maskerade

The prosess of making a new pattern

@brittarnhild

I am so in love with m y new Gotlandskofte, I already know I want to knit more, using the same measurements. I have been thinking for several days now about colours and patterns, and then, last afternoon, watching the sun shining down on this plant, the idea came to me..

I walked the stairs up to my knitting loft and started to play.

At Easter, when we stayed in an AirB&B in Stockholm, I "stole" a little top of one of the plants in the apartment. It is now growing here in the House in the Woods, giving me so much joy with its shapes and colours. 

First I made a drawing/painting of one of the leaves, then I tried to transfer the drawing over to a knitting pattern.

The colours on the graph paper are not the correct ones, but the pattern is one I think I will use.
Today I went to one of the yarn stores downtown in search for the right colours.......and I think I got them :-)

Now is time to make swatches.

 

Look what I have finished :-)

@brittarnhild

Yes, my Gotlandskofte, Gotland cardigan, is finally off the needles. I have been working hard on this lately, and am very happy that I finally can wear it.

I gave the cardigan its name for several reasons. The rose pattern is one I came across in February when I knitted a pair of socks by Sofia Kammeborn, "Longing for Gotland", you can find the pattern on Ravelry. Sofia lives in the Swedish island Gotland and she talks about Gotland as the island of roses and fairytales. Back in the summer og 1978 Terje and I both visited the island, we fell in love, two years later we were married, 41 years later we are still in love <3 

The stripes are for me lines to write on, to write the days and moments of your life. Our love tale is hidden there, so is our future.

Here I am wearing the Gotlandskofte with a sølje, a silver brooch from my bunad, regional costume. This particular sølje is called Agnus Dei and is a sign of the trinity.

 

You can see more in my YouTube vlogg:

 

Working on next year's knitting retreat

@brittarnhild

Lately I've been working in more information about next year's knitting retreat in Tuscany. The pamphlet is almost ready, but as we will not open up for registration until mid-August, it is not sent out yet.

Santa Maria a Ferrano, where the retreat will be taking place, is an old farm with its own 1000 years old church, situated up in the hills east of Florence.

The retreat we are planning now will be held in Norwegian and Swedish, but if there is enough interest, we might consider one in English later on.

We are very happy that Sofia Kammeborn, a well known Swedish knitwear designer, will come to the retreat and share thoughts and knowledge with us.

More information about the retreat will come.
Let me know if you are interested.

Knitting for me is pleasure, not work

@brittarnhild

I had a kind of progress plan for my Gotland cardigan for our 5 days at the cabin, and if I followed the plan I knew I would be all done by the time we were ready to drive back home. Already on Sunday my plan failed, something I wrote about a couple of days ago. But I did not despair. One extra day, no problem!

Yesterday, Monday, I followed my day plan, well, actually the Sunday plan, and after breakfast this morning I sat out on the terrace with the cardigan in my lap, knitting happily. But then the birds were singing. I listened, I found my binoculars and my camera, I listened a little more. And then a beautiful bee had her breakfast in the flowerbed just in front of me. And one more bee. And one more.

And I started to look at the wild flowers. I love wild flowers. I photograph them, and use the hashtag #brittarnhildsflora2019 on instagram to easily go back to them.

The sun was up and all the wool in my lap felt warm. Soon too warm.

 

.......and in the end I told myself that my plan did not matter. Knitting is meant to be fun. Knitting is not something I have to do. Knitting is something I love and I plan to continue this lifelong fun :-)

 

The Gotland cardigan will be finished.......some day.

 

Jeg har oppdaget en gylden omvei

@brittarnhild

.......woops, only after I had finished the whole post I realised it is in Norwegian, not English, and now it is soon bedtime. Dear English readers, I am so sorry, but I will try to do better tomorrow.......

 

En times kjøring sørvest for Trondheim ligger Løkken. To times kjøring sørvest for Trondheim ligger hytta vår. Egentlig ikke helt samme veien, men omveien trenger slett ikke være veldig lang, sier jeg til Terje. Ikke om vi kjører over Houston etter at vi har vært på Løkken. Og dessuten har de fantastisk god fiskesuppe på Bergmannskroa på Løkken.......og så trenger jeg ikke si at de også har Garnbutikken Fortuna der, for det vet Terje nå. Han vet også at Marit serverer han kaffe når vi kommer og at han kan sitte ned i ro og mak lenge, med kaffe og avis.

Da er han godt fornøyd, og selv er jeg strålende fornøyd. Garnbutikken er nemlig en av de beste godteributikkene jeg vet om. Vi stoppet der på vei til hytta på fredag, og jeg handlet både fredagsgodt og lørdagsgodt og søndagsgodt og godteri for resten av uka, og resten av måneden med. Jeg skal nok vise det fram etter hvert, bare vært litt tålmodig.

Det jeg derimot skal vise fram i dag har litt med Garnbutikken Fortuna å gjøre, men ingen ting med besøket der på fredag å gjøre. Garnbutikken Fortuna kjører nemlig en sokkesamstrikk hvert år, ett par sokker hver måned. #12i18 i fjor, #12i19 i år. Jeg har ikke fått strikket alle sokkeparene så langt, men prøver å henge med så godt jeg kan, og dermed strikker jeg nå på sokkene "Herr ich Fru Ulltuss" av svenske Anna Bergmann ( du finner mønsteret på ravelry) Dette er egentlig junisokken, så jeg er for seint ute igjen. men det har egentlig ikke så mye å si. Jeg koser meg med å strikke dem, jeg elsker fargene, rester fra sjalet jeg nettopp har strikket, og jeg har lært en ny måte å strikke hæl på. Liker min gamle, kjente, kjære måte bedre, men alltid gøy å lære noe nytt.

 

Nå har jeg delt alle de siste vloggene men dere, her kommer den aller nyeste. Kanskje får jeg spilt inn og lagt ut en ny en i morgen. Har i alle fall en liten plan om det :-)

 

 

I Britt Arnhilds bloggverden i dag:

Britt Arnhilds House in the Woods

Med bøker på menyen

Books on the Menu

Britt Arnhilds naturdagbok

Never on a Sunday

@brittarnhild

We are spending a few days at the cabin, just me and Terje. Terje is busy as always, this time doing some renovating work on the outdoor toilet, which means I have all the time in the world for knitting. I did bring with me a huge box with work in process, and have worked on several of them, making small lists every day for what I want to do that day. But when I woke up this morning I knew I had to hide my list and let my fingers rest instead. Yesterday I knitted for hours and hours and could not stop, and the first thing my fingers told me when I woke up this morning was: "Do NOT forget that today is Sunday. Knitting is not for Sundays!" At first I laughed. Yes, I grew up with this rule, knitting, and quite a few other things, were not for Sundays. They were looked upon as work, and working on Sundays was a sin.

I skipped that rule ages ago. Knitting is not work, knitting can never be a sin! A sin? How can it be????? But this morning I had to reconsider. Not calling it a sin, but may be the old rule of one day in the week for resting is a good thing. Not because of sinning, but because God has given us a day where we can rest our bodies and minds. Yes, I can hear your protest, and I agree. Knitting is resting! Knitting is mindfulness. Knitting is pure joy! And I agree. But still. Overdoing something is not a good think, and there is no doubt, lately I have overdone my knitting. I have arthritis in my fingers and if I am not careful they protest with inflamations. I can close my eyes for the pains for some time, but not too long. And this morning it was apparently "too long"

So today I have not knitted one single stitch. Instead I have read the book you see on the picture, I have weeded the flowers bads in the cabin garden, I have gone for a lovely hike with Terje, I have photographed flowers and birds and tonight I plan to update a few of my blogs (I have MANY) :-) And may be, later, I might knit a few stitches....... even though it is a Sunday ;-)

 

The above photo shows a pair of socks I am working on. The pattern is from Ravelry, let me know if you want the link, and the yarn is left overs from the shawl I've just knitted.

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My vlog from a little more than a week ago, "Look what I have bought":

 

 

By the way, in my main blog, Britt-Arnhilds House in the Woods, you can find links to all my blog, in the right column, and I also try to add links to the blogs I update at the and of every post.

 

When a pair of socks became a cardigan

@brittarnhild

 

Back in February I knitted a pair of socks, "Longing for Gotland" by the same designer as I talked about yesterday, Sofia Kammeborn (you can find the pattern for the socks on Ravelry). I loved the stripes and the roses so much, and also the colours, which were all my choice, I wanted to do something more with it.

The idea of making a cardigan came. I bought more blue yarn, two shades, gammelserie from Rauma Ullvarefabrikk. I found paper and pencils and started to design a cardigan, with the same roses as were in the socks.

I am a big woman and I wanted a big cardigan, so the knitting has taken me hours and hours and hours of work. But now I am about to see the end. The body is done, the sleeves are done and it has been put together by raglan. I steeked the front the other day, and today I started to pick stitches all the way down, or up the front, to make what we call knappestolper in Norwegian,

the long stripe with roses you see down the front here. I don't know the English name. This is the right knappestolpe, I still need to fo the left one, and then also a neck with roses. But I can really see the end now, I have tried the cardigan on, it is beautiful and fits perfectly....... and I cannot wait to finish it and Strat using it!

Hopefully the last stitch will be done in a few days, and then I am ready to make another YouTube-video.......I´ve promised myself to wait till the cardigan is finished :-)

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Here is a video from two weeks ago, where I talk about crocheting.......and also knitting, as always.

 

 

 

 

By the way, the giveaway, no, I have not forgotten. Two correct answers, from Carole and Dagmar, yes, Anne fra Bjørkely is the Norwegian title of Anne of Green Gables :-) Since Dagmar was the only one to comment directly here on the blog, a little something will be made for you, from my crochet needle. But have patience with me, it might take some time to have it finished and posted.

 

When time flies, a new shawl and may be even a giveaway

@brittarnhild

A month has passed since my last post here. A month? Time flies for sure. I have knitted quite a lot duding this month though, and I have made several vlogs on YouTube. I will add the videos at the end of this post.

I finished this shawl a couple of days ago. The pattern is a new one, by Sofia Kammeborn. You can find the pattern, in both English and Swedish on ravelry, here.  I have used the yarn finull from Rauma Ullvarefabrikk, pure Norwegian wool. It has been a favourite yarn of mine for many years. You can get it in a wide range of colours. I decided to go for a summer green garden.

I took these images in the rain the other day, all of them for my instagram account @brittarnhildsstrikkedagbok. Bookworm as I am, I often include books ins my photos there. Can you see which book this one is? Well, I guess the name of the author can give you a clue :-)

 

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Here are the blog-videos I've made since my last post here:

 

 

 

............ I changed my mind and will only give you one video today ;-) We are spending some days at our cabin, I knit while Terje does some carpet work. And I have set myself a goal to update maskerade!  Then I can share one video every night.

 

By the way.......I am playing with a giveaway idea. Something I've made with needles. But to do that I need some comments here, like the English name of the book may be? Let's see what happens.

 

Knitting in Tuscany

@brittarnhild

For several years I've spent a week in Tuscany, at a lovely old farm with a 1000 years old church, Santa Maria a Ferrano. I am part of a Norwegian group which runs retreats there. Next year one of our retreats will have knitting as a theme.

The retreat will be from April 26 till May 2, and I am so happy and proud to announce that the Swedish knitter Sofia Kammeborn will come with us. Sofia has the blog Kammebornia, she is on instagram as @kammebornia and she and her husband Dennis has a YouTube channel with more that 10.000 followers.

I am working on a shawl pattern which the participants at the retreat will be the first to get.

 

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This time the language during the week will be Norwegian and Swedish. But who knows, one day we might do it again, in English :-)

 

One man's death, another man's bread

@brittarnhild

A pattern I am working on, a shawl for a knitting retreat in Tuscany in April/May 2020

Den enes død, den annens brød, one mans beat, another man's bread.......is a saying we have here in Norway. I do not have a death to report, knock on wood, but still I find the saying a bit appropriate. The last months, well, for almost a year now, I have spent every single free moment knitting. I have loved it! I still love it. My fingers do not always agree though. I have arthritis, I try to forget that I have, but every single day one or two or all ten fingers remind me.......do not forget us, do not forget our arthritis....... So far I have managed to close my years, but these last days they've cried so loud, begged so heartbreaking, I have to listen. To tell myself and them that knitting is good for them, that creating with needles prevent them to get too stiff.......well, they don't listen anymore.

Terje´s lopapeysa, in the pattern ridder

What death and bread has to do with this? Well, with less knitting I get more time for other things. Like keep up my blogs :-)

First garment knitted to myself in 25 years :-)

 

The new YouTube videos are up since my last post here:
(let me know if you have any questions about what I am talking about)