Wednesday, March 28, 2007

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.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

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.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

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.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

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.