Tuesday 13 April 2010

Icelandic Knitting & a Sock Blanket

During our trip around Iceland I was amazed at how many supermarkets stocked wool, needles and patterns. I couldn't resist buying enough wool for a cardigan, and a great pattern. I will just have to learn a bit of Icelandic to read the pattern.

KnitPick needles are the chosen weapon of Icelandic, and you can buy then where ever you buy wool. Remarkably, they were a reasonable price in Iceland, cheaper than I can get in Germany, and I got a tax refund at the airport on the way out.

While I was in the shop choosing a pattern Cameron had the camera. So here a few of the appropriate photos he took. This is some of the colours of the Lopi wool. Me, looking through patterns books to find just the right souvenir. We found this pattern for a horse jumper. It gets cold in Iceland! However I am not knitting anyone a jumper for their horse!! I also bought wool for mittens as well, the patterns we saw in the stores were fantastic. A lovely lady in one of the wool stores gave me this link to Istex, and this pattern will find its way onto my needles in the very near future as well. I see on the website, the pattern book I bought comes in English, but where is the fun in that? The breadth of my Icelandic is Takk and Bless Bless...so I have a lot of work to do! Meanwhile, I have been using up left over sock wool to increase the size of this sock wool blanket. We have been watching a DVD series called Dead like Me. This show has been hilarious to watch and this blanket is easy knitting while we laugh! I am amazed at how these little balls of left over sock wool are making these 2 sock blankets! So, in the meantime, I will finish the 2 cardigans on the needles, add to the sock wool blankets, study, write as essay and then learn some Icelandic!