Knitting games

I discovered this yesterday.

Love it. Perfect for the (nearly) interminable soccer games I attend in the fall, and it can hold both my water and my coffee. I still await a chair designer forward-thinking enough to include an integrated knitting bag...

Luckily my normal bag hangs off the arm (not the side with the coffee cup).

Don't be horrified but there has been very little knitting.

I was going great guns for a bit but teaching has swamped me this past week. Just trying to keep my head above the water. I did knit my daughter one and a half headbands today (the half is not yet finished) as she seems to have lost all the rest of them. I'll take a picture tomorrow, at least, that's the plan.

Later.

Roskilde and on to Copenhagen

This is Roskilde Cathedral, which is built where Harold Bluetooth originally built a church. His church was wood and is long since gone, of course-- and the cathedral was built in its place. The cathedral is quite impressive. It has served as the burial location for the Danish royal family, for centuries.
Many separate crypts and sections have been added on through the years, for various family elements.
In fact, this is Harold Bluetooth's pillar tomb. Obviously he was moved here when the cathedral was built, since it is Gothic in style and Harold died in 985AD, or thereabouts.

In case I forgot to mention this, I found Roskilde to be utterly charming and delightful.

Okay-- on to Copenhagen, a short train ride to the northeast of Roskilde.

In keeping with the royal family theme, here is a photo of the palace in Copenhagen. Yes, that car that is approaching was gunning for me-- in fact there is a sign suggesting that photo takers not stand in the road as it is, indeed, a road.

However, I saw the sign too late-- and would probably have disregarded it anyway since I had a photo in my mental sights and was in my Intense Photographer Mode-- but that was before I discovered that cars roar around that corner to the left and towards where I was standing at a quite phenomenal speed.

When I tell you that my camera was on about a 30mm setting, which makes things appear farther than they are, you will know I was rather close to being flattened.
My husband did manage to get a photo of me in front of the palace, though, without either of us being squashed.

Tomorrow, back to my regularly scheduled knitting.

(ps you did notice, I hope, that this was 2 posts in one day? Pretty astonishing. When it rains it pours, I guess.)

Knitting mail

Yesterday was a good day for knitting mail.

First, my September issue of Woolgathering arrived. The design on the cover is an old, previously unpublished design concept (well, the yoke chart was the discovery) that Meg found in EZ's notes. She also has an old photo of her sister Lloie wearing a variant.

What I find intriguing about this photo, and the design, is that when I look at the dark brown sweater I see downward pointing pairs of leaves, separated by narrow vertical lines.

On the purple one I see upward pointing leaves on either side of that vertical line. Same chart to knit both.

Is it my crazy eyes?
And yes, I am tempted by the cardigan, though in my stashed dark browns (etc) of unspun Icelandic yarn. Resisting starting anything but keeping it in my mental queue. (Yes, OK, I'll get to listing it on Ravelry eventually. I have to say that my Ravelry interaction is pretty minimal. There are tons of WIPs I should enter, and queue items and so on... but I don't)

This is my response to the next knitting mail--a notice from Janet Szabo that my Twists and Turns subscription is about to end. So off goes my renewal.

Janet makes these newsletters available in either hard copy or PDF form (no trees die till you print something out). I prefer the PDF for storage and accessibility reasons. Twists and Turns is a delightful read, and invariably there are items I either want to knit (no, I often don't get to them, but imagiknitting is fun, too) or that are very inspirational in some way. And I just like to hear what Janet has to say about the cable knitting world!

Finally, some yarn (didn't I need more?) arrived to be knit into a sweater for my oldest son.

I don't start sweaters for him lightly-- he really wears them, loves and appreciates them greatly, and his body (almost 14 now and growing like a weed) is large enough there is a lot more knitting involved than there used to be when he was only 6. This is from Elann, their Highland Wool-- I am making him a light grey pullover, raglan or drop shoulder (haven't decided yet) that uses one or more of those lovely little Faroese color patterns. Contrast will be (hold onto your hats) charcoal and white.

Yup, he is a boy. No garish reds for him ;)

This is a brief State-Of-My-Knitting report. Above is on the backside of the body of my Hanne Falkenberg Plisse (please someone tell me how to make this dratted blogger let me use an acute mark over my e??).
This is the public side of the back.

Just to clarify a bit, the back is worked first, from centerback out to the side, stopping at the neckline. Front is worked the same, on one side, then the two pieces join to be worked from bottom of front, up over shoulder and down the back, until the shoulder/underarm are reached.

Side-to-side knitting but starting in the center and working out.

I am currently working the left front-over-shoulder-down-back section.

Very enjoyable knitting. Annoyingly, I know I should put it aside to make my son's sweater (he needs it a bit more, for one, having outgrown his old one.) yes, but...

...so I knit on, on my Plisse jacket.

Knitting Progress!

I did some work on the Hanne Flakenberg Plisse jacket on Sunday:

This is the back, or part of it. The texture stitch and the intriguing method of construction keep this project interesting.
All for now. But at least I got a bit of knitting done...

Fall Sports do a number on blogging

Truly, they do.
I know it gets old to hear a bazillion excuses for why I don't write for a while.
Well, it also gets annoying living thru all those things that keep me from writing!

I rather left you hanging in Denmark, without intending to do so, in the least. I'm sorry. However, since this is supposedly a knitting blog, and I think I have posted almost Kno Knitting in several weeks, I ought to get cracking.
This bag lives by the door or in my car. It goes everywhere with me.
If only it were possible to knit lace while navigating thru traffic to various games, meets and practices, I would have that shawl done. And if it were possible to watch a truly thrilling game (the third in a given day, perhaps) and knit my lace, I would be farther along.

It's not.

However, please admire the bag-- it's from Meg Swansen's knitting camp (I go to one of the retreats) and it is nice for this particular project. (I carry my oversized chart on one of those magnetic boards and the bag is tall and crisp)

Photos of the lace shawl are a bit less than thrilling at this point in time.

There are, well, I have no idea how many thousand stitches on the circular needle. There is no way I can stretch it out enough to show you just how nice the lace is.

See?

Not exactly illuminating.

However, I am working on it (hoorah)... It amuses me that I am able to work on it during a game (except when the action becomes too enthralling, or- like last Sunday- when the temperature is so obscenely high that I am one large ball of sweat). The reason it amuses me is that I remember when I first started working on lace, how utterly undisturbed I needed to be in order to progress, and avoid errors.

In fact, I remember the first project I did, I needed to highlight each symbol on the chart a different color, to help me keep track of what they were and to visually distinguish them from one another.

Looking back, I am flabbergasted by that. Couldn't I see the right leaning decrease in a slash mark: / or the ssk in a \ ?? I need to remember my early chart experiences when I am teaching others, clearly. There was a time when I did not see the lace in the chart, at all, and I know this is true for many beginning lace knitters.

Thank goodness, no more.
So if you are overwhelmed and a beginning lace knitter, or just chart challenged, let me encourage you to keep trying.

Here is a project I started today. Why? Certainly not because I had nothing else to do.

It is Plisse, a Hanne Falkenberg design which I purchased from Sommerfuglen, in Copenhagen.
It is red, though on my laptop the pictures look more fuchsia. Not sure about on yours.
I tried on the shop model at Sommerfuglen, and fell utterly in love with it.
I had a Danish friend with me (thanks, Bettina!!) who was not only helping me with communication (not actually an issue in most of Denmark-- a huge percentage of the population speaks quite excellent English) but gave me terrific feedback and generally helped me find what I wanted. The shop assistant was also wonderful. A great shop.

And while I did not do any shopping in Paris for clothing, I did gey some great shoes in Copenhagen.

They are so comfy and feel like elvish leather or something hobbit-like somehow-- I love them!

(PS they are actually French, humorously enough.)

PPS I would have shopped in Paris except the entire city was on vacation.

Roskilde

I just posted about a shawl in the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum, and it suddenly occurred to me that I never posted about the museum in the first place. In fact, I left you all hanging somewhere in Arhus. I am so sorry.

Let me say that I am a huge fan (in some ways) of the Vikings. For a goodly number of years they had an impact on a huge area of the world, and affected the history of many nations and people groups. They were in many ways fearless, energetic, incredibly clever-- and incredible warriors.

Some of their beliefs and behaviors I look at with modern eyes and turn pale. But setting that aside, overall I admire them. England owes much to the Danes who eventually occupied and ruled over a huge amount of England (though one might want to read Kipling's poem, "Danegeld")... they went through Russia (the Volga was a great trade connection to, eventually, Persia) to interact with the Russians and Arabs (how's that for PC speech, interact with? Yes, some trading and some, ahem. ) -- those Viking boats really got around. Some forget, too, that William the Conqueror was a Norman--Vikings who settled in the area of France now called Normandy. One of my favorite books as a girl was The Little Duke, about Richard (Sans Peur, or, the Fearless), William the Conqueror's great grand-daddy. Richard was a firm friend and ally of Harald Bluetooth, he was the grandson of Rollo the Walker (the Viking who forced the French to accept the presence of the Norsemen in France), and Richard's life makes fascinating reading. OK OK, so I am a romantic. (Not that life as a slave of the Vikings would have been romantic.)

Given all that, I would have to visit the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.
The original museum (it opened in 1969) was built to display five Viking ships found in Skuldelev. They had been scuttled, is the thinking, to serve as a barrier to invading ships, in the 11th century AD. (Roskilde was an important market town)
The ships were dug up, re-assembled as much as possible, and put on display. Since then the museum and its operation have greatly expanded their scope, and many other ships have been found in the area. (Not surprising)
Interestingly, they have opened a huge reproduction boatyard operation, building reproductions of myriads of ships and boats, and employing Viking tools and methods as much as possible. Truly very impressive.
That top picture is a reproduction of a warship, a Viking longboat, of the sort that might have sashayed over to Ireland. In fact, it went on a sea trial voyage just recently, to Norway, Dublin and back (possibly other places, the book is across the room and I am not getting up to check).
The photos of its trip are stunning. (Obviously the radar on the bow would not have been used by the Vikings)

The museum has a loom in the children's area, where they describe their experiments with wool sails.

This is the children's room, where two partial models of Viking boats are supplied with appropriate items. One is a merchant vessel, the other a longboat. There are costumes for children (and adults) to put on as they explore being a Viking. When I first walked into the room some adult visitors (I actually think they were Swedish but my ear is not good enough to be sure) were wearing the costumes and I did a double take, they looked so realistic. Given one of the men had hair and beard that matched his costume and weapons...

I highly recommend visiting Roskilde if you have the opportunity... especially if you are into boats and the sea.

Oh, and they have a boat you can take a trip on, up the Fjord. I had forgotten to wear my rainjacket (knucklehead, I knew better than to believe that bright sunny sky) so I didn't risk it, but I did watch some people feebly trying to row their way out of the harbor in the boat... and it was totally amusing (they got nowhere)... so I think I am just as glad I had to give it a pass.

off the wagon again?

No, I am really not off the wagon. I just had a few rough spots on the road; a wheel fell off; the hay started flying out of the wagon and I had to run around to get it all. That's all. (smirk)

I do have a long list of ideas about which I want to blog. This post is photo-less, as I did not take a pic of this in Denmark. Let me preface this post with the fact that things in Denmark are rather expensive. They are even more expensive if you happen to have a currency that is down a bit relative to others... but even without that fact, it can cost quite a lot. OK. Just keep that in the back of your mind. (Here's a for-instance: $25 for an ordinary glass of wine. $15 for a Coke. The shoes I got-- let's not even go there. T-shirts, with some decoration (machine done) for DKK 250, which is about $50. I am sure you get the idea. It made Paris look inexpensive.)
OK.
At the Viking ship museum, in Roskilde, there was a gift shop (and yes I bought a thing or two). There was quite an array of items, clothing to jewelry, toys to tea-towels. I noticed a few knitted shawls and exclaimed in enthusiasm. I figured they would be extraordinarily pricey, given the general cost of things in Denmark. They were handknit so I assumed stratospheric prices.
Not so.
Not even close.
Hand knit Icelandic yarn (I believe the same yarn that Schoolhouse Press carries, a spun Icelandic laceweight. I have used it, and like it a lot. In fact, I brought more of it home from my Camp Retreat this past July but set that aside for now...) Anyway. The shawls were rectangular, long stoles. Very nice, not simplistic. One had Barbara Walker's Ogee pattern on it (First Treasury, page 223. Just so you know, I did not have that page number memorized... thoguh I did know it was in that book) along with others. Well made, nicely designed.

Anyway, the stoles were lovely, interesting and handknit. Honestly. $56?? Compare that to ordinary t shirts, machine made, that cost more. I stood there with my mouth open, comparing that lovely handknit work, and ordinary machine made shirts and the like, and could not believe how under-valued the handknit was.

Believe it or not, I didn't buy one, and have been kicking myself ever since. Not because cheap (as in, a bargain I should have snatched up) but because someone put a lot of work into it, and I like to show appreciation of such work. At the time I was just annoyed at the shop for not valuing the handwork higher, and didn't want to encourage them by buying it.

I did discuss it with a friend in Denmark, who commented that the work was probably done somewhere where labor was far more inexpensive, using the Icelandic wool. Still.

My husband, who was barely hanging onto his sanity at the cost of our visit, probably would have been astonished at my rueing a low price... but then, he is not a knitter.