This is already the fourth year that the Dutch Knitting Days take place. It started in Nieuwegein, then last year there also was an edition in Groningen, and this year there are two events: one in Amersfoort in the Rijtuigenloods, and one in Zwolle. It’s a great event, which more and more knitters, spinners and crocheters are discovering. The workshops become more challenging and more interesting, famous knitters are invited (Ysolda has been there, and so has Stephen West, and this time Tori Seierstad is the guest of honour).
On March 15 the Rijtuigenloods opened up and welcomed knitters from all over the Netherlands (and Belgium). Next to the longer workshops, there were also a lot of really interesting shorter ones. The workshops were in the back of the Rijtuigenloods, while the stands were in the front. The Rijtuigenloods had windows in the roof, so there was a lot of daylight this time, which is a good thing!
I arrived together with Marianne and Ruth and after getting a drink a Starbucks, we walked to the Rijtuigenloods, which was conveniently close to the train station. The inside looked quite interesting: old train wagons were sitting between the stands and in the back of the building, providing lavatories and spaces for workshops. It was already quite busy and lots of people were admiring the merchandise, having a drink, or chatting with their friends. Or all of that at the same time.
It wasn’t long before we saw some familiar faces from Ravelry and we felt right at home. There was no real knitting table like in the previous years, only smaller tables, and actually not that many (if you take into account how many people there were). We made do, and slowly conquered more and more chairs around one of the tiny tables. The knitting table serves more than one purpose: it’s a nice meeting place for people who know eachother from Ravelry, but it’s also an excellent place to drop off your baggage and walk around the building without all that stuff. Yes, all that stuff, because usually most of us bring presents, swaps and trades from the past weeks (we avoid the postal service as much as possible) apart from projects, lunch and other stuff.
We left our stuff and walked around. It was very, very busy, some of the stands were just not reachable, there were that many people. There still was enough to see, though, as lots of people were wearing beautiful handknits! I met some other Ravelry friends and chatted a bit. It became a bit less busy when the workshops started again, and I decided to go shopping for my swappee (for the magic yarn ball swap in the NKS). I found some nice yarn, and also something else… and for myself, I found some nice spinning fiber: undyed tussah silk form Adrian’s Art, some baby camel roving from Diversan and Polwarth roving from DutchWoolDiva.
Later that afternoon I was feeling really tired, and so was Ruth, so we decided to take some coffee before the workshop… and boy, was it horrible! I even went back to get new coffee, it was plain undrinkable… the new coffee was slightly better, but still bad. Anyway, we went to the workshop, which was about dyeing a long colour gradient, and was given by Loret Karman. It was a lot of fun, and I dyed my yarn from purple via pink to blue… the result is quite pretty, and is hanging on the wall!
