Knitting fever

Today I have been home alone with a stubborn cold. Somehow it is not so bad being ill when you can knit, and today it was actually quite nice. Just days before that volcano erupted I ordered a few things from overseas, and today the first item finally arrived. Prjónaperlur is a book about all the facets of the current knitting fever in Iceland. Women of, literally, all ages present their own patterns and there are classics next to crazy and childish. The patterns are a bit too easy for my taste, but there are a few gems. I just finished reading the presentations and thoughts between the patterns and it warmed my heart almost as much as my own fever. Being half Icelandic I like those moments when I feel part of that community and the book really sucked me in. It will soon be published in English and there is a part two in the making, so if you have an interest in the culture of knitting or a love of Icelandic wool I can recommend it. It is small but has a soul.
















Before the post arrived I finished the first project from the huge stash of Icelandic Einband (1-ply) that I brought home last October. It is the fabulous Faux Russian Stole from the book A Gathering of Lace. The yarn only lasted 180 of the 185 cm needed so the last centimetres are slightly paler, but it is like one of the mottoes from Prjónaperlur says: "There has to be a mistake in each project, because then you can see that it is handmade". This is especially true if the result is as amazing as this. This is lace in garter stitch, which I had never made before, and it is actually easier than it looks but requires a lot of patience. Most of it was made during the Christmas holiday, but the problem with the yarn made me wait with the finishing until I had convinced myself how to deal with it.















And a detail...

Icelandic shopping

Under a bed in my house there are two big boxes. One is filled with knitted items like shawls, vests and sweaters. The other holds lopi and létt-lopi and some lace yarn. I also have some hand made yarn and buttons from Ullarselid as well an embroidery kit and some of their products made from rabbit wool. So what do I really need to buy? Anything I don't have of course!

There has been some great pattern books coming out in Iceland since my last visit in 2003. Védis Jónsdóttir is a designer who has envigorated the traditional woolen sweaters with a line of booklets from Istex, the leading yarn company. I'm especially glad to get a hold of her patterns for garments in lace yarn, einband. Another favourite is the new book on mittens Hlýjar hendur that is currently the third best selling book, all categories included, in the largest chain if Icelandic book stores.















When it comes to buying yarn there is a limit to what a suitcase can hold. To get the most out of the trip I decided to focus on einband, the lace yarn. I got all the natural wool colours and a few balls each of white, brown and natural black. The large skeins at the back are dyed with herbs in a beautiful, dark green. I also wanted som red, which I found at the Álafoss store where we made a quick stop. There I also couldn't resist getting some unspun, green yarn that will look great with the natural brown in my stash. My brothers got some blankets, and somehow managed to get them into their small bags for the trip home. I had of course planned ahead and brought a half empty, big suitcase.





























After reading all my new books I got an idea for a Christmas present and got some more yarn at a supermarket, but that has to remain a secret...

Estonian lace

This blog was started two years ago when I last visited Tallinn, Estonia. Therefore it is quite fitting that I relaunch after half a year of neglect with another visit to Tallinn. A couple of weeks ago my family and some of our relatives went on a four night cruise on the Baltic Sea. One of the stops was Tallinn and of course we did some knitting related shopping. This is what my kids fell for:















Personally I prefer patterns and yarn, and this time I found a really good selection of books but no yarn that had my name on it. Since my last expedition to the book stores of Estonia several new titles on various traditional crafts had been published. One stood out from the rest and it is one of the best knitting books I have ever seen, even though I can't read the language. (The key to the charts is also given in English.) That is high praise from someone who has collected knitting books for 20 years. The book is Haapsalu sall and it is a collection of lace patterns used for making the superb Haapsalu shawls. These shawls were hand knitted in the seaside resort of Haapsalu where the elite of the Russian empire spent their holidays 100 years ago. The patterns are still very much alive and the shawls are still used as gifts to foreign dignitaries visiting Estonia. Regular turists to Tallinn, like me, will have a hard time finding any but now we can make our own.

I have started out with a sampler with some of my favourite patterns. The yarn is regular Estonian 2-ply that I bought on my last visit. The patterns should be made from much finer yarn, but this is what I had at hand. The shawl was just improvised until I ran out of yarn and then the second edging, which I had knitted earlier, was grafted on. I will post more detailed pictures on Ravelry.

Book review

A couple of weeks ago I got an offer I couldn't resist. Taunton press asked me if I would like a preview copy of their new book on felted knitting. All I had to do was review it on my blog, which I do anyway when I get hold of an interesting book. Of course I will tell you my honest opinion. Unfortunately the company that handled the last step of the delivery tried to deliver it to my door when I was at work and it took a few days extra to finally get hold of the parcel. Last night, the day the book was published, it finally reached my hands. Since then it has accompanied me to work and two knitting cafés, but tonight I finally have the time to write down what I, and some of my friends and colleagues, thought about it.















The book is I love felt by Kathleen Taylor. The title is just right, because all through the book, in designs, layout and the text there is a feeling of joy. You believe in the writer when she tells you that this is easy, inspiring and fun. My colleague the teacher of textile handicraft, who is usually not a fan of knitting, looked like she was going to steal the book and use it with the kids. My second reaction, and that of my friends at the knitting cafés, is that this isn't so much about the knitting, which is fairly basic, but a good course on felting knits and a source of ideas. If you know more about what you are doing and have a wider range of techniques available, felting becomes more fun.

Like the writer, I have knitted huge, plain objects and tossed them in the washing machine just to watch the miracle of felting. It gives you a nice fabric, but the knitting isn't that inspiring. I have two Norwegian books on the topic which are about making garments in stockinette and felting them, and that is about it. On the other hand I had a look at Nicky Epstein's book on felted knitting last summer, and it was totally amazing but looked so advanced it could be intimidating even for the experienced knitter. I love felt is somewhere inbetween these extremes. It is not as amazing as the promotional texts imply, but it gets you started on new ways of thinking about felting. It is very easy to understand, detailed and thorough in its instructions but still friendly and fun.

The patterns are nice but not all that special. For me they could serve as a basis for understanding the technique and a source of easy-to-make gifts. My favourite is the intarsia bag with grazing sheep, but I would add a knitted strap and probably change the proportions (and feel confident doing it). There is another design that might soon end up on my needles and that is the beaded crown and wands (the stars in the picture below). My little girl was very excited when she saw them. It might be a way to make her try knitting herself...















In conclusion I'm glad I read this book and it as taught me a few things I didn't know about eg. felting multicoloured knits. It is not a book that would have caught my eye under other circumstances, since I'm usually a more traditional knitter. I'm not sure I will make any of the projects, but it I might have gotten confident enough about felting to try making that bag I saw in a magazine last year. The only problem is that Kathleen Taylor says I have to get a top-loading washing machine, well I probably need a new one anyway...

Major events week

This has been a very exciting week in my life as a knitter. It started last Tuesday when a local TV-show invited my knitting club as guests for a 25 minute program. I'm only sitting in the background, but it was still fun to see how it was all done. Those who were interviewed did a great job, as well as our speed knitter who had to knit the opponent's design. Check it out here.

The next day I got an e-mail from a big publishing company. They asked if I wanted to review a book for them if they sent me a free copy. How could I refuse? The review will appear around the date when the book is due to be released. It's a book I could have bought anyway and my expectations are high, but more about that next month. I´m a commercial blogger!

Yes, I have knitted a little too. I needed something I couldn't mess up and that would look good on TV, so I started on a little blanket. I still had to rip the TV part, but now it is growing fast. As I wrote last week I tried entrelac and a few other ideas, but it didn't look good. Finally I resorted to a pattern that I had already tried and that I had seen in this yarn. It is actually a scarf, but I'm making five sections 20X100 cm and knitting them all in one piece. If my math is right I won't have to break the yarn at all and I will need about 1.5 km of thread.
















Tonight I also cast on for the new pattern at Sockklubben, but so far it is just the same rib as last month so I can't say much about it yet. This time I am going to make it large enough for my mother so I added 8 stitches. Hope it will work.

Starmore in green

I have many favourites, but the top designer I wish I could imitate the most is Alice Starmore. I own six of her books and one by her daughter Jade, and I read them over and over again. My aim is to have knitted something from every book I have, but that is a longterm project in this case. The first book I found was Fishermen's sweaters, because it was translated into Swedish.
The pale ladies' model comes from this book, and it was a joy to knit this classic gansey with a modern touch. The men's and child's Arans are found in The Aran Collection.














If we take a closer look at the details, you can see how fine the ladies' model is. The yarn is Cortina by Solsilke, a delicate mix with e.g. cashmire. The Arans are made from regular Aran yarn and variegated sock yarn. The child sweater involved a bit too much sewing for my taste, but there is hardly a sewn stitch in the ladies' model and only side seams for the men's Aran. The most difficult part was the braids in single twisted stitches on the men's sweater, but otherwise the patterns are very detailed and user friendly even if they are long. If you want to take a look at more Starmore designs, check out her shop at Virtual yarns. Most of her books are really hard to find, but some of the kits include patterns. I ordered a few skeins of their yarn, and it was soft, tweedy and made a very warm hat.

Holiday shopping

Finally back in business. After an 11 day trip to Estonia and stopovers with some relatives I have had trouble connecting to the internet. Today it works, so let's get on with the report.















After reading the fabulous book Folk Knitting in Estonia by Nancy Bush, and stopping by Tallinn on a kick-off cruise in 2005, I persuaded my family to rent a house in Tallinn for a week. Apart from regular beach life, great restaurants and other holiday musts I found some knitting here and there. Tallinn is full of markets and shops with loads of knitted goods, but finding things to knit myself was a lot trickier. Searching bookshops and museums I found a few books with patterns and/or writing about Estonian knitting traditions in English. Mostly they were booklets about mittens. Amazing fact: a bride in Estonia had to knit 50 pairs, on average, of gloves and mittens for her wedding guests (see picture). These mittens had extensive patterns and very fine gauge. I also found a new book about sweaters on the Estonian islands. They were similar to other Scandinavian patterns but also inspired by the 19th century mittens. Unfortunately Riina Tomberg:Vatt, Troi, Vamsa doesn't contain any patterns, only pictures and research.














Finding locally produced yarns proved even more difficult. Since I can get Evilla and Kauni with colored sections in Sweden I wanted something else. Finally I found some nice Evilla in a varigated pale red/orange. Half of it has got one thread in white, while the other half is all coloured yarn. Now I just have to figure out if I should make stripes, squares, patchwork...
The rest of the yarn is perfect for mittens. Liisu by Elotroi is very fine 100% wool and Austraalia Merinovillaga by Arvita is mixed with some, you guessed it, Australian merino.














A few days after we got home, my parents went on to Norway. I couldn't help myself and asked them to look for some books I wanted. Off course they bought them all. I especially wanted to read Annemor Sundbö: Usynlege trådar i strikkekonsten. She owns a factory for recycling wool and this is her third report from the wool piles. Amazing. This book is largely about the culture of knitting, but it has some interesting pictures and patterns too. Strikk og tov by Gerd Fjellanger is filled with projects to felt in the washing machine. I love the hats! And maybe we need more socks, and sweaters for the kids... Finally my mother had to buy Alison Hansel: Charmed Knits featuring knits as seen in Harry Potter. Mostly basic school uniform style, but a few things with a twist, such as a wizard robe, an owl and wand cozies + some nice bags. This book will probably come in handy in a few years when my children are old enough to discover Harry P.