A sleeve for Mom

Look!




I love the pattern, but working with cotton (in this case, Dalegarn Svale) is irksome.

Need to do some grafting

Monkeys are excellent!

Finished object

Just to show you that I have been knitting during September, even though I haven't been posting about it. It's foliage from the latest knitty. I loved this pattern. Here's another view:



This is the less bulky version of this pattern, made with one skein and just a little bit of a second of Létt-lopi. I enjoyed this pattern so much that I think I want to try to knit the bulkier version too. We'll see.

I recently got a very helpful email from an unnamed fellow blogger who encouraged me to get over my obsession with knitting the same damn cardigan (in this case, my beloved Callie. I've known forever that my cardigan obsession borders on the ridiculous, but somehow, I've always managed to convince myself that I really do need to knit one more. My boyfriend has occasionally asked: "Do you really need another cardigan?" but I've never really listened to him. He's not a knitter, and so, in my warped mind, he simply doesn't understand the urge to knit cardigan after cardigan after cardigan.
But having a fellow knitter sweetly point out to me that perhaps it's time for me to move on really got to me. Probably because I know that she understands the urge one has to knit a certain project. But it's also important coming from her because she knows that there's a whole world of wonderful patterns that I'm missing out on if I just keep knitting the same one over and over again.
So. I'm going to try to cut down on the cardigans. Even though I find this one rather enticing. But I'm really going to try, very hard, to do other stuff. I'm thinking mittens.
Oh, I probably should tell you, though, that I do have a cardigan on the needles at present. Well, make that two. But they are neither of them Callie. And one isn't even for me. But more on that later.
I don't think I've ever said this, and maybe it doesn't really need saying, but thank you for your comments. I really suck at getting back to you guys, but I appreciate every single one. So thanks, and keep'em coming!

Springsteen was right:

I get up in the evening
and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man, I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

I so know how this guy feels. I'm just tired all the time. Working really takes it out of you. I had no idea.
But I knit to forget. Recently I finished this:



It's clapotis. It took me a while to get around to knitting this pattern, but it's been on my to-do list for a while.
I've decided to express my feelings about the knitting of this piece in a poem, both because I was feeling particularly lyrical today, and also to pay homage to the third annual Nýhil international poetry festival which starts this friday and I'm sure will be very fun. Fun fun. Good fun. If anyone should find themselves in the Reykjavík area this weekend, I recommend it.
Anyhoo, here goes:

Red Wrap

Stitches march
down
leaving in their wake a ladder
unused
cat burglar
opportunity
I will never return to
this voluptuous pattern

Working girl

Ah, jeeez, no sooner had I recovered from the flu than another occurrance put a huge dent in my plans to be the most prolific knitter, ever.
I was offered a job. A real job, with good pay, nice colleagues my own desk and direct line and everything. A grown-up job. Not only that, this job combines two of my biggest interests (apart from the whole yarn thing, obviously): culture and the media. People, I tell you, I am now a fully employed cultural journalist. Writing articles about literature, ballet, theatre and opera is now what I do all day, from 9 to 5.
I´ve only been working for little over a week, but it so far it seems like the perfect job for me. It's just thoroughly interesting beginning to end. But I think it says something about my priorities that when I was offered the job the first thought that popped into my head was "Darn! Now I won't have as much time to knit!" Then the second thing I thought was "But this means I'll have more money, which means I'll finally be able to try out some yarns other than only the cheapest ones!" So clearly, this situation has its pros and cons.
However, I have managed to finish a knit recently, believe it or not. I proclaim the following:
Callie by Cosmicpluto is the fastest knit and the nicest fit I've knit in a long time. Look!



(I realize I´m reverting to my old and wicked photobooth ways, but to get a picture of the sweater on my camera I'd first have to stand up and get the camera. Then I'd have to get someone to photograph me or try to do it myself with the timer and fail miserably. Then I'd have to find the cable to attatch the camera to the computer and...you know, photobooth may be inferior when it comes to picture quality but it's a godsend for people like me who don't like it when they have to get up).
Well, as you see I've made a few modifications. For one thing, I tried the three-quarter length sleeve and didn't like it, so I just went for a full length sleeve which I like. I also tried out the picot trim, but I felt it made the bottom of the cardigan kind of bulky, so I just went with seed stitch. Lastly, I totally hate picking up large numbers of stitches, like buttonbands, so in patterns that require this of me I usually just crochet a buttonband instead. I did that here. It kind of looks like seedstitch anyways, so it doesn't bother me.
All in all, I heartily recommend this pattern. It 's simple but still has a few interesting features, so it never gets boring. It's a quick knit and, best of all, it's a really flattering sweater.
I liked it so much that as soon as I'd bound off the final stitches I used the same needles to cast on for this:



It's another Callie. I need help.

Arise from the muck

Yuk. Not a very pleasant headline, but kind of accurate, as arising from muck is pretty much what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Just as I had handed in my thesis and was excited about all the knitting and relaxing I was about to embark on, I was struck down with a very nasty flu bug. So for the past week or so I've just lain around like a slug, watching DVDs, blowing my nose and feeling like a small fire was burning inside my head. I was too sick to knit, if anyone can fathom that level of sickness. The mere idea of knitting repulsed me, so weakened and delusional was my state.
Yesterday, however, I knew that the flu was receding because the urge to knit had returned. I knit a few rows on the sleeve of the treeline striped cardigan as I watched The Bourne Identity (refreshing my memory of Bourne's previous adventures before I go see The Bourne Ultimatum). Then last night I finished the cardigan's sleeve and began to work on the body. This morning I woke up and, although my nose was still runny, I had an unrelenting urge to keep knitting. Clearly I'm recovering at a steady rate.
Anyhoo, aside from the striped cardigan, I really want to begin working on the Callie cardigan. Although I didn't have that much luck with the other cardigan pattern I've tried from Cosmicpluto, I accept that it was completely my own stupid fault. The Callie pattern is top-down, and so it should be easier for me to see early on if something catastrophic is going on with the sizing or fit. Mostly I want to knit Callie because I love V-neck cardigans. I think they make the wearer look smart. I imagine myself sauntering about Downtown Reykjavik in my Callie, and everyone I meet will assume I have read the entire works of Proust because of my cardigan's fetching V-neck. So, in fact, I imagine that knitting this cardigan will save me the trouble of reading all kinds of books. Hooray for that!

Sweet Freedom!

Well, well, well. It's been a while.
I apologize for the monstorously long absence, but I've been writing my thesis for the past month and a half. I mailed it off yesterday and experienced a rush of freedom like you wouldn't believe. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining and to celebrate the end of my toils I spent all of yesterday hanging around downtown Reykjavík, going to bookstores and cafes with my knitting, my brother and my boyfriend. All without my camera, of course (I took it to a repair shop, and it works! I can finally post decent pictures! If I can be bothered to take them, that is.)
It is amazing how time-consuming something like thesis-writing can be. For me at least. I couldn't bring myself to blog because I spent 10 hours a day at the computer working on my paper. Spending additional time writing something that isn't mandatory somehow lost its appeal. But I did manage to get some knitting done, although I mainly worked on small projects. Such as these:



These are Thuja socks, knit in Sandnesgarn Smart for my brother's birthday. He liked them alot.
Then there are these:



These are the Dashing armwarmers, knit in Trysil Garn Arctic for my boyfriend's grandfather. I haven't given them to him yet, so I can't tell you if he likes them or not. But I sure hope he does.
I did some more knitting that I haven't photographed yet, but I'll get around to it soon. As is to be expected, a lot of knitting features in my immediate future since I now have until the end of August to just hang around and relax. Two whole weeks of just knitting, reading whatever I want to, watching movies, spending time with friends and family. I think I may be in heaven! The bad news is that all the project I want to work on in the immediate future are cardigans. And I think I want to try my hand at that Clapotis that everyone was knitting back in the days. I didn't catch the fever then, but am becoming more and more interested in the pattern. And it will be really cold here in Iceland in just a month or so. So clearly I need more cardigans and shawls...

July

I only have one thing to say:
Bulky yarn is annoying and hard on the hands.
End message.

No knitting, but cookies.

Absolutely no knitting content today, I'm too busy doing other stuff, like writing to bother much with knitting. But no matter how much I write I still have to eat, right? So today I bring you: My snacks: A photojournal.
My grandparents brought me this yesterday:



They ran into it in some store, and since they know how much I love Moomintrolls they bought it for me. This is an appropriate snack for me since I am about to start a Ph.D. in literature, and these cookies are based on some of my favorite book characters. Let me introduce you to the family:



Meet Moominpapa. He is a philosopher and the author of his most excellent autobiography "The Exploits of Moominpapa." I highly recommend it.



This lady is the love of Moominpapa's life. His account, in his autobiography, of how they first met is very dramatic. She is, serendipitously enough, called Moominmama. Do you see her handbag? Well, let me inform you that she is a serious knitter, and she carries her knitting with her wherever she goes in that handbag. I would love to be able to peek into it.



This fellow is their son, Moomintroll. He is a good soul, but sometimes he gets into trouble by accident.



This girl is the Snorkmaiden, and she is Moomintroll's girlfriend. Well, I don't really know how serious they are about each other. We'll see, they're young still. Her hobbies mostly revolve around her looks; she enjoys combing her hair and being admired for her taste in jewlery.



I don't know what this guy is called in English, but here in Iceland we call him Snúður. He is Moomintroll's best friend, but he has a wandering spirit and cannot stay in the same place for very long. This troubles Moomintroll, because it means that his best friend is seldom with him. I have a friend who's like that; it's kind of difficult.



Finally, my favorite (characterwise that is; they all tasted the same). This is Mía Litla (in Icelandic). She is a close friend of the Moominfamily, so close, in fact, that she lives with them. She's not really a burden because she's so small. She likes to take naps in the yarn in Moominmama's handbag. She has a mean streak, and can be kind of snippy, but she has a great sense of humor. Because she's so small, she often gets misplaced and the Moominfamily has to spend alot of time looking for her, but they don't mind.

Not only are these characters entertaining, they make a great vanilla-flavored snack.

Infernal Internet!

I came here to the National Book Barn (Iceland's national library, I have no idea why it's called a barn) to escape from all the distractions at home that are keeping me from working on my thesis, not least among them knitting projects and the wonder that is the internet. But of course they have wireless intenet access here at the barn, so there is no escape. Blasted technology! A pox on modernity.

Procrastinating...

It's noon here on the calm little island we call Iceland. I've been up since early this morning, busily picking at my computer's keyboard and mousepad. The closest I've come to doing any actual work on my thesis, though, is opening the Word program. Then I instantly went back to Ravelry!
Oh, Ravelry, what a delightfully useful tool for procrastinators who want to look and sound as if they're working, but are really just salivating over pictures of knitted goods produced by othersI It's addictive and inspiring and fun, and I'm really going to have to summon all my willpower and stay away from it if I want to finish my thesis by August 15, as planned. If I'm good I'm going to allow myself all of August 16 to knit and lounge around the internet. Oh, but the pull of Ravelry is strong when faced with the prospect of writing about television history all day.
Despite all this working and pretending to work, I've managed to get some knitting and finishing done. Does anyone remember a gray Létt Lopi cardigan I began back in March? Well, I finished the actual knitting and end-weaving back then, but then I had to go to Denmark for a month, and I sensibly left the cardigan in Iceland. Upon my return to my native land, all I had left to do was blocking and sewing on some buttons. I've done that now, and so I give you:



The great thing about Iceland is that it's totally cold enough to wear this in June. All knitters should live here, wool is useful year round.
I've also finished a shawl called Hálfskák from the book Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl. Here it is:



It's unblocked so it will become much nicer. I'm a little worried about the blocking, because the shawl has a very nice frilly edging at the moment that I don't want to lose. How can I stretch out the shawl without killing the frill? Any ideas?
I apologize for the bad photo lighting, the Icelandic midday sun is blaring into the room. But look at my nifty new haircut. No more tangled, messy, felted clumps of hair for me.

Happy 17. june!

Today is Iceland's independence day. Although a joyous occasion for Icelanders everywhere, my attention today has, so far, been totally focused on Ravelry. That's right, I opened my email this morning and there it was, a shiny invite to join this exciting community. I promptly responded and can proudly say that Ravelry has only sucked up three hours of my day so far. Any moment now I'm going to stand up and walk away from the computer. It's just hard, because Ravelry is superfun and, I suspect, addictive in an inspiring kind of way. My profile there still looks kind of crappy, but I'm working on it. I'll just view this as added incentive to get my camera fixed. Yeah, tomorrow I'll stroll on down to the Sony Center and say: "Hey you guys, I'm having really annoying problems with my camera and I've been to lazy to do anything about it for six months." And they'll say: "For your laziness and lack of incentive we're gonna make you pay double the price of a standard camera-fixing." That oughta learn me.

On a cultural note...

I was just listening to Shellac, starring my beloved Steve Albini in the leading role. Does anyone know that song Prayer to God?
Well, I've always thought it was pretty good, and kind of funny in a way, but I've only just now grasped the full implications of the lyrics. Steve Albini must have written this text after being dumped! What foolish woman made the grave mistake of dumping him? He sounds like such a catch, in a geeky-sensitive-artist kind of way. Although, it must be said, he does appear, judging by the lyrical contents of this song, to have some issues with rejection and anger management. In fact, he kind of strikes me as rather vengeful, which is not really a quality I look for in a man. I wouldn't want to be the one who arouses his anger, that's for sure.
Still, as long as he doesn't take the killing spree any further than into his songs, I guess he and his works can still be appreciated.
Amen.

New stuff I learned

Hi!
Pardon the long absence. I´ve been travelling and working like a maniac, and when I've had free time I've simply been way too lazy to blog. I appear to consider blogging to be more akin to work than play. I need to adjust my attitude regarding this whole issue.
Anyways, I was in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago to visit the boyfriend. It rained the whole time, so I didn't really do alot of touristy stuff, but then, I really didn't need to since I used to live in Cambridge and had seen it all before. The real purpose of my trip, though, was to give him the secret socks (not so secret anymore!) for his birthday (I gave him some other stuff too, I'm not a total scrooge). To make a long story short, he liked them and that made me happy. Good.
Now I'm back in Iceland and working hard on my thesis which is due in two months. I've kindof finished the sausage arms cardigan, although blocking remains, and I've started yet another cardigan that is going along swimmingly. Photobooth will, in good time, bring pictures of all these wonders, but what I wanted to talk about today was this:



This weekend I attended the annual Viking Festival in Hafnarfjörður. I try to go every year, mostly because I think vikings are cool, and entertaining to boot. I'm also a little obsessed with my nordic heritage and want to keep it alive through educating myself about the ways of my ancestors. So, there I was enjoying the usual viking festivities (drinking mead, fighting with swords and axes, grilling whole sheep over an open fire) when I noticed that all the viking ladies were engaged in some kind of wooly craft. I asked one of them what they were doing, and it turns our they were nalbinding. I'd read about this technique before, and seen pictures of garments made with it, but never had I seen it in action. The lady viking was nice enough to show me the basics of the technique and sell me a needle to do it with. I want to try to find some more permanent instructions somewhere, though, because I'm not sure I remember correctly how she did it.
Nalbinding strikes me as more related to crochet than knitting. The only downside I can see to nalbinding is that you can only work with short lengths of yarn at a time, which means lots of ends to weave in. But I really liked the garments that I saw at the festival, they had a kind of freestyle look to them, not as structured and orderly as knitted garments.
Man, the world is just full of interesting stuff I want to learn, when will I have the time?

Do I look fat in this?

Do you know that feeling when you're just sprinting along on a project, the end is in sight, you're closing in on your goal of a finished object, and then Whammo!, you hit the wall of sorrow? This happened to me last night. There I was, happily knitting away on the yoke of my resident cardigan-in-progress (this one if anyone's interested), watching TV, generally having a nice relaxed time. The pattern suggests trying on the sweater while you work on it so you can determine how deep you want the yoke to be, and me, being the obedient type, did just that. And terror ensued.



There is a definite problem here. The body of the sweater fits me just fine, but the arms! Do you see the sausage effect? What did I do to deserve this (my love for dansih pastries hopefully has little to do with this problem). Apparently I have disproportionately chunky arms compared to my torso. This is a theory I have considered before, but am now completely and utterly convinced is true. This is the third time I have to adjust a cardigan pattern to fit my overinflated appendages, a fact that indicates to me that there's nothing wrong with the world and it's pattern writers, but rather that there's something wrong with me.
Given that this has happened to me before, more than once, you might ask yourself how this could happen to me once again? Do I not have the good sense to try sleeves on as I knit them, adjusting them to the girth of my expansive arms? Do I not try on one sleeve before I knit the other one, just to save myself some time and heartache? Sadly, the answer is no. I just kind of assume, time and again, that patterns will work for me because they have worked for other people in the past. This assumption is stupid at best; I am well aware that we are not all created alike and that we bulge out in different places on our bodies. I even accept this when I'm shopping for jeans. But when it comes to knitting I just dive blindly in and hope things will turn out okay. Most of the time they do. Last night they didn't. I am now, to quote Elizabeth Zimmerman, eating the porridge of regret with the spoon of sorrow. Or something like that.
What to do next? Frankly, I'm too crushed right now to keep working on this project. I was really looking forward to wearing it, but since my dreams have been cruelly dashed, I think I need to move on to something else to get over the worst of the heartbreak. My red shawl-in-progress seems like a good option, it's a fun pattern done in a life-affirming color, I'm sure having some carefree fun with it will help me get through this. And then when I'm strong enough, which will hopefully be soon, I'll return to this sad little cardigan, unravel the sleeves from the bottom up and reknit them with some more stitches than dictated in the pattern.
Don't worry cardigan, I may be casting you aside in dismay right now, but I will return to you.

Country roads, take me home...

I would just like to mention that while I appreciate warm weather as much as the next person, I cannot for the life of me imagine what I did to deserve being landed in this blazing, sticky, clammy, humid inferno. Copenhagen! My eyelids are sweaty and they stick to themselves, making blinking a very annoying experience.
Also, this weather is not conductive to knitting.
Apparently it's snowing in Iceland today. Esjan, Reykavík's top-rated local mountain, is shrouded in white all the way down to its roots.
Only two and a half weeks until I go home. I cannot wait.

Visual evidence..

that I don't suffer from second sock syndrome. Both socks are here, and I like them alot.

Hopefully their recipient will, too.



I'm feeling kind of cultural today. I want to enjoy the arts, I want to hear music, I want to look at something stimulating, I want to read something inspirational. Fortunately for me, my cultural tastes are decidedly lowbrow. Those artworks that have most touched my life, and live in my soul forever, their shaping powers working my personality like putty, they are all of the popular culture variety. I don't think I'm alone in this. Don't get me wrong, I have a definate appreciation for more highbrow forms of expression, but only popular culture really lights my fire.
I'd like to mention, though, that I don't like the distinction between high- and low culture, and I don't believe in it. But it is a customary and widely used concept that in many ways facilitates categorization and clarity when it comes to these matters, so I'll make use of it for now.
I recently wrote about how I love the album Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout. I'm listening to it right now, and am still continually amazed by what a perfect piece of music it is. All the songs are beautiful and touching, and they flow effortlessly. It is by far Prefab Sprout's finest work, even though I also really like From Langley Park to Memphis. I have a silly love for the intellectual pop of the eighties, I honestly really don't know why. Some more of my favorite bands are The Waterboys and Big Country.
I also have an irrational love for Steve Albini. Mostly for the music he has made himself with his bands, Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac. My special favorite is Rapeman (I'm not a big fan of the band's name, though). I don't know why, this music just speaks to me somehow. I remember the first time I heard their music, it felt so weird, almost like someone had taken my inner being and turned it into music. And called the band Rapeman. Ridiculous, but true.
I also love television, and have severe problems with how most people see it as a waste of time. I don't watch everything that's on TV, far from it, I am a hugely selective viewer. But I think that the medium itself is both very important and very mysterious. Why is it so enticing? Why is it such a thing of beauty? Why does it rot our brains? I could spend all of my time thinking about television (and fortunately, I practically do!). The global television industry is probably more inspirational to me than anything else in the world, in all of its manifold aspects. Go TV! One of my big dreams in life is to one day make it to the United States, just so I can familiarize myself with how it it to be a viewer of the network and affiliates system. Also, I want to experience the flow of watching TV in the U.S., with all of the commericals. I imagine it must be a very annoying, but exhilarating experience. No public service principles, just pure commercialism. It's something I really want to experience, and I think it's so funny that it's such a mundane thing for millions and millions of people. For me it's the holy grail.
I am a gigantic dork.

The EZ revelation

I've been down with some kind of weird flu or something for the past few days; symptoms have been headaches and footaches, along with general exhaustion. I haven't really had the energy to blog, or even read blogs, let alone do any serious schoolwork. However, luckily for me, my order of two books, Knitter's Almanac and Knitting without tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman, arrived just in time for my illness, so I've been able to enterain myself with those. Hooboy, could that lady ever write a text on knitting! She is just so down to earth, and no-nonsense. None of that ridiculous perfectionist crap that some people (read: me) have a tendency to brainwash themselves with. Anything goes with her, and if you screw up she points out a zillion ways to fix the problem in a totally relaxed way. I like her and intend to get more of her books, as soon as I have some money.
I have finished the secret socks, both of them. I was going to show you a picture, but for some reason Blogger won't let me. Hopefully, if I try again tomorrow, it will.

Issues of Import

Boy, do I feel sorry for all you non-Europeans out there. Year after year, you miss out on the awesome festival that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Finland offered us a fantastic show last night, and while my favorite didn't win, I can totally see why the winner did. As I get older I come to appreciate this contest more and more. Just a few years ago I would watch with a kind of ironic distance, finding the whole spectacle embarrasing rather than enthralling. Now, I'm just enthralled, not least because the show is great to knit to. I can't wait for next year, when Serbia will be hosting.
Something else important happened yesterday: Iceland had an election (notice my excellent priorities: Eurovision Song Contest first, government issues second). Again, my favorite didn't win, but still I always love an election. Watching democracy in action is pretty cool, even if it really rams home the point that me and my opinions belong to a minority. But that's okay, better luck next time.
I still haven't fixed my camera issues. I'm not going to bore you with the details of why not, but I'm working on it, albeit very slowly. So, brought to you by trusty photobooth:



One finished secret sock (sans blocking) and his in-progress brother. I changed the pattern a little bit, and didn't decrease as much in the gusset as I should have. I also just kind of winged it with the toe. When I got to the toe I was watching this movie starring Johnny Depp that was on TV, and I couldn't immediately locate the book the sock pattern is in. It wasn't anywhere close to hand, and I'll be damned if I let a small matter like a knitting pattern interrupt my viewing pleasure when Johnny Depp himself is at stake. So I just did some kind of decrease and then grafting, whatever. It turned out fine, although pretty different from what the pattern wanted me to do. Who cares, as long as it works, right?

Shhh, it's a secret!

A blog is maybe not the best entity to confide a secret in, but look at these:



This is the first cuff of the first of a pair of socks. I'm afraid that's all I can divulge at the moment, cause, you know, they're a secret special occasion present. I'm pretty sure the intended recipient doesn't read the blog, but just in case, let's all just keep them on the hush-hush, okay? I can probably also tell you, without spoiling the surprise, that the pattern is superfun to knit and the yarn, which is called strømpe- og jumpergarn (that's all the information the ball band provides, no manufacturer or anything), is unbelievably soft. It's just normal sockyarn made from wool and nylon, but it's nicer and softer than what I've worked with up til now. Hopefully I'll have these knitted up soon, so I can continue working on a certain lovely cardigan. Yes, a cardigan, big surprise. I tried taking pictures of the cardigan in progress with the photobooth, but they all turned out to be too crappy for public consumption. I will try to find a way to bring you visual proof of the cardigan, but you'll have to bear with me.
In other news, things may just be looking up on the camera vs. computer front. These pieces of equipment still resolutely refuse to have any kind of dialogue, and I've tried everything I could think of. I was practically on the verge of just buying a new camera (desperate measures on a student's budget). Well, I finally went to see this professional computer guy, and at first he was stumped, just like everyone else I've brought this problem up with. But then he helpfully suggested that I may simply need to reformat my camera's memory stick, since I used to work on a PC but now have a Mac. I really hope that this will solve the problem for me and that I will be able to offer a properly illustrated blog in the future, with pictures of my FO's draped artistically over tree branches, on location at the lake behind my house. And I could show you the lake! And my house! Wooo, just the thought gets me all excited. Wish me luck.

Blue, but not down

Hi! Lord, the last few days have been so beautiful here in Copenhagen, the sun has been shining nonstop and I've been cooped up in my apartment working on a serious assignment. And no, I don't mean the knitting kind. If only.
So I've spent the past five days typing away at my computer from morning to night, practically no time to knit a single stitch, let alone take my knitting to the park and enjoy the fine weather. But yesterday I finally finished the damned academic project from hell and sent it off to its recipient, and promptly proceeded to take my latest FO outside to take some lovely sun-drenched photos of the little (no, rather large actually) beauty gracefully perched from a blossoming treebranch.
And lovely photos they were. However, because of the ongoing communication problems between my camera and computer, the blog will not get to enjoy any of them. Ha! I've now had this laptop for six months and I still haven't figured this problem out. That probably makes me the biggest techno-dolt that ever lived, not to mention one of the least motivated people on the planet. Trying to figure this problem out seems to be a bit of a bother, so rather than deal with it, I live with it. This is me in a nutshell, really. Anyhoo, this problematic laptop is still equipped with trusty Photobooth, and so I offer you this:



This lovely creation is knit with four skeins of Drops Alpaca. I got the pattern free from the Garnstudio website, which is, incidentally, my favorite free knitting pattern site of all time. They have that romantic Scandinavian vibe that I love so well, and offer over 3000 free patterns (if you can read the Scandinavian languages). I heartily recommend them.
As the sun rises in the sky, I can feel my overwhelming need to knit cardigans dwindle slightly. Indicative of this is that currently I am locked in a death grip with only one in-progress cardigan, as opposed to my customary three or four at a time. I view this as progress. Hopefully, one day, I will make a full recovery from cardiganitis, and only knit a couple of cardigans per year. Until then, I find shawls a useful distraction. I've already cast on for another one, so that should keep my cardigan cravings in check for a while. Hopefully.

Steve McQueen

This post's title refers not to the actor, but rather to the finest album ever released by the insanely wonderful Prefab Sprout. Steve McQueen was recently re-released in a new, digitally re-mastered version that also includes acoustic versions of the album's songs. I simply must go out an get it. My beloved copy of this album has been lost for some years, so I have ample reason to spend some money on intellectual eighties pop.
I'm back in Denmark now. The weather here is ridiculously nice. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the temperature hovers around 25 degrees celsius. I have so much work to do that I intend to simply draw the curtains and not leave the house today. I have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow, and I really want to sound like someone who knows just a little bit about their thesis topic. I'm actually quite happy to be back in Denmark because I spent way too much time socialising when I was back home in Iceland, and, sadly, not enough time working. The good thing about Copenhagen is that I don't know that many people here, so I have more time to work and can spend less time feeling guilty about neglecting my loved ones. For students, the hermit lifestyle comes highly recommended.
But back to the weather. Apparently this has been the warmest April ever here in Denmark. I was watching the news a couple of days ago, and they did a story on this unseasonably warm weather. Much to my dismay, the story was all upbeat, featuring interviews with scantily clad people eating ice cream. Needless to say, they all said they were delighted with the weather and hoped that it would stay like this, permanently. Now, I have nothing against nice weather, I enjoy it as much as the next guy. But I gotta tell you, I find this upbeat style of reporting kindof irresponsible considering that our own lifestyles are directly contributing to climate changes that, while currently delightful in Denmark, are likely to be catastrophic on a global scale. Ice cream or not, we shouldn't forget our responsibility to try to live in some kind of harmony with our environment. So, I hereby protest to upbeat weather stories on the news, and suggest that TV stations should be made to broadcast those two great films An inconvenient truth and The day after tomorrow constantly until we get the message. Cos the power of the media is awesome, you know?
Anyhoo, all this talk about the weather is really just to distract the world, and myself, from the fact that I have no knitting content to offer. I've been knitting some, but not much, and photobooth pictures will have to wait until I have the thing off the needles. It's just that kind of a thing.
The books are calling me. Ciao!

Economics

Sometimes I really wish I understood the financial world better than I do. Due to an upcoming election, all the Icelandic political parties are constantly going on and on about the economy and taxation and all these words I hardly recognize or understand. And that annoys me no end. I hate not understanding stuff. But I also think that what really gets to me is that I consider myself a fairly intelligent, educated woman. And these politicians are talking about stuff and using language that simply does not compute in my head. This leads me to the conclusion that I'm not the only member of the general public that has no idea what they're talking about. Then if I were to suggest that political discussions about economics should be put in the parlance of the people, I would be accused of advocating the dumbing down of important issues that need rigorous consideration rather than simplification. I don't want to advocate any such thing, so I guess the public, me included, just needs to get their act together and learn to understand economics in order to perform their civic responsibility.
But most of us are pretty busy people, and I can only imagine having time to familarise myself with economics and other issues of import if I give up something else, something that is not vital to democracy, something like, hmmm, knitting. Gasp! As if!
No, but seriously, I think that we all have a civic duty to try and understand what it is that makes our world go round; we all have a duty to understand what it is that those lovable politicians are talking about all the time. If that means that we have to educate ourselves, then so be it. Reading a few books never hurt anyone, and for those of us who like to spend their free time knitting or participating in some other kind of hobby where books aren't really convenient, there are audiobooks. So go out and acquire some knowledge! It makes listening to politicians way more fun.
In other news, I've heard that the cows are out and about in Cambridge. Hooray!

Icelandic sweaters of the seventies

My new years resolution concerning the increased knitting of accessories has so far been a complete failure. But rather than beat myself up about it, I'm going to blame the media.
Because of the enomous persuasive power of Icelandic television news footage from the 1970's I have been sucked into the vortex that is knitting a Lopi cardigan. In the 1970's everyone, and I mean litterally everyone, looked the same: the men had lambchop sideburns, the women had long hair parted in the middle, they wore flyaway trousers and a traditional, yoked Lopi sweater or cardigan. I've watched so much footage from this period in the last few weeks that I've unconsciously begun to adopt this look: I constantly wear my hair down, although a middle parting has yet to develop; I've unearthed a couple of pairs of bell-bottom trousers that I haven't thought of as cool since sometime in my teens, and ultra-modern knitting projects such as wristwarmers and tube tops have had to make way for the cardigan of the seventies. Lo and behold:



There it is in all of its "in progress" glory! Stay tuned for more hits of the seventies!

The inevitable

It had to happen. I bought Icelandic wool. It's for a cardigan. I think I need some therapy to get out of this cardigan rut, seriously. Anyway, the Létt-Lopi cardigan I'm going to make is of the traditional kind with a patterned yoke. The body of the cardigan will be a dark gray and the pattern will be a lighter gray, white and black. I did attempt to get a picture, but the light is not my friend today, and therefore wasn't able to get one that showed the colors propely. I'll just post pictures of the work in progress. I don't have a gray cardigan, so, in theory, I really need one. To coordinate will all of my gray clothes, you know? Very Important Project.
Lately I've been knitting on a green cardigan of my own design, which I believe I've mentioned before. No pictures of that either, sorry. It's turning out pretty nicely, much better than I'd expected, and I don't have much knitting to go to finish it. Unfortunately, I'm knitting with the last skein, and if it runs out before the sweater does, well then I'm afraid that that's the end of the line for this project. I probably could make some adjustments to the design so that it would use less wool, but then it wouldn't be just the way I want it. I think that this green wool would also make a fine shawl, and that my design can be knit up again with other, more plentiful yarn. So if I have to frog I shall shed no tears. It's all just part of the circle of life.
Speaking of the circle of life, there's this new, ostentatious trend that's taking Iceland by storm right now. Wealthy Icelanders have taken to hiring world-famous entertainers to appear at their parties. Recent examples include an Icelandic bank manager who got Duran Duran to play at his new-years party, a businessman who turned fifty and got Elton John to play at his party (hence the circle of life). And today news arrives of Iceland's most beloved billionaire's fortieth birthday party where 50cent apparently drove the crowd wild. I find this trend, as well as the fact that every time someone rich moves a muscle in this country it makes the news, both hilarious and pretty offensive. Hmm, maybe I just find it offensive because I never get invited to any of these parties. They should invite me though; everyone else brings the billionaires presents made by Prada or Porsche or gold plated diamonds or rockets to the moon, but I would be the only guest who brings a present knit with love and patience. I'm sure it would be much appreciated.
Apart from hoping for a party invite, I've spent the last days watching a stupendous amount of TV news. Then I've spent alot of time reading about TV news and thinking about TV news. Funnily enough, my interest in this subject is still on the increase, and therefore leading an interesting life with friends and knitting has kind of taken the back seat. And this development seems likely to continue until August 15., which is when I hand in my thesis. Man, this makes my prospects for the next few months seem pretty dim and dull. I really have to get my hands on a billionaire's party invite, and fast!

Hi! Lovely day isn't it? It is here in Reykjavik: the sun is shining and the temperature is probably just a little bit below freezing. I just got back from another grueling day at the broadcasting archives to find the family computer pleasantly vacant. My own beloved laptop is with a repair guy who doesn't seem to want to give me any kind of estimate concerning how long it will take him to fix it. So right now I share computer time with my mom and my brother, who are both, incidentally, graduate students. As you can imagine this can lead to some heated discussions whose need for computer time is the most urgent. But right now no one seems to be home, so I'm able to blog in peace.
Anyways, I've been spending eight hours a day watching old TV news and most nights catching up with my friends so I haven't been super productive. But I did manage to finish a languishing UFO recently and wanted to share it with the world:



It's quite a sight, isn't it? Yes, I'm very pleased with no longer owning just the one store-bought scarf. I can now strut my stuff in this freezing weather without knitterly humility. Hooray! I also knit that sweater I'm wearing there, by the way, but it belongs to my life before blogging, and therefore I see no reason to present it especially. This blog is all about progress, not dredging up the sordid past!
I have another knitting date with my wool-obsessed friend tonight. It's her birthday next Monday and she's invited me over for coffee and cake. I have no idea what to get her. I was thinking about some nice sock yarn, so I stopped by this yarn place on my way home today, and holy rate of inflation! One ball of Regia sock yarn costs 549 ISK. I'm a little too dense to figure out how much that is in terms that makes sense to anyone else than Icelanders, but believe you me, it's a lot of money for one stinking ball of yarn. Apparently Lopi and it's immediate relatives is the only yarn I'll be able to afford for the foreseeable future. Good thing it's my favorite yarn in the world, or I'd really be in trouble. But as far as a birthday present goes, I'll just have to think of something else, which is sad because sock yarn is such a perfect present.

Greetings from lovely Reykjavik

I can feel it. The time draws near. I predict that sometime within the next week I shall purchase a huge amount of Létt Lopi. My defenses grow weaker by the day.
I order to justify this impending spending spree I intend to knit a sweater for my boyfriend. This is a totally uncharacteristic bout of selflessness, but does amply illustrate the depth of my affection for Icelandic wool. And for my boyfriend, of course! The sweater I'm going to make him is this one (as you can see, no progress on the camera business yet. I've even had some computer geeks investigate the matter and they were stumped):



I've knit my boyfriend two sweaters before. The first one he didn't like. It's a brown Lopi sweater with a black and white yoke that he had himself picked out as the perfect sweater. The pattern is from the late eighties or early nineties, and the sweater is kind of baggy and bulky. Turns out that boyfriend likes his sweaters lightweight and fitted, information that would have come in handy sometime before I embarked on knitting the damn thing. This sweater is now firmly relegated to being worn around the house only.
About a year ago I knit another sweater for him, and this time it was a huge success. It's a close-fitting heavy-worsted stockinette sweater with a cabled yoke (I really like yokes). He's worn this sweater so much it's kind of become his uniform. I really want to make him another sweater that he'll like this much, just to add a bit of variety to his wardrobe. He's already okayed the sweater shown above, but he wants different colours, so when he gets here (he's spending easter in Iceland. Hooray!) we're going to the Lopi shop together to do some shopping. My cunning plan is to make him a Létt Lopi sweater, so I'll then have an excuse to make one for me, guilt-free. The logic is that I deserve to be rewarded for being such a good girlfriend. Everybody wins.
In other news, I've completed this handsome sock, knit from the toe up with a short-row toe and heel.



The colors in this photo are, of course, not true to life. The sock is much nicer in real life, and will also be improved by the weaving in of ends and some blocking. I totally enjoyed knitting this sock, both construction-wise and also because of using up the whole ball of wool. I'm going to get started on its partner today.
I´m going to end on a sad, maddening note. My wonderful new laptop seems to have sustained a mysterious injury to its dvd-drive and will have to go in for some costly repairs. I'm totally bummed out by this, mostly because I have no idea what happened. I've taken meticulous care of this computer ever since I got it, but yesterday I wanted to watch a dvd and noticed some weird sounds coming from the drive. I tried to eject the disc I'd just put in, but it wouldn't come out. It was only at that point I noticed that the slot where you put the discs now looks like a smile. I kid you not, that straight slot has mysteriously turned into a curve, and it won't return my precious Northern Exposure dvd. This also seriously disables my research. I'm going to have to start taking notes on paper with a pen, like a primitive cavewoman. Thank goodness for insurance is all I can say at this point. That, and I'm seriously bummed out. Hopefully a little knitting will ease the bummed-outness.

Blog Down

I haven't blogged in quite a while, mostly because being a stealth blogger is really tough when you spend all your computer time in a one-roomed apartment with another person. And that person is persistently curious about everything you do while online. My apartment is very small, and my mom and I couldn't help getting in each other's way all the time while we were in Copenhagen. I made a decision when I started this blog that I would keep it a secret from my friends and family, at least for a period of time while I properly find my blogging voice, if that makes any sense. I feel like I'm more constrained if I personally know the audience that reads my blog, and therefore I haven't really told anyone about it yet. I want to get comfortable first, and get over being self-conscious about writing in English before I allow any of my real-world knowns to look at the blog. So over the past couple of weeks I've attempted to blog a couple of times, but have been thwarted by my mom asking a few to many questions for my liking.
But I'm in Iceland now, and am able to lock myself up in my old room and blog away in complete privacy, so here goes: I've been here for 24 hours, and have not yet purchased any wool. I have a feeling, however, that it's only a matter of time. I have my heart set on a midnight-blue turtleneck sweater knit out of Létt Lopi, some more Einband for some more wristwarmers, and wool to make socks out of because it's cold here! Today it's raining and the wind is blowing hard, and I'm extremely happy to be inside and wearing wooly garments. However, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to fulfil these wooly fantasies because I didn't use my time with mom in Copenhagen in the most productive manner. We had fun, sure, there was lots of fun, but I didn't get much work done because of all the fun. So I really have to get my act together and spend the next couple of weeks researching the Icelandic news media like crazy. And blogging a little bit in between.
I did manage to get in touch with a friend of mine this morning, and we scheduled a knitting session for thursday night. She is just as obsessed with wool as I am, so I'm fully expecting a night of fun discussions about the merits of various kinds of wool and projects. I can't wait.
But did I knit at all during the last two weeks? Do I have any progress to report? The answer is, sadly, not really. I did manage to finish the lacy socks from hell, and immediately cast on for another pair of toe-up socks, because I so enjoyed the short-rowing. The first of those socks is still in progress, even though it doesn't have far to go, but my concentration has been shattered by a certain dream project that I just might cast on for tonight. It's a cardigan (I feel shame) that I'm kind of going to design myself, although it's based on a whole bunch of patterns that I've knit before, and a cardigan I saw in a shop in Copenhagen and really liked. But I didn't buy it because that would mean that I'd be depriving myself of the pleasure of knitting it. Does anyone else think this way when they see clothes in stores?
Oh, and my copy of Stefanie Japel's Fitted Knits finally arrived a few days ago. I cannot compliment this book enough. I want to make everything in it, including, of course, a bunch of cardigans (the shame). I left the book behind in Copenhagen, but I definitely see it being involved in my immediate future. I think Stefanie Japel is the coolest.
Right now, I gotta hit the books.

Dramatic Events.

Whew! What a weekend! I don´t think I've ever experienced anything so dramatic in my (admittedly, drama-free) life.
I just saw the boyfriend off to the airport a couple of hours ago. Having him here was wonderful, of course, but I'm also glad to have my focus back. I have a ton of work to do before Mom arrives on Wednesday, Ph.D. applications to hand in (yikes, scary), thesis proposals to whip up by tomorrow, and of course, clean the apartment, because that's how Moms like things, right? Clean. Verrrry clean. So I'm looking at a fun-filled couple of days.
But onwards. The weekend. I got practically no knitting done at all. I've been working on a pair of socks that I started out really liking, but have grown to loathe over the past week or so. They're a toe-up pattern, so I got to try a short-row toe and heel for the first time. That part of the sock was super-fun, I kid you not. I said earlier that I'm not a big fan of sock knitting, even though I think that few things look nicer on a pair of feet than a pair of hand-knit socks. I've just wanted someone else to knit them for me, that's all. However, the short-row toe and heel method may change all that. I think that all this time I wasn't biased against knitting socks, but I simply didn't like the heel flap. Eliminate the flap, and you have pure knitting enjoyment! No more flaps in 2007!
Anyways, my inaugural short-row sock is annoying to me right now because it features a ridiculously complex lace pattern up the leg, you know, the kind of lace that you can't memorize and asks you to do stuff like k4tog. I've practically finished the first sock (one repeat of dreaded lace patt to go), and am not looking forward to the second one. Or rather, am looking forward to the toe and heel construction, but am not liking the lace. But they'll look really nice, and I'll be happy when I've completed them. My feet will look nicer than anyone else's.
So I just kind of spent the weekend avoiding those socks, doing a bit of reading, and riot-experiencing! Yep, that's right, Copenhagen has been war-torn since Thursday. Rioters have been smashing windows, building barricades and setting all kinds of things on fire (cars, dumpsters, etc.) mainly in two parts of the city: Norrebro and Christianshavn. And you know what, I live in Christianshavn! The trash dumpsters behind my building were dragged, by the rioters, out into the main thoroughfare through my neighbourhood, and used to block all traffic in a, well, flaming manner. My garbage is part of Danish history! An odd feeling. On thursday night huge, flaming barricades were erected in my very own street, and the police had to use teargas to disperse the rowdy crowds. The boyfriend and I went out and took some pictures of each other standing in front of burning cars. Mostly because of the sheer weirdness of it. I mean, we live in this ridiculously wealthy and civilized society, and therefore these events are very surprising to me. I never would have expected to experience riots, especially not here in Copenhagen. Riots in Iceland would surprise me less, somehow.
These riots are, thankfully, not very serious. There has been serious property damage, of course, but luckily no one has been seriously hurt. There has been alot of violence, however, and a general feeling of uneasiness in the city these past few days, so I'm really hoping that this situation is beginning to wear itself out (I'm listening to the sound of sirens as I write this).
The riots have a political cause, of course, which I'm not going to comment in any depth here. I'll just say that I don't think any cause justifies the use of violence, not even violence of the property-damage kind. It's just not right.
And then, to top off the drama, the house next door to me caught fire last night. It's roof was completely ruined. I don't think this had anything to do with the riots, however, it was just a badly-timed tragedy probably due to faulty electrical wiring, or something like that. Boyfriend and I went up to the roof of our building to see what was going on, and so we had an eye-level view of the fire devouring our neighbour's roof. It was kind of awesome, but we couldn't watch for more than a minute, because it felt morbid and wrong to view the destruction of other's homes as a spectacle.
So, basically, I am glad things are getting back to normal for a couple of days before Mom arrives. I really need the calm.

What just happened?

Holy Cow! I sure wasn't expecting this. Instead of working on my many knitting wip's, or even doing my schoolwork, for that matter, I somehow managed to crochet a huge, fringed monstrosity of a shawl (by the way, did anyone know how much yarn a fringe uses up? It's crazy). This was not on my to-do list and I feel kind of guilty about it, both on behalf of my wip's and my neglegted thesis, but I really like the shawl. I just had some black yarn left over from other projects (so it's all black worsted weight wool, but different dye lots, and even different brands. Yikes!), and I all of a sudden had this 'I sooo need a huge black shawl with a fringe right now' moment. It's the Sweet-Pea shawl from the Stitch n' Bitch crochet book. I haven't blocked it yet, so it's going to become even huger, but here you have a photo, taken with my trusty photobooth, of a detail of the shawl and me trying to convey by my expression how perplexing I find this development:



I'm still having camera problems, as you can perhaps infer from my continued use of photobooth, but Bonnie left me a helpful comment suggesting that I download the softwear for my camera. Thank you Bonnie! I´m such a technodolt that options such as downloading a program I need have to be pointed out to me. And I call myself a student of the media. Sheesh.
Anyways, when I go home on March 19, I have every intention of getting some of my more techno-savvy Icelandic friends to give me tutorials on how to make my blog look a bit cooler, add links inside the posts instead of just in the sidebar and, you know, generally cool stuff like that. I swear on a bunch of Icelandic sheep that one day I shall have a cool blog that includes more than just photobooth pictures!
Until I go home I have kind of a full plate, however. Tomorrow my lovely boyfriend is coming for a four-day visit. He currently lives in Cambridge (England), and I'm here in Copenhagen, and I gotta tell you, I cannot reccommend this long-distance thing. We'd lived together for four years prior to this winter of long-distance love, so just seeing each other for a few days every couple of months is definately a change of pace for us. Still, it could totally be alot worse. The flight between London and Copenhagen is only an hour and a half, and if we book in advance we can get tickets pretty cheap. I miss him sooo much, and am positively giddy about his visit. We both have tons of work to do, but we'll have fun just hanging out, cooking good food and walking around beautiful Copenhagen (not snowy anymore!). Then a couple of days after the departure of boyfriend the arrival of mom will take place. Yep, my mom is coming to visit me for 12 action-packed days, and will then accompany me back to Iceland. I'm also ridiculously exited about this visit, mom is such fun to hang out with. We'll go to museums, go shopping, go to the movies, drink beer. And because, like me and boyfriend, mom is also a graduate student, I don't even have to worry about her disturbing my work too much, because she´s bringing a ton of her own work with her. So both of these visits will be well-balanced work/play equations. Hooray for family!
I will try to blog some, but probably won't much. But will try.

I spoke too soon

Yeah, I spoke too soon on spring being just around the corner. Copenhagen enjoyed a snowstorm last night, and we now have snow and ice everywhere. I went for a walk this morning, went to school and did some errands, and everywhere I went people were wearing knitwear to fight of the unseasonable cold. I even got a little bummed out at school because I saw this girl wearing a beautiful fair isle hat, and I was just wearing a plain, solid-colored hat. Knitter's envy. I swore that I would make myself a hat that beautiful as soon as I'm done with all the other projects I'm working on. So hopefully sometime next year, then.
I took some pictures of what my street looked like this morning, just to document the snowy loveliness (I really like it!), but I'm still having camera problems. Or rather just one very specific problem. My camera and computer don't seem to be able to talk to each other. The camera is, at this moment, clearly hooked up to the computer, yet the computer clearly states, at this same moment, that, and I quote, 'No Image Capture device connected'. What's going on? Is my camera broken? Is my computer broken? Am I perhaps just monumentally stupid? Man, the simplest things can be so perplexing at times!
Fortunately, I still have my trusty photobooth, and courtesy of that I now offer some knitted photocontent:



That's a nice armwarmer, eh? I made it using Cassie's pattern, Icelandic Loðband and 2.5 mm needles. Made them, I should say, I have a pair, but the other one's not in the photo because I didn't think of it at the time. Anyway, you're not missing much, the other one's basically identical. I love these mitts and haven't taken them off since they finished blocking. They're also a nice easygoing project, good for watching TV and such, so I'll probably make them again. Next time, though, I'll probably make them stripy to show off the waviness of the pattern. I miss the waves on this solid-colored version.

Spring is on its way

One of my favorite things about winter is the chance us knitters get to check out all kinds of knitwear all the time. Literally everywhere you go people are wearing shawls and scarves, mittens, hats, chunky sweaters and wooly socks, sometimes all at the same time. Just going grocery shopping is fun when you're a knitter in the wintertime because you never know when the coolest earflap hat you've ever seen will be waiting for you in the dairy section. I so enjoy winter because it really is high season for us knitters to show off our work and admire that of others.
Yesterday I went to a cafe downtown, and I couldn't help but notice that spring is on its way. It's not that it's suddenly gotten warmer or anything like that, but it's more of a gradual thing. The coats people were wearing weren't as heavy as those I saw a month ago, and while everyone was wearing scarves, not that many people wore hats. I also noticed yesterday that it's still light out at 5 pm. Spring is definately just around the corner.
I have mixed feelings about this. I would hardly be human if I didn't enjoy spring; the daylight, nature coming back to life, ducklings (sadly, still a couple of months away). But the warmer weather kind of makes my inner knitter sad, if you know what I mean. Away go the beautiful mittens and shawls and in come the ratty t-shirts and shorts. The view definately changes, and grocery shopping no longer provides an opportunity for admiring good craftsmanship. So really, this time of year, when us in the northern hemisphere are saying goodbye to winter and welcoming spring is really a time of mixed emotions for me.
However, this fear of spring really only takes its hold when I'm here in Denmark. Denmark is one of those countries where it actually gets warm, no, hot even, in the summertime, and I'm really not a warm weather person, so I think that my dislike of temperatures over 20 °c has alot to do with how I feel. But I'm fortunate enough to be spending my summer in Iceland, a wonderful country where it never really gets warm, and so I guess don't have that much to complain about. Beautiful sweaters are on display year-round in Iceland, even if we do put our mittens away for the three brief summer months. I'll even get to ride out a good portion of spring in Iceland, as I´ll be going home for some massive research from mid-March to mid-April. I can't wait. Lopi is sooooo cheap in Iceland, as it should be since is simply necessary for our survival in that climate.
Last year I stayed in Denmark throughout the spring, and then went home to Reykjavík to work in early June. By May it had gotten really warm here in Copenhagen and I'd taken to wearing light summer dresses all the time, and foolishly, those were the only kinds of clothes I packed to take with me to Iceland in June. When I got home the temperature in Reykjavík was around 8°c, and it was raining, and that's how it stayed the whole summer. I was literally forced to knit two lopi sweaters in a hurry to wear over my summer dresses, just so I wouldn't freeze to death walking to and from work every day. I'll probably be faced with a similar scenario this summer, so I would do well to remember to pack warm clothes for my summer in Iceland. But maybe I should forget all about the Icelandic summer weather again, so I'll have an excuse to knit up some more Lopi sweaters.

A History of Hand Knitting

Wow! Is this the coolest book ever or what? (Please just ignore the fact that I´m way to lazy to get my camera problems fixed and am still relying on the photobooth.) I got the book at the library yesterday and have become a little obsessed with it over the last 24 hours.
I mean, look at this guy. He is the Bishop of Leicester, which sounds like a big deal to me, and he is also a prolific knitter. I will bet you anything that he knit that beautiful flowery cardigan he's wearing himself. And he just looks so happy and content in this picture, a knitter completely at ease with himself. I just love this cover.
And then, of course, there is the content of the book which is just great as well. A thorough history of the art of knitting, with lots of pictures and entertaining morsels of information. I give this book an unequivocal thumbs up.
I've found it for sale (because now that I know of it's existence I must own it. I'm just a very possessive person) on a few sites, but the only copies I've seen photos of have a different cover from this one. Now, that simply won't do! I have to have the version where the Bishop of Leicester is on the cover. Just looking at him makes me smile. This problem could be solved, of course, if only I had easy access to a scanner. I could just scan the Bishop cover and then buy me a version of the book that has a different cover, and then print the bishop cover and glue it the **** on there! (I know I shouldn't think swear words in the same sentence as the Bishop of Leicester. I'm just so excited about this). Some of my friends and acquaintances have scanners, I'm just a little worried that they'll find my enthusiasm for this cover odd. But that's their problem, right?
Now, I really should get some studying done.

The kind of knitter I am.

I just wanted to use this opportunity to try to explain the kind of knitter I am. When I read other knittingblogs, and I do that alot, I am constantly amazed at both how much and how little I can have in common with my fellow stick-wielding wool lovers. What follows is a short list of some of the things that I notice most as points of convergence or difference between me and the rest of you:

1. Socks. I do not love to knit them. They are definately not my favorite kind of project (the subject of favorite kinds of projects will be returned to shortly). In yesterday's post I mentioned that I have two pairs of socks in progress, and this is true, but it's only because I'm in the midst of a concerted sock-knitting effort. I'm consciously trying to make myself like knitting them. I mean, I like wearing them, so how hard can it be?
Anyway, the reason I´m trying so hard to fall in love with the sock-knitting process is because I´ve noticed a definate sock-bias on the blogs I´ve been reading. Apparently, alot of people out there prefer to knit socks more than any other kind of project. Not being part of this group makes me feel a bit of a freak, truth be told, hence the sock-knitting effort. Kind of pathetic, really.

2. I´m a product knitter. For me it´s a little bit about the process, but very, very, very much about the finished product. I have to end up with something that looks good, something that I or someone else would wear with pride. However, I should probably mention at this point that I´m also an exceedingly selfish knitter; I only like to make things for myself. I´ve made stuff for other people, sure, and I´m not saying that there isn't some satisfaction gained from the gratitude I get, but I guess the bottom line is that if I've worked on something, I want to reap the benefits myself. Totally selfish.

3. Now, just in case I'm giving off a bad image of myself as this selfish, awful person, I will say this in my defense: I am not a yarn snob. I'm very open-minded when it comes to yarn, and while I prefer to work with wool, I'll give just about anything a chance. Part of this attitude may derive from the fact that I'm a student and therefore never have any money. I kind of have to go for the cheap yarn, I guess. But there is alot of cheap yarn out there that's really good, and I've also worked with expensive yarn (Rowan, no less) that I was disappointed with, especially considering how much it cost me. I guess what I'm saying is that I'll give anything a try once, you never know when you might discover a treasure.

4. Has anyone heard of Cardiganitis? I have it in a bad way. Practically all my projects last year were cardigans. For me. I have about 25 cardigans in my closet. I made 4 cardigans from the same pattern between the months of july and november, only alternating the colors I worked with. See what I mean about being a product knitter.? I just happen to think this pattern turns out a really cool cardigan, and so I feel a pressing need to have one in every color. I've moved on from that particular pattern now, on to others, but I'm almost as bad with those. In december I knit two cardigans from another pattern, and am currently working on the second of two cardigans from a third pattern. A little crazy? Methinks so.
Again, in my defense, I wear a cardigan practically every day. They are so much better at showing off cool t-shirts than sweaters are.

5. My criteria for a successful cardigan pattern that I'll fall in love with and knit a billion times over is that it must be knit in one piece and must feature entertaining details such as fair isle colorwork, cables or lace. Or all of those elements. Or any combination of those elements. However, any steeking is a total no-no.
The knitting in one piece thing is important to me because I hate to sew up my work. I've sucessfully sewn up a few cardigans, mind you, but when I discovered the joys of seamless construction I simply saw no reason to turn back. Why sew when you can skip it? I've yet to find a good answer to this question.

6. I made one new years resolution concerning my knitting: 2007 shall be the year of knitted accessories! I shall teach myself to love the mitten, the sock the shawl, the hat, the scarf, and so on and so forth. No more damned cardigans until 2008! Exept of course for that cardigan that I'm currently working on, but I cast on for that in 2006, so it technically belongs to that year.
It's just ridiculous that I, prolific knitter that I am, have only one scarf. And a store-bought scarf at that. Hopefully the year 2007 will remedy this situation.

7. I have practically no stash. Back home in Iceland I have one cardigan's (!) worth of green and purple wool that I found on sale and couldn't pass up, but that's about it. I knit all the time, I have several projects on the go at any one time, and yet the wool I have is only the wool required for those projects. When other bloggers show pictures of their expansive stash I'm filled with awe. How can they own all this wool and not use it? I don't get it. But I guess they wouldn't get me, either.

On the technical side, I still haven't figured out how to get my camera to work. I'm beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that it may be broken. God, I wish I had in my real-world life who was good at this kind of stuff. Alas, my life is pitifully tech-nerd free. But I'm working on the problem. Until then, I'll just have to dangle finished objects in front of the computer and use the photo booth function.
But, now, I really should go study. Really.

Blogpost the first

Contrary to what this blog's title would indicate, I am not knitting a hamburger. No sir. No culinary knitting going on here. Although I did once see a pattern for a knitted hamburger pillow that I may consider if I ever completely lose my mind. I am, however, a big fan of booth wollen and beef goodies, and so I figured it would be a smart move to include both of these good things in the title of my blog. That, or I was decidedly uninspired when I created the title of this blog.
Blogging is not a totally new thing to me, not at all. This is, in fact, my second attempt at a blog. The first one was the kind that I maintained for my friends and family and it didn't work out for a number of reasons. For one thing, it was in Icelandic, creating a language barrier which meant that my audience was necessarily limited. Second, it was also a knitting blog. In Icelandic. That only my friends and family knew about. This was not a good combination. Only a couple of my friends knit, and so the feedback I got on my posts was decidedly underwhelming. Needless to say, I lost interest pretty quickly.
This time I hope it will be different. By posting in English, I really hope that the people who will read my blog will be knitters, rather than just people somehow personally linked to me. I hope that through this blog I can take part in some kind of community of like-minded people, that is to say, knitting obsessives with whom I can share my craziness.
To give a little background on myself, just because it's always nice to know who you're dealing with, I'm a 27 year old Icelandic graduate student, currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark. I began knitting, seriously that is, in 2004 when I was living in Cambridge, England, and was in desperate need of a hobby. I stumbled across Debbie Stollers Stitch'n'Bitch in a bookstore and from then on, I was lost to the world. I had been taught how to knit when I was a child and had experimented with designing my own projects when I was a teenager, but that always ended in tears. But when I found Stitch'n'Bitch my life changed for the better because, lo! That book taught me how to follow a pattern, and what's more, it included patterns that I actually wanted to make. To this day I am a devout follower of patterns; I hardly ever make any alterations to them and wouldn't dream of designing anything on my own. In a way, this is good. When my projects are complete, they look like the picture that came with the pattern, and there's a kind of satisfaction that goes along with that. However, I can totally imagine that completing a sucessful project of your own design is endlessly more satisfying, so that's something I aspire to do in the future. I just don't feel ready yet, I guess.
I´m currently working on a whole bunch of wip's which include a couple of cardigans, a couple of pairs of socks, a cowl, a shawl and (gasp! shock! horror!) a little crochet bag. I really have no idea which of these projects is the most likely to cross the finish line first, but when one does, I'll try to post pictures. I really think that pictures are soooo important to knitting blogs, having that visual confirmation really packs a punch that words just can't muster. I do have some technological issues though. I just bought a new laptop, and I can't figure out how to get my camera to do the tango with it. Also, I lost the software that came with the camera, and blablabla. Anyway, when I figure out how to establish a dialog between my computer and camera, I will post pictures. Until then, I'll have to make do with this nifty photobooth feature on my laptop. Pictured somewhere in this post (I also need to figure out how to put the pictures where I want them to go in my posts, not just all at the top all the time) is a snapshot of a yoke I recently knit and am currently wearing. Yokes are one of my favorite things in life; there is so little sewing involved.