Fånyttes

"Fånyttes" is my current favorite word in Norwegian. It means more or less "useless" or "pointless." I used it spontaneously in my lecture on Holberg yesterday and was quite pleased with myself. Not that Holberg himself is pointless! I've actually realized that there's quite a lot of interesting questions that one might pose about Holberg's work, and I may actually try to write something on him at some point.

To celebrate my current favorite word, I started a non-wearable knitting project--something I otherwise avoid since such things are, well, kinda pointless. With Easter coming up, I couldn't resist knitting and felting some eggs:


I'm totally enamored with them. The pattern is from the Curlypurly website. The pattern is for double-pointed needles, but I didn't have any big enough, so I rewrote the pattern for 2 circular needles (or magic loop). I bought four different colors of this yarn (Sandnesgarn Fritidsgarn, which is a bulky weight), so with any luck we'll have a big bowlful.

(By the way, the green bowl was one of my Grannie's wedding presents from the mid 1930s. I have 5 ceramic or glass tchotchies from her wedding that I've carried with me everywhere, including Norway now. Not the most practical memorabilia. Fånyttes, in fact, but I love them all so much that I just can't with them.)

I knit 5 eggs and used the rest of the skein to stuff. That turned out to be a little skimpy, so on the other colors I'll knit only 4 eggs each. To felt I just washed them in the washing machine on 40 degrees together with some clothing.

I've also been plugging away at KE's Islender sweater, and the birthday stole. I just discovered that for some reason I cast on 24 stitches too few on the stole. It has only 7 repeats instead of 8. Very strange. I hope it's not too narrow to be wearable. Here it is, closing in on the end of the 4th ball of yarn, with two more to go:

It is so lovely to knit!

I came down with an absolutely miserable cold last night, and woke up with no voice and no brain this morning. Too bad. I miss them both. E is still sick too, and hasn't been to preschool in a week. Poor KE. I think we're driving him crazy!