Crafty tourism

Earlier this summer, we visited Sjølingstad Uldvarefabrik. A beautiful place on a sunny summer day, where they make yarn and beautiful woollen blankets.


I came home with some yarn, of course. Wool and mohair (but not the fluffy type). I do have some plans, even a small, secret wip.




I could not resist buying a book either, "Invisible threads" by Annemor Sundbø. It's not a pattern book, although it does contain some patterns, it's more a book about knitting history, culture and symbolism in knitting. I like it. There are also charts with old motifs, which is always nice to have.

You can see some more photos on Flickr.

'Tonight the streets are filled with love'

said crown prince Haakon in his speech on Monday.

On of the participants at Utøya also speaks of love: If one man can show that much hate, think of how much love we can show together.

Here are photos from my town on Monday. It felt somehow good to be there, with so many other quiet people with torches and roses.

July 22nd 2011

A terrible day in Norway. It's hard to find words to describe the terrible actions in Oslo and Utøya on Friday. By now, 93 people have died, most of them young people, attending the Labour Party's Youth summer camp. I'm lucky to have my family safe and sound. My brother's office windows broke, but he was not injured. But so many have lost their dear ones, and our thoughts are with them.

These were our prime minister's words after the massacre: "Our answer is more democracy, more openness to show that we will not be stopped by this kind of violence."

ttl-summer-shawl-kal

or Throughtheloops Summer Shawl Knitalong

I have joined a shawl knit along this summer! I've not knitted many shawls before, but I have faved a lot on Ravelry. And when I found this KAL, I decieded to join, Throughtheloop has so many beatiful shawls.

I had a beatiful skein of Chili Gredelin sock yarn (Marilyn), that I won on Annepålandet's blog this winter. A beautiful semisolid blue-green, amazingly soft, which I paired with some thin alpaca from my stash.

The pattern was easy to follow, very well written. Had to get new stitch markers, as I did not have 17. Found these on Epla (Norwegian version of Etsy).


I'm off to make another of shawl, now. Happy knitting! (It's not to late to join the KAL, btw. If you're on Ravelry, that is. See here .)

Tree warmers in Eidfjord

Some days ago, we passed Eidfjord, on our way to Rosendal, to visit the Barony Rosendal.

Suddenly we saw some strange trees. We were a bit late for dinner, but had to stop for a minute to look at this, a big surprise.

Found some links about this project, you can see here (Norwegian link) and here (English link).

Android sweater and miraculous elastic bind off

First, thanks for all your supportive comments on my last post about knitting books!

Her's finally an FO on this blog. (Well, I know there was a hat in June, but that had been finished for a while, and was posted on the receiver's birthday, just in case he should be following my blog, which I very much doubt, though.)


I had two big skeins of some blue sock yarn from my aunt's stash. Sock yarn is good for boys' sweaters, can be machine washed, and is not too warm, which they fear. So this one is accepted, but luckily not needed at the moment.

Free pattern, ("Dancing robots")by NeulovaNarttu

Modifications: My gauge was tighter, so I casted on 180 sts for hem needles 2,5 mm. Increased to 200 sts and needles 3,5 for stranded pattern, 3,0 for the rest of the boby. I made a stripy garter stitch edging for sleeves and neck, and did more stripe motifs on sleeves, also added one around the neck.

Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal 4-ply for main colour, and some left over Rauma Babygarn and
ninukka sock yarn.

I had to rip the raglan part twice. Lessons learnt:
1) Follow pattern
2) If you don't follow pattern, do calculations.
3) If you don't do calculations, rip and start over till it fits.

After it finally was finished ( I thought), the bind off was to tight, even after blocking. I had read somewhere about a more elastic bind off, so I did a search on google: "elastic bind off". And the first hit was a super tutorial and the neck opening is perfect. Here you go, miraculous elastic bind off, brought to you from New Zealand via world wide web.

And what are you up to, young man?

New knitting book

My husband seems to mean I don't need another knitting book. The book shelf tends to agree with him...

But this is a wonderful book with so many nice patterns. I fell for this one, bot knitted and crocheted.

This cute top is a fave, too:

These were the patterns that prompted me to order the book, but there is so much more (59 patterns in total, to be exact).

What about these?

Or this one, in ribbing? I have not casted on for anything yet, having way too many WIPs at the moment, as you can see in the sidebar.

The book is "A Stitch In Time, Knitting and Crochet Patterns, 1920-1949 Vol. 1" by Jane Waller and Susan Crawford (aka justcallmeruby), from knitonthenet. I baought the book from their online store.

FCBarcelona tunic

I like wearing tunics, here my newest one: It's a cotton tunic from Fretex, decorated to become a FCBarcelona tunic by me.

There are many reasons why I like that football club:

Their colours.

The fact that the club is owned by its supporters.

Messi (not Pinto)

The city

Their Unicef support

The Barcelona t-shirt could have been worn by the family's youngest, but he's a Real Madrid fan, so he won't wear it ...