In February I had the chance to visit Finland again, this time with my crafty mum in tow, and high on the itinerary was hunting for yarn.
The shops we visited were:
Vihreä Vyyhti (Helsinki)
I’ve loved my past visits to their marketstall but they now have a shop in Hakaniemi. They had a wide range of yarns from farflung places around the world, and were very helpful with our questions.
Snurre (Helsinki)
We went hunting for Snurre and found a sign on the door saying they’d moved! So we hopped on another tram and found them at the spot where the Novita LankaDeli had been last year. Snurre had only just moved a day or two earlier and they were buzzing with excitement.
The shop had a lot of high quality yarns but I decided to just pick up a set of double pointed knitting needles and a copy of Veera Välimäki’s book “Huivileikki” (translation: Shawl Play).
Eiran Langat (Helsinki)
This shop was a wonderful surprise! It’s a short tram ride from the centre of Helsinki, and from the street it’s hard to know that it’s there! You need to press a buzzer from the street level to enter the building and then go up to the shop which is a large space full of colour.
We must have spent an hour in there gathering up armfuls of yarn, accessories and chatting away to the people in the shop about the projects they were working on. Mum in particular picked up yarns that we then tried to track down more of on the rest of our travels without any luck and she was wishing she’d bought more.
Menita (Helsinki)
This was my third visit to Menita and they again had a good range of yarns at different price levels from the basic wools to more exotic yarns and a good selection of self-patterning yarns and discounted Novita yarns.
FiinaNeule (Helsinki)
This shop had moved location from my last visit and was now in a smaller store but in the centre of town and they were very helpful showing us books and yarns.
Lankamaailma (Helsinki)
Lankamaailma is part of a chain of yarn shops that have stores in a few Finnish towns, and this one was around a 10 minute train ride from the centre of Helsinki to Oulankylä station.
The shop was huge! There’s almost too much to take in to be able to concentrate! They had everything a knitter or crocheter could possibly need. With the overload of yarn I only picked up a few balls of sock yarn that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
teetee Shop (Porvoo)
This was a wonderful surprise shop – the outlet for Finnish teetee yarn and imported yarns. It was large and full of low price but good quality yarns as well as a great range of accessories, some of which I didn’t see elsewhere on my travels.
Taito Lappi (Rovaniemi)
I loved this shop so much in 2014 that I was excited to take mum there this time. It’s not a large shop and the yarn selection is small (but good quality!) but the people are super friendly and helpful. They took time to help mum pin-point the type of yarn she’d need for a crochet project and they even ordered her colour choice and sent a text message to our international mobile when it was ready for pick-up!
We got to check-out the weaving room (I still wish I had a space like that here in Sydney!) and they had a few skeins of the sport weight yarn I fell in love with last time, Vuorelman Veto, which is unfortunately discontinued but I’ll love knitting up socks with the skeins I got.
Lankamaailma (Rovaniemi)
This was my second visit to this shop and, similar to last time, they had yarns from other Nordic countries that I hadn’t spotted in many other shops.
Along the travels I also picked up lots of Novita yarns from many stores, a spattering of knitting needles, and a handful of books and magazines that will keep me busy :)
It was a wonderful adventure, we spent a lot of time knitting and crocheting with relatives, my See You There cardigan kept me warm, and our bags were full of yarn on the way home but there are still some yarns I’m dreaming about and wishing I’d picked them up!
If you’re looking for more yarn shops in Finland, check out my posts about travels in March 2014 that cover Helsinki, Rovaniemi, Tampere and Jyväskylä.