Discovering all the Fiber the World has to offer
Battenkill Textile Tours combines your love for fiber arts with
your yearning to discover the unknown.
ANNOUNCEMENT!
Four great tours are
planned for 2025.
Each of our trips is designed with knitters, spinners, and fiber artists in mind. Our destinations are carefully selected to marry a sense of adventure with a love of learning and hands-on experiences with textiles and local nature and culture.
We are still getting details together for Paris and Barcelona. Check back for more info - coming soon.
SOLD OUT!
A Textile Tour Through Scotland
with The Woolly Thistle
May 29 - June 6, 2025
Essential Scotland! This amazing eight night/nine day sampler tour is a great way to discover Scottish textile traditions while at the same time explore the country and its history and culture. And to make the experience that much better, Corinne from The Woolly Thistle will be traveling with us the entire trip.
Other highlights include: Gansey knitting class with Di Gilpin, wool waulking demonstration at Stirling Castle, behind the scenes tours to Prickly Thistle, Eribe and Johnstons of Elgin, and a Dorset Button making workshop. We’ve also built in some time for travelers to explore Edinburgh and Inverness on their own before our farewell at the Scotch Whisky Experience Centre on the Royal Mile.
JOIN THE
WAIT LIST
REGISTER NOW!
Exploring Sweden + Helsinki - September 26 - October 5, 2025
Join our favorite guide in Scandinavia, Andrew Hutter, as we experience historic sites and museums in the Old Town and new Stockholm, including a knitting class with Maria's Garn, before heading north to explore Dalecarlia region known for Carl Larsson birthplace, painted wooden horses, the Anders Zorn Museum, and the Arts & Crafts Sweden Center.
Then, after a tour at the Gudron Sjoden design center and time in their warehouse store, we head through the Stockholm archipelago that contains nearly 24,000 islands enroute to Finland on an overnight dinner cruise. Save room in your bags for a yarn shop crawl through Helsinki in search of locally-sourced and milled Finn wool brands that are hard to get in the US including Myssy Wool and Tuku Yarn. And wrap it all up with a class with Finland’s best known knitwear designer Veera Valimaki.
A look back at our 2024 trips
“I have made lifelong friends while learning about knitting and weaving
in beautiful places. What could be
better than that?"
— Laurel Q., Delaware
Meet your host
Mary Jeanne Packer, the founder of Battenkill Textile Tours LLC, has been leading groups of knitters and fiber enthusiasts on trips around the world (and around the corner) since 2006 when she put a small ad in the national knitting magazines to see if anyone might want to come and spend a few days knitting at her yarn shop, wine-tasting, and visiting fiber farms in the Finger Lakes; and 20 people signed up! Those first 20 said they would "like to go to Ireland sometime"; and the rest is history.
Mary Jeanne is the founder and co-owner of Battenkill Fibers Carding and Spinning Mill in Greenwich, NY. Before that, she worked for many years at the US Forest Service and then later as a nature tourism consultant and interpretative planner. Because of Mary Jeanne's background, all Battenkill Textile Tours' experiences focus on the ways in which local nature and history have informed culture and textile arts in a destination.
“I love going on these tours! Experiencing new places, sharing knitting techniques and projects with no judgements, laughing, eating and celebrating
our shared love of textiles."
— Lisa K., California
Previous Textile Destinations
Ireland
Scotland
Shetland
Estonia/Latvia
Norway
Iceland
Denmark
Seattle
New Mexico
“The trip to Norway with fellow knitters was above and beyond my expectations. The hotels were beautiful and comfortable. Food was all amazing… especially the local delicacies. Absolutely nothing went wrong.
Thank you for the perfect vacation!”
Margaret N., North Carolina