Finally some Finished Stuff

I’m back home after a great trip Home to Iceland. I had a wonderful time and the only problem was that it was a too short visit. During christmas I stayed there for two weeks and thought it was far too long, which is why this time I only stayed for a week. But there’s a difference between summer and winter I realized, there’s nothing to do during winter visits because who wants to stroll around town when it’s dark, cloudy and raining? In the summertime you can go all over the place and do all sorts of things, and that I did. I went to the National Museum to have a look at knitting but there was hardly any, I went to the library and borrowed some books on knitting, I bought yarn and knitting books, I met friends (ah, good old friends), I went to the summer cottage and knitted (and went to the brand new hot pot twice), and last but not least I went to my friends Bryndís and Jürgens wedding. That was a lot of fun and see how cute they looked (external link).

For the past month and a half, in total secrecy, I have been knitting on their wedding gifts. Bryndís reads this blog so I couldn’t say anything since I wanted it to be a complete surprise. Many months ago I decided that I would knit them lopi sweaters and many months later I finally began knitting. For Jürgen I made one in natural grays and whites using a pattern from Lopi 25.

The original pattern is a zipped cardigan, but I am a sensible girl. I considered which would be more likely to happen: a) me finishing the sweater in good time and spending many an evening sewing in a zipper by hand or b) me knitting fiercely at the last minute and cursing the day I got the idea to knit them sweaters. I was sensible.

For Bryndís I used an idea I’ve been walking around with for a while. I’ve wanted to try knitting a typical Icelandic yoked sweater but with a stitch pattern instead of the traditional color pattern. Leafing through the Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns I found one which looked like it might work, and it pretty much did (daisy stitch). The color sequence is an inspiration from Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl (Three-cornered and Long Shawls), specifically from “Dýrfinnustaðahyrna”. If I ever make this again, I’d try to do the decreases differently, but honestly, I probably won’t make it again. It’s quite the pain in the butt to knit. I still love how it turned out.

Just as a fun extra info, this sweater was knitted in four different countries, it was cast on in Finland, it flew with me through Sweden and Iceland to the States and back again. It was what made the 21 hour journey bearable.

The married couple were fortunately really surprised, and happy with the gift, and as if that’s not enough, both sweaters fit perfectly (wow! that’s a first!). That makes me one happy knitter.

I mentioned buying yarn. On the way to the summer cottage I visited a shop just outside Selfoss (about 60 km or 37 miles from Reykjavík) called Þingborg. I had seen their website and read that they have their own lopi, and I wanted to check it out – well, I wanted to touch it and see if it’s softer than the lopi from Istex. The shop is really wonderful and mom and I had a chat with the nice lady working there. They don’t have a huge amount of yarn, but what they have is pretty good. I got some plant-dyed wool and some 1-ply lopi in natural colors to make two-colored mittens. I touched their lopi (Þingborgarlopi) and indeed it is softer than Álafoss-lopi. I don’t really have any plans for a lopi sweater at the moment, so I didn’t buy any, but next time I definitely will. The sad thing is that they only have the most basic natural colors.

In Reykjavík I went to the Álafoss factory outlet. I’ve never been there before but I’ll be sure to go again. They had a really good selection of all weights of lopi (being the manufacturers) and the prices were quite low. But you know me and my problem with buying yarn when I don’t have a project in mind. I ended up with only three skeins of one-ply (eingirni) to use for…. two-colored mittens again! Pathetic.

I also bought a cup. It is not the coolest of cups, but the feeling I got when I saw that I could buy a cup with my name on it, complete with freaky letters n’ all, made me all warm and sentimental inside. There it was, a cup with my name on it, not “Sirkka” or “Suvi” or something crazy like that! That’s what living abroad does to you.