MaggieBKnits

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,...

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 The design on the cover is an old, previously unpublished design concept (well, the yoke chart was the discovery) that Meg found in EZ's notes.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...

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...

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 ...

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 trad...

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 ...