Well, I haven't had much opportunity to go online and update this blog..

Being at work means sharing an office with people, and the free moments one has to hang around, one doesn't really go and concentrate on writing about knitting.


Update on the weather: 2nd of May, was in Reykjavik overnight and am going back to the woods later on today (so what the hell am I doing in front of a computer, hey?)There is STILL f-ing snow on the ground outside..!First when I saw the layer of snow out of my window on April the 1st mind, I thought it was a practical joke from the weather station to celebrate April fool's day. But no joke is THAT fun if it lasts too long...Anyway.
A funny thing happened the other day.
I was guiding a tour at the museum, incidentally wearing the so-called Carnaby skirt I knitted recently (for the first time!) and after we'd finished a girl stepped up to me and said (quote:) "Hey, nice carnaby skirt you got there"The world of ravelry is that small as well... :o)

So this girl, darkraven12 as her pseudo goes, is a member of the international knitting community I belong to and was on a visit to Iceland for the first time. What a funky coincidence :o)

After Gunna showed me to make peningataska and I finished my first one (see under) I decided to buy more (and different) wool (kambgarn, also the real stuff) to make some more and/or different ones.

Made one since:In progress which I'm very happy about, and have a new jumper on the way, my first plotulopi jumper. I also made yet another pair of mittens just to keep on the roll :o)Nice sunset behind Alice's...

Making a purse...

There are an enormous amount of very interesting artefacts in the museum I work at.

In fact, I've decided to choose a particular one every week, to vary my guided tours and also get to know the "depths of the museum" better. (wow, I just had this vision of "the bowels of the museum"!)

Anyway.

Last week it was the now famous cow crampons: I love them. It had actually never occurred to me that cows might need crampons to walk out in the winter, but of course, it totally makes sense.

This week I'm not sure what I'll choose. Maybe the cow-pat flattener. People didn't have much fuel to use here in the old days and so they would dry sheep and cow dung in the sun before throwing it into the fire. Hence the flattener, for cow pats.

But anyway, this wasn't my point.

Another of the artefacts here is a small woollen purse people used to keep money in in the old days.

Gunna, a beautiful old lady, who also happens to be the curator's younger sister, knits replicas of those for the museum shop. She used to be a crafts teacher (sewing and knitting and such) and she agreed to teach me how to make these purses. How lucky!!! :o)

Here is my first attempt. It's also my first time using such small needles (2mm dpns)

The purple one is one Gunna made, which i'm using as a reminder of what it's supposed to look like when finished... It's pretty hard to knit so tight, but I guess you get used to it.

At any rate, it's fun!

<

Sleep

Despite the quietness here, it's getting somewhat difficult to sleep in the mornings, at least this week. For one, it's getting much brighter in the mornings, and the birds are getting chirpy quite early, but also Fimmvorðurháls, where Eyjafjalljökull volcano erupted last year precisely, is just up the road from me (well, litterally just up the mountain actually) and I'm not quite sure what's going on, but there has been a lot of traffic to and from there in the last few days, mostly starting at 6 am in front of my windows. I'm talking of big buggers here, like the caterpillars from Björgunasveitin, and also a helicopter which was buzzing around all evening yesterday.

Maybe it's just for a film or something.

Anyway, I guess it led me to have strange dreams last night.

The weather has been eXtrEmely bad lately, alternating snow, hail and gale all weekend and yesterday, and I woke up in a jump last night after an outburst of thunder (rather rare here) with hail hammering at the window. It was so unexpected I actually thought it might be the volcano erupting again, but I guess if it had been, we'd know about it by now...

Alice came here this weekend, and it was so horrible out that we decided to spend most of our time indoors (I feel I'll turn to dust if it carries on any longer!) ... knitting (what a surprise!) (not!)

Anyway, this is the result of the weekend, a new pair of mittens for Alice, because she gave me her favourite pair 2 years ago and since then she lost her other pair, so it's only fair! :o)

Back

Not quite sure how satisfied I am with the "flowery" pattern, but the rest is nice, and álafoss lopi is so pleasurable to work with!!!!

Front

And this here is a hat I started last week... I bought loads of beautiful álafoss and wanted to make a sort of "Easter coloury looking hat", so here it is... I possibly wouldn't wear it, but I'm sure someone will love it someday!! :)

Ahaaa

Lost in iceland and looking for something to knit... I wish I were so gifted as to be able to just copy the jumpers off this website, they are so beautiful, especially this one Looking for a pattern to knit Mr. Q a lopapeysu, but I guess we won't know which one before he comes here to choose it! :o) Just started my new job.. it's interesting and I'm learning heaps!!

In Skógar bara...

"Home"

"My own private waterfall"

Well well well...

So now I m far away from what we know as "civilization" (a.i a place where you have to hitch hike 100 km from to buy chocolate, for instance...) with not much to do but work and learn more and more about Iceland when the weather is bad, and go and walk out on mountaintops looking at glaciers in good weather :o)

Yesterday was beautiful actually, very sunny in the daytime, and aurora borealis (though not very strong ones) at night. Næs...

But when the weather is bad, what is there better to do but to improve one´s knitting skills, hey... :o) Here are the latest borns, following the pattern of Icelandic mittens from the Westfjords. They are made of lett lopi, and it took me a couple of days to finish them, so that I can now say: never again mittens out of létt!!! :o) It just takes too long. If I do mittens again (no dount that I will), then at least it will have to be álafoss!

Le Hat

Et voilà! :o)

Coincidences

I used to have another blog, which I liked very much in the beginning: I liked the URL, and I also liked its title. I held it sort of regularly for almost exaclty 3 years, to this day.

It's pretty funny actually. I started it on the 23rd of March 2008, a few days after my first arrival to this country (Iceland, if you still didn't get that), and made the final decision of interrupting it (I think "for ever and ever") yesterday, a.i, le anniversary date of its beginning.

I also realized yesterday I must have booked a flight almost on the anniversary of that first arrival. Both times I landed on the 20th.. Now ain't that strange. And both times, the weather was just as shitty upon arrival :o), except this time I knew what was to be expected.

Well well well...

That last blog accompanied me quite a lot of places, from France to New-Zealand, going through Iceland (the longest period), Canada- Newfoundland (hello Christine and co- wave wave) (hello Bill! wave-wave as well) and Québec, Guatemala, Switzerland and a few other places.

BUT, it's time to move on, I feel like being more creative, so there.
On this note, I finished my hat last night, it's really cool but the light sucks too much to take a nice photo now, so it'll have to wait.

I have a new project, another létt-lopi vest , but I want to improvise a design, maybe with the help of an excellent book I have borrowed from the not less excellent Reykjavik library, by (surprisingly) a French woman who sports the name of Hélène Magnusson. This is the book cover, and this is her blog. I'm jealous! :o)

And last but not least: Good news of the day: my friend Iceland Alice just had anbaby niece called Lucie :o)
Hail, hail the new baby!!! :o)

Hahaaaa

One (at least, I) cannot be in Iceland more than two days without buying any of the fabulous Icelandic wool, aka lopi.

It is declined in several types, létt-lopi álafoss lopi, bulky lopi and so on...

Here is the icelandic wool website. If you check it out properly, you'll see there are free patterns available in the menu on the left, yay! :o)

Having stupidly forgotten to bring something to cover my head with, I was forced to go to the wool shop (anyone who says it sounds like the lamest excuse... :P ) and so I bought a nice ball of red álafoss lopi to knit myself a hat..

It is supposed to be with cables, which is fine, except I can't count and I don't have a pattern, so I wildly improvised. So far it fits, but there are 4 stitches missing to make it symmetrical.

Well too bad, it'll be my... *oh hell, what's that japanese word expressing a mistake in a piece of artwork put in there on purpose by the artist as a personal touch and so as not to offend the gods?*
Yeah, that one... :o)

Missa Votiva

Ok, so last night I arrived back in iceland, and pretty much immediately went to an extremely good concert proposed by the also extremely good choir Söngsveitin Fílharmónía who performed the Missa Votiva by Jan Dismas Zelenka

I had never heard it before, and it's a real blast.

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of it I found on youtube, performed by the
COLLEGIUM VOCALE 1704 from Prague, which I'm also discovering right now, with great pleasure...

Spring

Today is the first official day of Spring, in continental Europe at least.
I have come back to Iceland after 8 months to find the country (so far) little changed and under the snow.The weather, however, is beautiful (NOW!), sun is shining through my window. Yes yes, I hear you!!! I know I'm sitting at the computer, but I've just been walking for a few hours, during which I was trying to contemplate what I could knit next.

I started a travel blog almost exactly 3 years ago when I first came here, and although I like it and it reminds me of good things and times, some events in my life made me slack a little in regards to keeping it updated.

But I like to write, and recently I've been thinking of starting a knitting blog: I really started to knit here in Iceland about 2 years ago, and have been doing it and liking it increasingly over time.

So here it is, the official beginning of my knitting blog, in which I intend to post pictures of what I've been doing so far, and other stuff knitting or craft related I find interesting.

If you feel like making any comments, please feel free.
Emma