maskerade

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)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by the Swedish artist Josef Frank

@brittarnhild

We were in Stockholm, visiting our oldest son. One day we had lunch in a small restaurant in Søder, three old ladies were sitting at the table next to us, two of them were talking about painting, and I couldn't help listening. One of them mentioned Josef Frank, "Oh, I wish I could paint like Josef Frank, but nobody does any more......." I had never heard the name, googled it and found an amazing series of watercolours. 

Later that day Torgeir bought me a late birthday present, a book with many of his paintings. This book is now on display in our living room, and are of great inspiration to me.

It must be possible to transfer the colours into knitting, I told myself one day.......

.......and started to do so :-)

A pair of pear wrist warmers are now done,

and the whole adventure is told in my YouTube vlog/podcast

In the podcast I also read from a book I've inherited from my mother, and I share a cute little video of a busy spider :-)

 

 

 

The season of harvesting, even for knitting

@brittarnhild

Burning nettles are growing in our garden. Weeds, most people call them. Not I, not here with us. I let them grow and use them all through the three seasons till winter arrives again. The other day I picked young leaves and made soup, filming the whole process, sharing it in the most precious episode on my YouTube channel. As always I speak Norwegian, but the part where I make soup is completely without words, music only, and can be "read" by everyone.

Some years ago I wrote a legend I call "When God gave the nettle the name burning nettle", where I let the fresh nettle complain to God. It is early spring, the little nettle let his leaves sprout but as soon as he does, the woman is there picking them. The nettle gets angry, very angry and wants to burn the woman. But God is giving him a lesson, letting him know how important his leaves are for the woman, for her children and her husband. In the end God changes the nettles name as a punishment. I read the legend in Norwegian, but here you have the essence :-)

A few year ago I bought a skein of yarn made of nettle fibers. I bought it out of interest, but had no idea how to use the yarn. Then, one day, I got an idea. Why not make a kind of soap shrub, a little bag to keep the soup and hang it in the shower cabinet!

I have made many nettle bags since then. They are perfect as small gifts. Here is one I made this week, a gift for my sister in law for her birthday.

I've made a couple of other birthday gifts as well this week. Cotton pads and wash bags for two of my nieces. Left over yarn, green living, sustainability :-)

And I have fin iced a pair of socks I've been working on. 2 Color Socks by the Argentinian knit designer Joji Licatelli. The pattern can be bought on Ravelry.

 

 

Fastetiden er over, og regnbuesjalet er ferdig

@brittarnhild

Det tok meg en ekstra dag, jeg måtte jo gjøre ferdig den heklede kanten rundt. Men på kvelden første påskedag var fastetidsregnbuesjalet ferdig. Bare restegarn, i de sju regnbuefargene, ROGGBIF - rødt, oransje, gult, grønt, blått, indigo, fiolett. Regnbuen, som Gud satte i skyene som en pakt på håpet.

 

Det har vært utrolig artig å jobbe med dette sjalet. Først finne fram restegarn, sortere fargene og så strikke. Jeg har forresten massevis av restegarn i alle regnbuens farger igjen, så det blir mer regnbuestrikk.

 

 

Easter Egg Bags for the Egg Hunt

@brittarnhild

Two years ago I knitted up quite a lot of Easter egg Bags, inspired by one I had bought at Turvey Abbey, a monastery north of London. I gave them all away, filled with small chocolate eggs, and after questions from many of you, I wrote down the pattern here in my knitting blog and posted it as a free pattern on ravelry.

This year I've made more bags. One for everyone staying at our cabin when the Easter Egg Hunt takes place. Every bag is filled with a chocolate egg, and will be hidden in the cabin garden, or in the nearby forest. The pattern is still on revelry; Britt Arnhild on Ravelry, or here in maskerade.

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My latest podcast episode:

 

 

 

When old is like new

@brittarnhild

I went to a book presentation and knit night last week. I knew we were going to learn a new technique and I brought with me some yarn and a pair of long needles from my collection. Beautiful, soft grey and blue yarn in lambs wool. When I started to knit I could not understand why people were kind of laughing, and then pointing at me.......no, not at me, but at my needles. Especially the one with a hook at the end. I saw my dear old needles with fresh eyes, and had to laugh myself. The needles are at least 50 years old, inherited from my mother, or may be even my grandmother. The little red bead at the end is there to prevent the stitches falling off. At one point one of the beads fell off, and to secure the stitches a hook was made. Practical and functional.

Then we started to look more closely at the yarn, something I had not done when grabbing it with me when I left home. It turned out it came from a spinner which not make yarn for knitting any more, and the teacher and knitting book author mean it probably came from the late 19670ies. The spinner was Røros Tweed, a company which still makes wool. The word "møllsikret" means moth secured, something we do not do today.

Old needles, old yarn, a new technique, mosaic knitting. I loved it, and now I have a new pair of wrist warmers :-)

 

In my newest YouTube-episode I talk about the wrist warmers, and a lot more:

 

 

 

YouTube episode 12 2019

@brittarnhild

As promised I will try to tell you, in English, what I am talking about in the latest YouTube episode. I am sitting in a hotel room in Oslo, and unfortunately most of my photos are in a harddisk which I left at home. So this unravelled Trondheim mitten will have to do :-)

The Norwegian introduction you already know, from a previous post.......

 

.......welcome to the blue week of lent, and welcome back to my knitting loft
....... I am learning more and more on how to make videos, and slowly I am getting the hold of it. One new thing is that I make chapters in my videos, for different themes
....... chapter Britt Arnhilds skrytealbum, my show and tell album, where I will show you old and knew projects I have made
....... chapter Regnbuestrikk, rainbow knitting
....... chapter Året rundt i Akeleiehagen, all through the year in the Columbine Garden, Akeleiehagen is the name of our garden
....... chapter Bøker på menyen, Books on the menu, where I read from books and talk about one or more knitting books

.......there might be other chapters as well, later, extreme knitting, cabin life, travels and more

.......and then the first chapter starts:

Britt Arnhilds show and tell.
- a blue sweater, one of two, which I made for our boys when they were small, and a woven vest. Designed and made by me in the late 80ies
- a hat and a "muffe" (I do not know the English name, something where you can warm your hands) I made for Ingrid, our oldest daughter, when she was about 5. Also my own design, but inspired by the knitting book I show you later in the episode
- a knitting bag, knitted by Dagmar in Austria. She knitted it for my 50th birthday. Dagmar lives on a dairy farm in Austria, and I spent some time there when I was writing my book about Lent
- in the bag I have the Trondheim Mittens. I had planned to have them all done for this episode, but discovered I had done something wrong in the counting and had to unravel a lot!
- now a secret. I have started to knit myself a cardigan, with a row of roses, inspired my the roses on Sofia Kammeborn´s Longing for Gotland sock pattern. The secret is that I have not knitted a garment for myself for more than 20 years. I am a big woman and have convinced myself that I am too big to wear anything hand knitted. Now I have decided to change this, not my weight, but how I look upon myself, and I am working on this cardigan. YEAH!!!!! It feels good :-)

.......Rainbow knit. I continue to knit on the rainbow shawl, now the blue colours. And while I knit I continue to talk about knitting the first garment for myself in such a long time. Sharing the secret was kind of hard,  made me sweat, and I had to lift my hair up from my neck ;-) Now the secret is out, and I am knitting the rose cardigan. Back to the shawl. There are about 350 stitches on the needles now, and it is still growing:
.......I have made a group and a thread on Ravelry for those who want to take part in the rainbow KAL (contact me if you are interested to learn more about it)

.......showing the rainbow socks, talking about the difference between indigo and violet
.......the prize for the KAL will be my book of Lent (which is in Norwegian only)

 

.......Året rundt i Akeleiehagen.......for Norwegian and English speaking listeners equal :-)

.......Books on the Menu, which is impossible to translate

 

I hope this is of help for you. If you like my videos, please subscribe to my account.

 

 

 

Rainbow socks

@brittarnhild

Yesterday, Saturday, I had planned to open the garden season, most of all clean the greenhouse and start growing lettuce, carrots and so on. We woke to heavy, wet snow, and it continued to snow most of the day. Gardening had to wait and instead I found time to bake bread, make us a nice pot of soup for dinner, and knit, knit, knit. Still green week of Lent yesterday, the blue week started today, but I got so carried away, I could not stop, and all of a sudden the rainbow socks were done.

This is so much fun. I have sorted all my fingering weight yarn, and even some a little heavier, in a huge box, by the colours of the rainbow. It looks gorgeous, and it is a lot of fun knitting up the rainbow.

I am already knitting a rainbow shawl  and a rainbow tube scarf. Next I hope to start a rainbow cardigan :-)

 

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You can learn more about my rainbow project in previous posts, and also in my podcast:

 

 

A kind of redesign project finally done, and a translation of the latest podcast

@brittarnhild

I wore this wool coat every day during winter for at least 10 years. It was pretty expensive when I bought it, and I loved it. Loved it to pieces, literary speaking :-) When I hung it away a few years ago, the binding around the edges was worn to pieces. I did not have the heart to throw it away though, and I stated to think of ways to fix it. I am not a sewer or a seamstress, but I am a knitter, and slowly the idea came. Why not knit a binding and sew it on. I was already working on a tube scarf in two shades of grey alpaca, and decided to use the same yarn in the binding.

It became a very long progress. I knitted with 14 stitches only, on needle 2,5mm, one row knit, one row purl, which meant I had to turn the knitting all the time. And it was boring, terrible boring.

But the other day I could sit down at the sewing machine and saw it all on. And just like magic, I had a new coat.

 

I talk a little about the coat in my latest podcast episode:

 

 

As I say in the beginning of this epidote, I would so much like to be able to share more with my English speaking followers. I still want to talk in Norwegian, so the best option would be to text the episodes. But texting is very time consuming, and for the moment I do not have that time. So what I will do instead is to talk a little about what I am saying here at "maskerade". Then you get the idea, kind of, and you can still enough the films and the pictures.

The start is easy, because then I talk a little in English, and then I present myself, in the same words as I always do. My name, I am married to Terje, mother of four, mother in law and grandmother, oldest son living on Stockholm, Sweden, the others here in Trondheim. I am an ordained deacon in the church of Norway, and for the moment work in the administration for the bishop and diocese board of Nidaros diocese. I have quite a few interest beside knitting, like birds, hiking, gardening, cooking and baking, travels, reading and cabin life.

Next session is about Lent, about each week of Lent given its own colour.......we are now into the green week, and then I introduce my mother. She plays Til Vaaren, To Spring, by Edward Grieg on her piano and shows us some of her many amazing knitting projects she has made over the years. My mother is 89 :-)

 

Back in my own living room I read a few pages from the book I wrote about Lent more than 10 years ago.

Some bragging, "skrytealbum" means bragging album :-), or show and tell. When our oldest son was one year old I made him an outfit for our Constitutional day, May 17th. I knew how to sew then, skills I have forgotten :-( The socks are my own design from then. And the quilt is an old one, cute pieces of fabric with animals, combined with old, worn out bedclothes from my mother in law.

This hat you already saw in my last post here, and now I have knitted one more, this time in purple. I talk more about my rainbow knitting and I show you some indie died yarn I got as a gift from a knitting friend. You can see a picture of she and me in the film in the end.

 

Well, this is about it. I hope this helps you to enjoy the podcast :-)
please let me know if you have any questions.