Summer!

Summer is finally here! Keep knitting and enjoy!

Hat love at first sight

It's not that I needed a hat

nor am I going to Shetland Wool Week 2015.

But I just could not resist this hat, 

the oficial Shetland Wool Week hat 2015 

- the Baa-ble hat by Donnasmithsdesigns. 

I started it on the train to Trondheim on Friday. 

Continued at breakfast on Saturday

Finished the knitting in the "Koftetog" 

- Colourwork cardigan parade on Saturday. 

Details on Ravelry.

Shetland Wool Week was fantastic because of...

...the ponies

...the lichen

...the sheep

...the snail

Meet Dasha

I fell in love with this photo at North Rock Gallery in Lerwick during the wool week. The sheep's name was Dasha, and I couldn't leave Shetland without it. When I bought the photograph, both me and my friend were sure it would fit in my large suitcase, but alas, it didn't. The gallery helped me wrapping it more solidly to get it home. On the small plane from Shetland to Edinburgh, it was no problem, on the way back to Norway, I had to pay extra. Anyway, I got it home. My husband doesn't love sheep as much as I do, so I have put it in my office. 

About wool, in Norsk Husflid there were some interesting articles about Norwegian wool in the last issue. One of the articles is available online, about wool classification. I read about a project )called "Valuing Norwegian Wool", and when googling this, I found that there also was a Norwegian wool week. On Campaign for wool's page, there was also a note about this. One of the events was an exhibition about "The white gold". 

I have some FOs to show you soon, but January is busy this year. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Shetland Diary - Tuesday

On Tuesday we hired a car and went for a ride. As mentioned, lots of events were not situated in Lerwick, as we originally thought (too lttle reasearch befor leaving..) Anyway, we had a car, and I was in the passernger seat knitting, and watching out in case the driver forgot what side of the road to drive. But as someone pointed out, many roads are so narrow, it doesn't really matter...



We saw many sheep. These sheep with their black heads, is my idea of a British sheep. Most Norwegian sheep have the same colour all over. (I'm not a sheep expert, as you might have guessed already..)

While driving, we wondered about the warnings about plants crossing the road ("Heavy plant crossing"), imagining scary, carnicorous plants crossing the road. (We later asked someone who could explain the disambiguation - plants being agricultural machinery that has to cross the road from time to time).

I love the colours and the patterns on this sweater, but the place we saw it is not worth mentioning here.

In Virkie we visited Shetland Colletcion Open Studio. There was fair isle and lace, I wrote about it here, too.

There were several drawers full of fair isle swatches!

We had a demonstration on how to knit with a belt, but she was not able to convert us to this way of knitting in the round with three long double pointed needles. But it was interesting to see.

















We also made a small stop at Nielanell Gallery. On the way back north we stopped at the beach by St. Ninians Isle

We tried to get a photo of my, my sheep heid and some sheep, but some of the models were not very cooperative.

We stopped for lunch in Scalloway. We just took this quick photo of the castle, it was starting to rain a little, and we were hungry. Next time I'd like to see more of Scalloway. The lunch was delicious, and the hotel owner (?) was vere enthusiasthic (not about us staying at the Shetland hotel in Lerwick, but about us visiting Shetland in general, and the Scalloway hotel specifically). He showed us the dining hall and some of the rooms, where all the curtains and the chairs are made from Shetland Wool Fabric.

Next stop was Weisdale, the Bonhoga Gallery at the old Weisdale mill. There was a nice little gift shop, an exhibition we really enjoyed, Text Isles – Swap Box at Bonhoga Gallery, and a cafe in the basement, with a view to the small river (we wondered how this river could have run a mill, but we're obviously no mill experts). The event calendar had called this a place to "Knit and Relax", which we of course did, having coffee and cake. 

We could not relax too long, though, since we wanted to get back to the Ravelry meet up at Jamieson & Smith at 6 o'clock. You can see photos at the J&S blog, I just noticed there is a photo of me and my friend there, talking to a fellow raveler, Amanda.

It was a nice evening. Cathy informed us about her StitchMastery chart editing software. I volunteered to be a betatester for her new colourwork version. Which reminds me, I had promised to send her an e-mail. So that was Tuesday, four weeks ago, during the Wool Week in Shetland.

ETA - here's another post from Tuesday, by frisianfrillies, with photos from the meet up, you can see both me, my friend, Cathy and Liz.

Goodbye Shetland

Sheep and sheep heid

Still counting sheep

52 sheep!
Pattern: Sheep Heid 

Yarn: Left overs, mostly Rauma Finullgarn

Speaking of sheep
- this summer I discovered a lovely podcast called Electric Sheep. It's made by Katie, a London knitter, who speaks brilliantly about sheep, imaginary and real ones, about wool and kntting, but also other interesting and more serious subjects, like beards, gin, cakes and more. Like me, she's not a sock knitter, which feels good to know. The podcast is a perfect mixture of fun, serious essays and knitting. I brought several old shows with me on holiday, and had some quiet mornings with my sheepy knitting and a coffee, listening to Electric Sheep, while the rest of the family were still asleep.

Speaking of sheep #2
- Have you seen Pinneguri's new pattern? Her Angry Sheep Cardigan ("Sinnasaujakka") has just been released. You see the lovely modell on the photo? I'm using it without asking, because that's me! I did not make the cardigan though, it's one of Pinneguri's four (?) projects. On Ravelry, there are already 19 project pages for the cardigan - probably more when you read this. I've not casted on yet, I'm trying to do some UFO-finishing and stash busting. I'm thinking I might find some  suitable yarn in Shetland during the Wool Week, so I'll be stash busting till then.

Speaking of sheep # 3
- I noticed I had several patterns and projects in my favourites, that I had tagged with sheep. Here are some:

A couple of free sock patterns, sheep may safely graze, and biscottes sheep

Kate Davies' cute tea cozy, Sheep Carousel, and her blanket, of course. I believe there are more sheepy patterns coming from her soon.

Here's a sheep chart, and here's a free pattern for a very sheepy sweater.

A free mitten pattern here, and a baby cardigan here, Sheep Yoke Baby cardigan.

There's a children's sweater  from Sandnes design, aren't these the cutest little sheep?

Ann Kingstone has a vest pattern with sheep and yarn. I believe it was free for a while, I actually think I have it, but now you can buy it on Ravelry.

Here's a scarf with some nice sheep on it, there's no pattern link, but the chart would be easy to copy if you like the sheep (for personal use only, of course). 

And then, a knitted sheep, free pattern here.