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.