Red sox

In the post about my trip to the north I showed a picture of “leppar”, or insoles as I now know they’re called in English. Some of you were wondering about their usage, and luckily I did take a picture in a museum in Reykjavík which illustrates it rather well. Back in the days, people in Iceland (and maybe elsewhere, I don’t know) used to wear shoes that were made out of sheepskin. Inside those they would put the insoles to better insulate against the cold and rocky ground.

In Sheila McGregor’s Traditional Scandinavian Knitting there is a pattern for garter stitch insoles with a pretty motif knitted in. Since I’ve now mentioned this book there is one thing I just have to say. In the small section on knitting in Iceland there is a rather unfortunate mistake that every time I read the text makes me feel uncomfortable. Part of the traditional costume in Iceland is a cap that lookes like this

(This is my great grandmother’s, and it’s knitted as it usually was in the old days, now it’s often made of fabric.) This cap is called “skotthúfa”, but in Sheila’s book the name has been misspelled as “skothúffa” and she discusses whether the “skot” part could indicate a connection between Scotland and knitting in Iceland. It is true that Scotland is called “Skotland” and Scotsmen (is that the right word?) are “Skotar” in Icelandic. However, the name of the cap is, as I wrote above, “skotthúfa” and here the double-t is of crucial importance since “skott” means tail. The actual meaning of the cap’s name is thus “tail-cap” because it’s a cap with a tail as the picture clearly shows! :-)

Aaaaanyways. Since I’ve been back in Helsinki I have had a monogamous relationship with a sock. I have seen nothing but the sock for the entire past week and this resulted in me actually finishing a pair of socks in 6 days . I think that’s pretty good, but I have no idea what’s the average out there. As a note I do work full-time, so don’t judge me ;-)

The sock pattern was a standard one using 64 stitches, but the overall look came out of my head. The small colorwork pattern I saw on a mitten from my great grandma. The leg part is a bit on the short side, and since the colorwork part is highly inelastic it’s a tiny bit difficult to get them over the ankle. Nothing serious, but next time I might make them higher and wider and shape them a bit.

 

I tried out two different toe shapings. The ting is that I’m not a big fan of the standard wedge toe. There’s just something about that thick bar of stitches on either side that doesn’t sit right with me. On the right toe I therefore switched the k2tog and ssk decreases which makes only 2 central stitches as opposed to the 4 sts on the wedge toe. On the left toe I skipped the central stitches entirely by doing ssk at the end of a needle and k2tog at the beginning. I really like that, just having a “seam line”, but since it’s difficult to keep tension at the end and beginning of a needle, there is a small gap in the seam. Next time I’ll try again with one central stitch.

 

Are you still awake? :-)

The wedding

After I returned to Reykjavík from the north I began preparing for the wedding of Inga and Christian. I wanted to have gloves to go with the smoke ring, and I really wanted to have them done before the wedding. So I knitted, and knitted and knitted. I guess it was not a very bright idea to use 1.5 mm (US 000) needles to make them, because in the end I only finished one. I was optimistic all the time though, even as I was leaving Reykjavík (the wedding was held in the south coast) and I still had one finger left on the first glove, I was sure I’d finish in time for the wedding. I mean, I had all of friday evening and saturday morning – never mind that it took several days to make the first one.

The wedding took place in Fljótshlíð, which is in the south of Iceland about 110 km (68 miles) from Reykjavík. It is a truly beautiful place, right next to a glacier called Eyjafjallajökull. I got a ride with Bryndís and Jürgen, my friends who got married earlier this summer (and I knitted the sweaters for). This is what the sky looked like in Selfoss

When we approached our destination, the view was so pretty and I did my best to capture it out of the car window. The glacier was visible for a long distance, and one could also see Vestmannaeyjar (islands off the south coast) very clearly (I don’t have a picture though).

Never mind the jeep, the sky is beautiful! When we arrived we got the keys to the small summerhouse we had rented for the weekend, and got ready to party with the rest of our friends. We stayed up quite long, because we had to practice our entertainment thingy for the wedding party which included a lot of singing. Friends + cottage + beer + singing = a lot of fun! The moon was huge and orange colored and I tried my best to capture it on chip, with not too disappointing results

The next day the glacier was still there, and it was still beautiful. We hung around in the morning drinking excessive amounts of coffee and going between the cottages where friends were staying. Then it was time for the big ceremony which took place in a cute little country church

The ceremony was very touching and even I who never cry at weddings had glazed eyes most of the time. It was not allowed to take pictures inside the church (which was actually really nice, no flash going off every second), so I only have pictures of the cute couple after they became husband and wife

After the church there was a reception at the cottage where Inga’s parents were staying, and as you can see it was rather windy

In the evening there was a big party (inside) with dinner and entertainment and bonfire and singing and dancing like crazy until the wee hours. Everyone had such an excellent time and most importantly I think Inga and Christian really enjoyed themselves. Despite the rather depressing statistics regarding marriages, I now encourage all of my friends to get married – if only for the great occasion to party.

I’m sorry I don’t have very many landscape pictures. If you’d like to see more from Iceland, I have some from a trip Frank and I made last year right here.

In Hjaltadalur

The weekend before the last I took a bus up north to spend a long weekend at the farm with my brother and his family. All in all it was a great trip, very relaxing and there was a lot of knitting related activities which is always good. My sister in law, Bryndís, is also a great handcrafts enthusiast and inbetween other things we sat and knitted (Bryndís mostly crocheted) and discussed about its greatness. We also went on some outings, bought yarn in Sauðárkrókur and visited the Textile Museum in Blönduós – a great museum that I recommend to anyone interested in handcrafts.

Instead of words, I’ll finish with a few pictures from the trip. I didn’t take a lot of landscape pictures, but here are the two I did take which show the scenery around the farm.

While us women knit, my brother did the manly thing and painted the windows of the house,

and the little ones played with plastic strings.

At the textile museum there were a lot of mittens and “leppar” (things to put inside shoes).

At the farm I found a big trunk full of clothes that my great grandmother knitted for my father and his siblings. Among them were these beautiful two-colored mittens that I’ve charted and plan on knitting when I return to Helsinki.

 

What do I have to show for the trip? I knitted around and around ad nauseum on a smoke ring and managed to get it finished the day after I returned to Reykjavík – just in time for the wedding I was at this weekend (where the picture is taken).

The pattern is sort of my own although not really. It is rather obviously inspired by the Flared Lace Smoke Ring by Jackie E-S, and the lace pattern is taken from The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns. I’m quite happy with it although there are things I’d do differently next time around (which probably won’t come around). You can for example see rather clearly on the picture that I cast off far too loosely. I’m thinking about doing a small crocheted border to make it look a bit neater.

Home… again

This afternoon I flew to Iceland, and after having mom’s great lasagne I feel this aaaaah feeling that I’m back home. Despite a slight hungover (we had an Icelandic lamb feast at my place yesterday) the trip was fine. My neighbor on the plane was a little bit too talkative (and ruined my chances of getting any knitting done, what’s up with these people?), but I just went to sleep to solve that problem.

I haven’t been feeling like talking lately, which is the reason for the blog silence, but next week I’ll surely have too much to say. I’m on vacation with nothing to do except knitting and, well, the thousand things I’ve written down I should do/buy/see while in Iceland.

Tomorrow morning I’m taking a bus to the north. We have this farm in a valley in north-Iceland (we’re not farmers though, it’s an inheritance from my grandparents) and my brother is there with his wife and cute kids. I’m staying there until monday, outside of the civilized internetisized world so I wish you all the greatest weekend! Yay! I’m going to The Nature! More exlamation points!!