competition

I did take more pictures from the Haapsalu Lace Center but I will show them in next posts.