We found the festival registration and picked up armbands and maps. The workshops are in individual homes all over the town of Fuglafirði, so I still had a bit of an uphill hike to make it to my binding workshop. I've never actually done a workshop before and it turned out to be the first one the instructor was teaching. It also turned out that the other two people who registered didn't show up. So I got 3 hours of one-on-one instruction on i-cord bind off, double knit, and a few other skills that will greatly help with a sweater I'm already making.
She was surprised I hadn't done a workshop before since I have been to other knitting festivals. After hitting the rest of the festival, I understand that. I'm used to Maryland Sheep and Wool, which has tons of demonstrations, exhibits, and vendors, and a multi-day competition. Just walking around is a full day. This festival is much more about culture than commerce, if that makes sense. They had a small exhibition from 1 fiber artist, and pictures of prior festivals, but the only vending was a local yarn shop that had seating set up to knit and chat with other attendees and a hand crafted place that also had a loft available for sitting to knit.
They had a full day of lectures programmed in addition to a few workshops, guided walking tours of the town, and an included lunch. As the lectures weren't in English, they were inaccessible for us. Bill did one of the walking tours while I was at the workshop, and the guide spoke both Faroes and English.
From the instructor, I did get to learn a bit about the changing landscape of Faroes knitting. She showed me a website where they are now trying to capture clothing patterns which have traditionally been passed down generations orally instead of in writing. That was consistent with the knitter I spoke with a couple days ago, who had a book she called the Faroes knitting bible that shows pictures of the traditional colorwork patters, but just as single panels - she said they didn't ever work from "recipes" because the knitters just know how to make the garments. Back to the workshop, we also talked about carding and spinning, which are becoming more wide spread in the Faroe Islands as a means of reducing waste and producing yarn more sustainably. A lot of commercial Faroes yarn uses the local wool, but ships it to other countries for manufacturing. The hat I got yesterday is one of the businesses working with local wool production. It seems like an exciting time for the whole set of crafts that gets from a sheep to a finished piece.
After the festival, we headed to Gjogv, a town recommended by the rental car agent. It was indeed quite picturesque, both the drive up a series of hairpin turns on a single lane road, and the village and old harbor. Oddly, the only people we saw were other tourists so it had a bit of an abandoned feel.
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| A natural harbor, no longer in use. |
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| Coastline at the edge of the town. |
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| Gjogv |
We then headed across the island to take a brief view of a sea stack and a lake before heading back.
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| If you look very close you will see the sea stack. |
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| A lake |
We tried out expresso at a coffee roaster recommended at the festival, and ran into the Argentinian winery folks again.
We decided on a Scandinavian restaurant for dinner, which had a rhubarb G&T on the menu and a dessert with a chocolate avocado mousse - good food all around. The table next to us had a large, loud party mostly German and the only English we heard was the titular reference to Fawlty Towers.
Tomorrow looks like more rain, so we may once again put off visiting that other island. We will see. For now, I am thrilled to not need an alarm clock.
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