Some people like to visit wineries when they travel, or eat at famous restaurants. I like to visit yarn stores, fibre festivals and farms and collect cute stickers and stamps in my Yarn Store Passport.
I have quite a collection of "souvenir skeins" : I have bought hanks of Long Island Alpaca yarn in a Manhattan ballroom, (Vogue Knitting Live in New York City), a cone of Irish wool from a mobile shop atop the Slieve League Cliffs, and balls of Polwarth wool from a farm in regional Victoria.
My friends and family also know what to bring home for me when they travel... and it's not duty free gin. Although, that is gratefully accepted! I have been gifted possum yarn from New Zealand, lopi from Iceland, and hand dyed sock yarn from Scotland.
As I knit my holiday haul into garments and accessories, I think about the adventures I had, the delicious local food I enjoyed and the friends I made. And nothing beats the feeling of receiving a compliment while wearing these knits! It's difficult not to smile smugly when admit I made it with yarn I bought while traveling abroad.
I was inspired to create Yarn Store Passport relatively recently. I have been traveling and collecting yarn since my 20s, but I only published the Yarn Store Passport in October 2023. I visit a lot of Australian yarn stores to teach knitting workshops and I wanted a journal to collect the business cards, stickers and stamps as mementos.
When I asked knitting friends what they thought, whether this could be "a thing", they encouraged me to publish it. I have now sold thousands of copies, including hundreds wholesale to yarn stores, as well as Amazon globally.
I think this yarn tourism trend is only just starting... I'm seeing crochet cruises, yarn crawls and knitting cultural tours all over the world. Fibre arts tours have been around for many years, but with a stronger focus on weaving and dyeing.
Now there seems to be a growing interest in exploring knitting and crochet traditions from Estonia, Poland, Scotland, Iceland, led by an expert. One of my friends, a knitting designer based in the UK, is planning a knitting tour of Estonia in May next year, which looks amazing and Vogue Knitting has announced a bunch of river cruises. There's even wool and wine events like the one Carson Demers and Denise Bayron are hosting in the Sonoma Valley soon. It's a really exciting time to be a knitter!
It really makes sense: knitters are social, creative people who enjoy the fine things in life...not just fine yarns, but good wine, food, conversation. We like to sit and chat and we don't mind if that's on a luxury train, or on a cruise liner... just as long as there's a comfy spot to knit and watch the world go by.
I would love to see more opportunities open up in Australia for yarn tourism. There are sheep farmers doing it tough, with the dip in wool and meat prices. If only they cottoned onto the yarn tourism trend!
I can envisage dinners in shearing sheds, a menu curated from local produce, talks and demonstrations of shearing, wool classing. Workshops on botanical dyeing, weaving, knitting.... some of this is happening, but it's not being promoted and financially supported to the same level as other Arts practices.
And yet it could be such a boon for Australian sheep farmers and regional businesses...
In the meantime, I continue to enjoy visiting local yarn stores, knitting festivals, and wool craft events like the Australian Sheep and Wool Show. And I always pack my Yarn Store Passport.
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