Nordiskt Sticksymposium 2010 - Wednesday

Last week was so amazing that I had to rest for a couple of days to be able to process it and start writing. It was spent with 140 knitters in Härnösand at the 11th Nordic Knitting Symposium and I'm sure we are all bursting with impressions, inspiration, patterns , yarns and new skills. I will divide my recollections in themes and start with the hot and busy excursion to northern Hälsingland last Wednesday. That was also the first day when I remembered to bring the camera, because I slept at home and not at the school.

The first stop was at the Holma-Helsingland linen mill in Forsa. Since there were so many of us we were divided into groups and I started out in the workroom of a conservationist working with wall paintings and old wallpaper. The painted walls are very special in this region and we saw some on location later in the day.















Next I joined a tour of the mill guided by the owner herself. She took us through the steps of processing the yarn. Almost all the yarn is spun on the continent, but here it is dyed on cones as showed on the first picture. Then it is plied into the required thicknesses. The only yarn that is spun here at the moment is their only woolen yarn Lovikka, a heavy 1-ply used for traditional mittens from northern Sweden, which is skeined in the third picture. After the tour it was time to squeeze into the shop and grab some yarn...











































After this stop the group was divided in two and sent to look at local museums with traditional houses in Forsa and Delsbo. These pictures show the 300-400-year-old wooden farmhouses in Delsbo and a group of tired travellers stealing a few minutes to knit in the shade.





























The next stop was at Forsa folkhögskola, where Håkan Liby lectured on the traditional costumes of the region. Last but not least we went to Mellanfjärden by the coast where we had a selection of local fish dishes for dinner overlooking an old fishing village turned turist paradise.

The main knitting themes during the day were linen yarns and traditional sweaters, but they deserve their own posts because they were also an important part of the classes and lecures throughout the symposium.

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.

Back on track

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last entry. I could blame it on springtime gardening, sick kids, Mr P. away on business, spending time with my parents, too many evenings bocked up, a lot of new stuff going on at work and four people queing for one computer. Or I could just get on with knit-blogging.

Despite it all I have been knitting most days as usual. This is what's in the basket at the moment:
(the basket is in felt and was bought at Village in Sundsvall, perfect by the sofa)
















The Slippery socks and Rainbow blanket are moving along nicely, and will be finished on schedule (I hope). My only new project since the last entry is the Laminaria shawl from Knitty.
I'm making a medium size in Färgkraft 1-ply Sommarnatt. So far it doesn't look like much, but I think it will turn out well in the end.















Last weekend was a bit longer than usual, so I took the time to shop at Garnkorgen to lift my spirits and find inspiration. I found it.















I prepared a list at home by the computer, and I actually managed to stick to it and only buy half of the things I wanted to check out, which was quite enough. This includes Fyberspates Bluefaced Lace Yarn in greens, Fleece Artist Suri Blue in sangria and Manos Silk Blend in green/4635. They are all delicious and I don't think I will be able to keep my hands off them for very long. Not in the picture is a japanese book of 250 surface patterns that I have read about five times so far. I also got a Perl grey pin in pewter, a must with all the shawls in progress.

There is also something that has been completed this past month. My Mystic Light shawl was finished in four days after I got the last clue and has been waiting a couple of weeks for blocking. The light isn't too good in my blocking area, so pictures will have to wait until it has dried and can be taken out of there.

Mostly shopping

Finally back in business! I went to Syfestivalen in Sollentuna almost two weeks ago, and came home with a bad back. I couldn't sit properly for a week and avoided computers. Then Blogger didn't work, then Mr P. decided to get a new screen, which didn't work too well at first...

I had planned to report from Sollentuna, but that is old news by now so I'll mostly just show off my newest yarn. I got what I had planned to buy, and not much else. Since there was a storm coming and we had a long drive home my time for shopping was a bit short, but it helped me to stick to the budget. The others in our group from Sundsvall did a bit of shopping too. Check what one of them got at Cina's.















Clockwise from top left:

• Opal sock yarn in beige. A calm colour for lace socks in Sockklubben. Attached to the ball is a wooden shawl pin from Ullomera.

• Opal bamboo in red. Shinier and softer for even more socks.

• Färgkraft handdyed wool in Sommarnatt (Summer night). Will become a shawl, maybe Icarus from Interweave knits.

• Färgkraft again in Veronagrönt (Verona green). Enough for a sweater.

• Kalinka from Karin Öberg, 100% flax in olive green for a summer top.

Then there are a few things I really liked but didn't buy this time. Huskroken had a lovely, thick 1-ply in wonderful wool, and a book coming later this spring about knitting from Gotland. Ullcentrum sold a really nice flaxen yarn with one strand of cotton mixed in. I forgot to go back to Stäket and get som Yak wool. And off course I should have gotten some dye from Färgkraft and painted a few skeins of natural wool from Naturgarn, just for fun. Apparently there where people there who sold fabrics, paints and other items, but somehow I was totally blind to that. Some kind of system overload...

I had also planned to show you what I was going to wear, but I never did. If you attended the meeting with Sticka! you might have layed your eyes on me, and this is what I wore:

















I discovered that my Christmas shawl in Sea silk yarn looked just as good with spring green as with the black top I wore during the holiday. Lucky me!

Variations on a pattern

Recovering form my plunge into double knitting, I've been knitting something light and easy this week. It actually started in May, when I got my hands on three skeins of Färgkraft Pälsblend 1-ply in Isgrönt (Ice green). As usual the pictures don't do the colour justice, but it's got a glacier green feeling with a hint of gray. I bought the yarn at the Hemslöjden store in Leksand and I think I got it at half the price because I was in such a hurry that I stressed out the sales lady. I'm a bit ashamed about that, but I had left town when I suspected it was wrong. The stress that day was because I was actually there to play at a folk dance with a group of about a dozen ladies that I play with every other week. I hadn't been to rehearsals all spring term, only gotten the sheet music the week before and now I was skipping the last rehearsal to by yarn... It's all about priorities. Anyway the group will perform at another dance on November 17th and I thought I should be wearing the cardigan then to make up for my past sins, but practising the tunes would probably be better use of time.

The general layout of the project is inspired by Doreen L. Marquart:Top Down Sweaters. I used her calculation for the raglan, but I've changed the texture, edges, armholes...
















The texture is moss stitch as that is a good way to make the 1-ply yarn behave and not twist and pull the fabric and keep it light. I also like the way it blends the colours. Under the arms I put in Gansey style gussets to improve the fit. The are decreased towards the sleeves, but down the side the "seems" just move together without decreases.















Last night I finished the sleeves and now I'm pondering the possibilities for the rest of the body. How many buttons should there be? I've used I-cord cast off for the sleeves, should that be used all over? Straight edges, rounded courners or A-line with wedges of stockinette? I don't know yet, but I like knitting this way and make it up as I go along. Sometimes the result is really bad, but with a yarn this soft and expensive I try to plan ahead more before actually knitting. Here is the result so far. The sleves are a bit big, but I plan to felt it ever so little at the end to fix that and make it more durable.

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.