maskerade

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.

:::::::::::::::::::::::

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 :-)

 

::::::::::::::::::::::.

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.

 

 

 

A Basket of Rowan Felted Tweed

@brittarnhild

Every time I visit London I make sure to go to Liberty. There I always end up in the yarn section, and never leave empty handed. One or two or a few skeins of Rowan Felted Tweed skeins look so brightly at me, begging me to take them to Norway.......and I do. Over the years I have ended up with a basket full of these skeins, all of them blending perfectly together. Now it is time to do something with them.

Swatches, measurements, writing down pattern ideas.......

trying out different cables.......

yes, this one will be perfect for a hat.

Soon the first hat is ready,

I try it on, and

I am ready to start hat number two. Different pattern, different colours.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::.

I plan to talk more about my felted tweed hats in my next podcast episode. 
Here is where you find me on YouTube

 

 

Changing my mind.......again

@brittarnhild

I am changing my mind again....... This knitting blog, which originally was in English when I started it a little more than two years ago, on the 8th of March 2017, became part English, part Norwegian, then it became all Norwegian, but now I am changing my mind yet again.......into English :-) There are actually a couple of reasons for this. First, most Norwegians are able to read and understand English, very few not Norwegians are able to read and understand Norwegian, so to make the blog readable for as many as possible.......well, English is the best language. Second, I am quite active on my podcast these days, much of it is about knitting, and for the moment I speak only Norwegian in the podcast. I know I have a few followers who do not understand Norwegian, so I am thinking that I can write here about what I talk about.

.......I might do something with the podcast as well, texting, speaking some English in between, or..., but so far it is in Norwegian only.

So.......what I do talk about in the last episode of Britt Arnhild on YouTube:

First, there is an introduction, the same as I use every time. Talking a little about myself.......I am Britt Arnhild, 60 years old, married to Terje, living just outside the Norwegian city of Trondheim, in a red house in the middle of a big garden. We have four grown up children, the oldest one living in Stockholm, Sweden, the three others in Trondheim, we have children in law and we have grandchildren. I am an ordained deacon, I have worked in several churches in Trondheim, but since 2000 I have worked in the diocese administration as an advicer. When I started the vlog or the podcast, I planned it as a garden vlog, but I have so many other interests beside gardening, and soon realised that I wanted to vlog about this and that. Like birds, hiking in nature, our cabin, food, travels, books and knitting.

Then I continue to talk about the rainbow calendar of Lent, and the third week of Lent which is yellow. Here comes a few childhood knitting memories.......I might write them down some day :-) The video with all the yarn is from a knitting shop one hour outside Trondheim, Garnbutikken Fortuna. 

After the knitting memories I talk about the knitting I am working on, the rainbow shawl, where I knit colours according to the weeks.......and, listen, I do speak a few sentences in English, especially for Mardelle :-) 

The yellow socks are part of a KAL I do with Garnbutikken Fortuna and the mittens are the Trondheim Mittens by Sofia Kammeborn, and in my show and tell section I show you something I made for the girls when they were small.
The reading is a legend I wrote myself a few years ago, "When the Yellowhammer learned to count to seven."

The last piece of music, First Tango, is a piece of music composed by my Icelandic sister in law, Margrét Kristín Sigurðardóttir. You find her webpage here: fabula.is

 

Here is the actual podcast episode:

 

 

Längtan til Gotland

@brittarnhild

Vi var på hytta i helga, og både på bilturen fram og tilbake og mens vi var på hytta, strikket jeg på et sokkepar med mønster av Sofia Kammeborn, Längtan til Gotland. Det er flere år siden Sofia (Pia) laget dette mønsteret, og da jeg oppdaget det skjønte jeg med en gang at dette måte jeg strikke. Terje og jeg har nemlig vår helt spesielle kjærlighetshistorie fra Gotland.

Sokkene er ferdige nå, og ble akkurat så fine som jeg hadde tenkt. De ble med i strikkepodcasten som jeg la ut for et par dager siden, og der forteller jeg kjærlighetshistorien vår <3

 

Jeg liker særlig godt rosene i mønsteret. I det opprinnelige mønsteret til Sofia er de strikket kun i en mønsterfarge. I sokkene bruker jeg to farger, i et lite forsøk på å få fram en solnedgang. Solnedgangen er nemlig viktig i kjærlighetshistorien. Og da sokkene var ferdige var jeg slett ikke ferdig med rosene. Så nå er jeg i gang med ei jakke hvor rosene danner en bord nede på mansjettene på ermene, denne gang i tre mønstedfarger, og ulike på de to ermene. Det blir en rosebord nederst på bolen også, men så langt har jeg ikke kommet enda.

 

 

 

Klar for oransje uke

@brittarnhild

Det er lørdag, vi er på hytta og jeg må bare innrømme det, jeg sniker meg til å strikke oransje.......en dag for tidlig. Plukket med meg både oransje og gult garn utover hit, og selv om oransje uke ikke starter før i morgen, søndag, er jeg i gang. Sjalet har fått de første oransje stripene, og fristelsen er stor for å begynne å legge inn litt gult også.......men jeg venter litt enda :-) I stedet har jeg begynt på enda et regnbueprosjekt, et par sokker. Her er det bare rødt enda, men jeg er nesten klar til å begynne bed noen oransje striper........dette er så gøy, det bobler over av regnbuestrikkideer, jeg må hjem og rydde mer i restegarnet mitt, og kanskje må jeg til og med begynne å samle nytt.......

.......her har jeg startet på en vei jeg ikke helt vet hvor ender.

 

Samstrikksokker, for aller første gang

@brittarnhild

For mange år siden, mens veldig mye av livet mitt bestod av quilting og lappeteknikk, lærte jeg et nytt ord - round robin. Et lappeteppe som ble send fra den ene til den andre for til slutt å komme nesten ferdig tilbake til en som hadde startet patchworken. I høst lærte jeg et annet nytt ord - samstrikk. 

Nei, samstrikk er ikke noe for meg, tenke jeg. Jeg vil selv bestemme hva jeg strikker. Og fikk en aldri så liten flashback tilbake til høsten 1979 da jeg begynte på lærerskolen på Levanger. Kom hjem etter første studieuke og sa til Terje "Vet du, ALLE går i snekkerbukse, egenfargede bomullsgensere og lilla bomullsjal. Sånn vil ikke jeg gå!". Helga etterpå kom jeg hjem med nyinnkjøpt snekkerbukse, helga deretter et lilla sjal og enda ei helg seinere måtte vi avlyse en avtale vi hadde, for jeg skulle farge et par gamle bomullsgensere....... Ja, altså, i dag er jeg ferdig med mitt aller første samstrikkplagg. Kan jeg kalle sokker plagg forresten? 

Plagg ellere ikke plagg. I dag har jeg strikket ferdig min aller første samstrikk, sokkene #jernbaneihagen" (hashtags er kjempeviktig i samstrikk altså!, av mora på Garnbutikken Fortuna, Marit. 

Kjempefine ble de, og oppglødd, som jeg alltid blir når jeg prøver noe nytt, er jeg i gang med min egen samstrikk på Ravelry. Kan jo ikke være dårligere jeg.......eller hva?