Moving day

Well okay, then. I finally got around to moving this blog over to WordPress. I'm still not sure how much updating I'll actually do, but at least it will now be in the same location as my academic blog, which seems much more convenient. I'll be deleting this one as soon as I can verify that everything is as it should be on the new site, which will be at:

http://kverulantinnen.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading!

Schwung!

Hold the presses folks, there's a revolution going on on my head! Yesterday I got my hair cut by the phenomenally good hairdresser I stumbled on out here on Nesodden. She was just what was closest, but she is hands down the best hairdresser I have ever encountered. She's all about working with the hair, and has a really scientific approach to her subject. She's a fountain of knowledge and has a really low keyed, but super attractive aesthetic.

The first time I had my hair cut, our discussion was mostly just about trying to work my scruffy hair into something resembling a professional look. This time, she really emphasized the fact that I have a lot of natural curl, and encouraged me to try to take advantage of that. Now both my parents have very curly and frizzy hair, while mine has always been very silky and straight. For decades I tried to get it to curl with rollers, hot rollers, one disastrous perm in high school, and a couple of okay "body wave" perms when I was in my early 30s. I have since I was about 16 had a vision of the perfect bobbed hair with lovely loopy and silky waves. That is hands down my ideal hair, and the only look I truly covet whenever I see it on other people.

Imagine my utter shock and delight to discover that after the right hair cut and some gentle advice on how to use a tiny bit of gel my hair looks practically just like that! I can't stop looking at it in the mirror and giggling. It is just too weird. I mean my identity is totally wrapped up in being the only person in my family with dead straight hair. Just look!

This isn't even really "styled"--the hair hasn't been washed for two days, so I just wetted it a bit, rubbed some gel in, and did the "scrunching." Needless to say, I immediately started exploring the world of curly hair on the internet, and discovered a huge resource in the whole Curly Girl method of hair care. Based on what I'm reading, the reason for the dramatic difference in the texture of my hair has everything to do with all the useless crap and harmful chemicals manufacturers sell as hair "care" products.

Hurra ... tror jeg?

Yikes! I'm really not feeling very inspired to blog. There are a lot of things to fret about these days (mostly work-related), and very few of them are things that are appropriate for a lightweight public knitting blog. But here's a quick round up of the non-fret-inducing things going on.

1. I've had to discipline myself sternly not to wear the Obsessory scarf every single day since finishing it. It is my favorite knitted object ever (see picture in the previous post, where I look like a cat who just ate a mouse. I'm that thrilled with it).

2. I started a smaller version with two-row stripes. It doesn't look all that great, but I think I'll forge ahead with it and see if blocking helps, or if I end up liking the unclear striping after all:

I suppose it would have worked better to do four-row striping, but I wanted narrow stripes. There are some solutions (like doing an all-purl row on the second row), which I suppose I could experiment with if I weren't feeling the need to just stick with something absolutely idiot-proof. I really can't bear any frustrations or challenges beyond what's already going on in my life right now!

3. We had a lovely Constitution Day yesterday. E wore his bunad with great enthusiasm. Here are both of the males I live with, trudging in their new togs up to the school where the parade started:

Like father, like son, eh? Or is it just me who thinks they have the same build? At any rate, it was a really lovely day, with the parade, festivities at school, a long nap in the middle of the day, then a very mellow and fun party with our neighbors. They invite us every year, and since this is the fourth year we've been at their house we're getting to know their extended families and other friends pretty well too. Plus the food is great and the kids all have a great time with virtually no parental supervision. Yay on all counts!

4. My current form of escapism is massive contemplation of yarn purchases and potential projects on line. Thankfully I'm not actually buying all the yarn I've been ogling, because I do understand the mechanisms involved. It's not like buying a whole bunch of yarn or casting on for a whole bunch of half-baked and incredibly ambitious knitting projects is actually going to, you know, get me a permanent job or anything like that. But for now I look, so as to avoid thinking about other things.

I'm not quite sure exactly why I'm feeling so much more protective of my privacy right now. Part of it may just be the logistics coming from Blogspot; I need to change the settings of the blog for an upcoming migration to Google, and I'm trying to figure out if I should just exert slightly more effort and go ahead and migrate this blog over to Wordpress, which is where I keep my academic blog. I guess you can consider this a heads up regarding a potential migration by the end of this month. I'll let you know for sure once I've taken the time to figure it out.

Obsessory

I realized that I sould probably write up a draft of the striped stole I'm knitting, since I am so thrilled with how it's coming along. I'm calling it Obsessory, since it takes a special mind set to dive into such a big project with such fine yarn and needles. Here it is, with instructions for a narrower striped scarf too...

Inspired by both the French Nautical Shawl and the Noro Striped Scarf, this very easy pattern offers hours of knitting meditation. There are two sizes, one a scarf and one a stole. Both are knitted in knit one-purl one ribbing using lace weight yarn on fine needles. Merino, alpaca, cashmere, silk or linen yarns, as well as blends of these fibers, will all work well. You determine the width of the stripes.

Materials for scarf:
50 grams of lace weight yarn in color A
50 grams of lace weight yarn in color B
2.5 mm needles (circular or straight)

Materials for stole:
100 grams of lace weight yarn in color A
100 grams of lace weight yarn in color B
2.5 mm needles (circular or straight)

Size: 25(50) cm/10(20) inches by 150 cm/60 inches pre-blocking
Gauge: 42 stitches over 10 cm/4 inches in knit one-purl one ribbing unstretched

Instructions: 
Cast on 80(200) stitches using whichever method you prefer (I use the backward loop). 1st and every following row: *K1P1* repeat to end of row. Stripe pattern: For narrow stripes alternate color A and B after every two rows, carrying the unused color up the side. For wider stripes, alternate color A and B after every sixth row. Be sure to twist the unused color after every two rows as you carry it along to avoid loops along the side. It is a very good idea to spit splice our yarn if there are any breaks along the way. When you reach the desired length cast off using whicheve method you prefer.

Links: French Nautical Scarf from the Knit Café in Toronto: http://torontoknitcafe.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/stripes/
Noro Striped Scarf from Jared Flood/Brooklyn Tweed: http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2007/04/noro-scarf.html

Black & Blue

Had to give this post an English title, since the Norwegian equivalent (mørkbanket) doesn't have the appropriate color associations. As you'll see from the pictures, there was a definite color trend today...

First off, I'm going great guns on the French Nautical Scarf:

I'm really excited about how it's turning out, and how I'll finally be able to get this yarn from 2008 out of my stash. Despite the small needles and fine yarn it's going pretty fast. Though I have to admit, that big ball of black yarn really doesn't look like it's getting any smaller.

One of the reasons I'm feeling wiped out today is actually a good thing; while KE was in Drammen today getting a new motor for our little yellow boat, E and I walked up to the local grade school to go to the flea market there in support of the marching band. We had fun looking around, and we were both really excited to find a (fake) bunad for E to wear on Constitution Day:

The set consists of the knickers and vest pictured here, plus a white cotton shirt with lace at the wrists and neck. The shirt is size 152 (way big for E, who is 135 cm tall) but the rest is size 140 and fits him surprisingly well. He'll need a pair of suspenders to keep the knickers up (lean kid that he is) and I'll need to get him some knee socks and black shoes (and maybe a silk scarf?), but this is a big step in the right direction! He was really pleased too, and definitely wanted it. This evening he said that a bunad is much cooler than a "president drakt" ("president outfit," his phrase for a suit) since a bunad is "more old fashioned." He especially liked the fake watch chain (not pictured here) that goes on the vest, though he thought it would be cooler on the pants (?!). I had to sew one button back into place and fix one of the hooks that the watch chain attaches too, and then I gave the set a good wash in the machine (the material is some kind of synthetic blend). So stinkin' cute!

Fredag

So I thought I should document the last little corner of organization that I have left to do. Given what I've been seeing on all those episodes of Hoarders that I've been watching, this is nothing:

Heck, it's even fairly organized, for being a junk pile. It's a combination of yarn, quilts, plastic bags, wall hangings, holiday decorations, photo albums, and other craft supplies. I can live with this until the perfect storage unit comes along.

Today I stopped by Hekla, the yarn shop near Bislett that I recently discovered, in order to pick up the yarn I ordered for KE's next sweater. I  thought it might be worth writing up a review of the place, since I don't think it's very well known. Here's its rather unassuming exterior:

The easiest way to get there is to take the number 17 or 18 tram and get off at the Dalsbergstien stop. I had fully intended to take a covert picture of the interior, since the last time I was there the owner was hidden away in the back. This time, however, she had company and was at the craft table in the middle of the store, so I didn't dare.

The store has the mild but distinct odor of cigarette smoke (thankfully the yarn I ordered doesn't smell). It's kind of dreary and overstuffed inside, with all kinds of notions, fabrics, and yarns on every surface flanking the narrow aisles. The yarn is of surprising good quality (based on appearances, I was expecting a lot more acrylics...) and the prices are okay. Over all, this isn't a place I would seek out, though it is conveniently located midway between my work and downtown. It's useful as a reliable supplier of the particular yarn I was after, and the owner was very helpful with special ordering. She had the color card and placed the order right away. The yarn ended up being quite a bit more expensive than what she had in the store (75 NOK instead of 50)--she thought they must have raised their prices at the supplier--so that was a disappointment. All in all, if you're a tourist looking for a charming LYS experience in Oslo, this wouldn't be my first recommendation.

The yarn I bought is 700 grams of Hifagarn 2 Ask in the color Gulbrun (yellow brown), which totally lives up to its name:

The color is actually quite a bit sharper than this in real life. KE was a little aghast when I brought it home, but I actually think it's going to look great on him, especially with blue jeans and his blue eyes. The project will have to wait for a while, as I'm still working on all my stripes--both the striped pullover for E and the laceweight striped stole for me.

This is the start of a four-day weekend. I'm hoping to do as little as possible (besides knitting). I'll try to finish reading a biography of Kjell Inge Røkke that I started today, and do a little reading for an article I'm working on, but other than that it's R&R for this little lady...

Alpakka

I seem to be deep into an alpaca phase. Last weekend I finished up the Lightweight pullover:

I've been wearing it almost nonstop since it finished blocking. It's a little tighter than I would have liked, but everyone says alpaca sags, so I knitted it tightly and am hoping that the yarn starts to relax with wear.

Since there was so much of the charcoal gray left, I started a sweater for E with the leftovers. It's the Gathering Stripes pullover from 100% Rain. Here's a WIP shot:

Even thought I'm knitting the size 10 (E is 7), I'm worried that it's going to be too small. I love the combination of charcoal gray and apple green, though.

I also finally figured out to do with all that laceweight alpaca yarn I bought when I first discovered the world of Ravelry back in the fall of 2008. After buying it, I quickly determined that I am not a fan of knitting lace. I can do it, but I don't really enjoy it and I don't really see myself wearing lace shawls. And the color I (rather inexplicably) bought, a rather intense medium blue, doesn't work on me at all in most cases. The yarn has languished for nearly four years, after having been tried out in a couple of projects that were rejected.

To my delight, I came across a pattern on Ravelry called the French Nautical Scarf (Ravelry link), which consists of endless rows of narrow stripes knitted in laceweight yarn on small needles. In other words, the perfect project for someone like me who likes mindless, but obsessive and endless knitting projects. The pattern calls for plain stockinette bordered with garter stitch, but I didn't love the look of that, so I decided to modify and knit the entire thing in 1x1 ribbing (the same principle as the Noro Stripe scarf). I found a skein of plain black alpaca/silk laceweight at Tjorven in Oslo for the contrasting color, and away I went:

This is one seriously addicting knitting project. E knew that I was ostensibly knitting a sweater for him, but he kept seeing me working on this and asking innocently how his sweater was coming along. Oops. I've managed to stash it away for the time being, and am saving it to work on when  I travel to Bergen next month. The sweater for E is fun too, just not quite as addictive as this scarf. It's going to be huge, fully 60 inches/150 cm long.

There's been a lot of ups and downs at work recently (I got a major rejection, but also got called in for a job interview), so I've been feeling very unsettled and unfocused. Yesterday I finally just threw in the towel and took a few hours off from research to go to IKEA to stock up on some things that will help me sort out my stuff. This house has almost no built in storage, and there just hasn't been anywhere to put things. We finally got wardrobes up for our clothes, but until yesterday mine was still missing a few shelves and doorknobs to open them with. Our huge laser printer was on the floor in my office/wardrobe gathering dust along with the piles of sweaters and the suitcase that didn't yet have spots in the wardrobe. Ugh. IKEA saved the day, and I found the perfect unit to store the printer, got my shelves and doorknobs, and am delighted with the improvements:

Obviously I'm still struggling with book and paper storage. I actually have enough bookshelf space in our spare bedroom, but much of that is filled with yarn at the moment. I've decided I need a separate unit for storing my yarn, and probably also a small bookcase for this room where I can temporarily store whatever books I'm using in my current project at any given time. I didn't want to just buy some random IKEA thing for the yarn though. I'm thinking it would be great to find some kind of antique cabinet with glass doors. I'd also like to get a better chair (this red one is literally falling apart), preferably something that I can paint green. Those things (especially the cabinet) may take some time to find, but at least now I have a plan, and a much more workable office space.

Ivrig!

I finally got a round "tuit" and have a picture of the Lightweight Pullover in progress just after splitting for the arms and rejoining for the body. Here's what it looks like:

It's not much to look at, but boy-oh-boy am I excited about the project! This has the potential to be the most wearable of sweaters. I love that the yarn is undyed. I love the fine gauge (24 stitches over 10 cm on 3 mm needles--pretty much my ideal!). I love that it will have a large (but not too large) unstructured cowl. I'm glad it's going to have a little waist shaping. I love that it's just round after round after round of plain stockinette. I know that drives a lot of people crazy, but for me it's what knitting is supposed to be.

I'm pretty sure that I'll have lots of the gray alpaca yarn left over, most likely enough for a sweater for E too. I'm thinking of making Gathering Stripes with apple green stripes to contrast with the charcoal gray. It looks like a really fun and easy project that I think E would get a lot of use out of. So there's yet another project I want to have finished now. This is getting silly! But for now I'm going to stick with the Lightweight pullover and see if I can't get it finished by the end of easter break...

Påskeferie!

We're on easter break now, and although the sun is shining like crazy the wind has picked up and it's quite cold outside. So, as a consequence we're trying to come up with fun indoor activities.

I finally unravelled most of the charcoal gray Garnstudio Drops Alpaca yarn that I've tried knitting up no fewer than three times now. I decided that the perfect project for it (really! I'm serious this time!) has just to be Hannah Fettig's Lightweight Pullover, so I bought (!) the pattern and have started in on it. I'm a ways into the raglan increases now, and it seems to be going fine. I had to go down to a size 3mm needle (the pattern calls for 4mm) to get gauge, but other than that I'm following the (very easy) pattern slavishly.

In other knitting news, Webs (www.yarn.com) is having its annual sale starting today. I had heard that the coveted Louet Euroflax linen yarn was going to be on sale, so I haunted the website until the sale prices were posted, and put in an order. I ordered five skeins of the fantastic Pewter color. The regular Webs price is $23.95 and it's now marked down to $16.79, which is a solid 30% discount if my math is right. I've been wanting to buy enough of this to knit a sweater for years but could never find that color on sale, so I'm thrilled! I'm thinking of doing a longish version of the Amiga cardigan from the Knitty website. I've seen a couple of linen ones on Ravelry that are much longer than the pattern calls for, and they look great.

I also really want to knit KE a sweater. He's been wearing the same three sweaters to work all year, and really needs something A) lighter weight and B) different. I forced him to scroll through a Ravelry search of mens' sweaters in appropriate yarn weights, and he almost immediately picked out a really handsome design. It turns out it's designed by Norwegian blogger Tora Frøseth, and I think the sweater is going to be perfect for KE. The pattern calls for the Norwegian yarn, Ask Hifa 2 ullgarn, and KE zeroed in on a really cool color from their website almost immediately. He wants the color "Gulbrun" (6093, a kind of mustardy brown). Personally, I think it's going to be gorgeous. It's always a huge project to knit something for him because the arms and body are so long, but on the positive side, as a tall, trim guy he always looks great in the end result.

So, needless to say, I'm whipping myself up into a regular knitting frenzy right now. I wonder if it's seasonal?

Knall!

Wow, this spring weekend has been totally amazing. We've had glorious sun and temperatures around 15 celsius, which means we've been outside practically the entire time. Fabulous!

I finished the Porticus pullover. It fits perfectly, and I was able to block it outside on the patio!

I love it. It got a little hairy there right at the end, as I was knitting the last sleeve. I ended up with no more than 20 centimeters of yarn left over. Talk about maximizing one's resources!

My sister-in-law stopped by for a visit, so I baked an apple cake using the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I discovered after I started that I was short a couple of eggs and some vegetable oil, so I had to improvise. Even so, it turned out delish.

At the request of KE I cut way back on the sugar (one cup instead of two) and was assured that it tasted just like a Norwegian (read: better than American) apple cake. Go figure! I'll definitely be making this one again.

Klagestrøm

I fear a political rant has been building up for some time here. So although this blog is mostly just for recording knitting highs and lows, I think it's time to get a few things off my chest.

Background:

When I was a kid in the 1970s, living in the U.S. was great. I lived in the most beautiful part of the country. My dad had a steady job as a college professor, and my mom had the luxury of dividing her time between homemaking, art, and volunteer activities (the local museum and various craft/art organizations). I became politically aware at a relatively young age, as my parents were actively opposed to the war in Viet Nam and vocal critics of President Nixon's policies. They also raised me without religion. And, living just south of the border, they prefered to watch Canadian news, which they explained typically had less propaganda and gave a more international perspective. We drove the same car for twenty years, but had a lake view from our (shoddy and drafty, but comfortable) house. From a very young age I got interested in other cultures and my parents encouraged that, even going so far as to let me go abroad as an exchange student the year I turned sixteen. As a parent of a seven-year-old now, I find it hard to believe that they let me do that, back in the bad old eighties with the primitive communications we had then (no email, no Skype, no 24-hour news cycle...). I had a close relationship with my grandparents and learned a huge amount from them about what things were like when they and my own parents were growing up. I got a good college education at a state school without taking on student loans. I worked my way through graduate school as a teachign assistant and came out of that debt free too.

Rant:

All this is just to say that I experienced the very best that the U.S. has ever had to offer. My life was truly charmed and privileged, even though we were by no means rich. Looking back, I am just infuriated by what has happened to the U.S. I once knew. I hardly even recognize the place. I simply can't comprehend where all the destructive, right wing ideology is coming from. Did the people who are now systematically dismantling evrything that was good about the U.S. not grow up in the same country, with the same rights and protections that I had? The case of Glenn Beck, one of the "architects" (if you can even compare his ideologically confused ranting to anything as structured as architecture) has a strong personal significance for me because, although I don't remember him, we went to high school together. So, here's a person who lived in the same place at the same time, and theoretically at least had exposure to the same values and ideas that I did. But we couldn't be more different. Yes, his childhood and youth were troubled in ways that mine weren't (divorce, the death of his mother, frequent moves, etc.). But my best friend in high school had a childhood that was even more troubled and unstable, yet she ended up the farthest thing from Beck ideologically.

So, where does the vitriol come from then? What could possibly motivate all these people to take a reasonably functional civil society (one that already had revealed a dark side, I hasten to add. History has shown that U.S. actions in the Viet Nam War were even more unethical than my parents feared), and attempt to turn it into a fundamentalist state? How can they repeatedly make legislative coups that reduce the freedoms of individuals (women, same-sex partners, ethnic minorities, the poor) in the name of freedom? It makes no sense.

Although I spent most of my youth and young adulthood dreaming of living in Europe, even after marrying a European, I somehow didn't think that was possible. I assumed we'd live in the U.S. But after I had a child in the same year that George W. Bush was reelected, I realized that I needed to get out, and we started laying plans to return to Norway. I could live in the U.S., but in the long run I couldn't raise a child there. There are just too many stupid ideas and social pressures that I would want to shield him from. Raising him in a Norway just made better sense. We have a reasonable expecation as parents that the political system supports our family in real ways: universal and good health care, free higher education, decent schools, legal same-sex marriage (who knows what his orientation will turn out to be, but it's good to know his rights will be protected in any case), a culture that in general emphasizes nature and healthful living, a culture of civil debate... the list goes on and on.

Sure I miss my family and friends. Sure I still think the Pacific Northwest is heaven on earth. But after three years in Norway during which the U.S. seems to have exploded into a seething mass of collective idiocy, I can't imagine moving back for good. We'll be going back for four weeks of (paid...!) summer vacation. It will be really interesting to hear how my family and friends see things from the inside.

My point:

From my perspective, despite the war, things were going in the right direction in the 1970s; the civil rights movement had made huge breakthroughs in race relations, and the sexual revolution promised to do the same for gender relations. We progressives had the wind in our sails, and the right was maybe a little in shock over losing so much ground so quickly. And now, thirty years later the political landscape has shifted 180 degrees...

Våryr

Spring has sprung, at least tentatively! Today was a gorgeous day, and we went out for a little walk around the neighborhood to find out what's been going on under all that snow, ice, and darkness  for the past half year. Nothing much, as it turns out, but as always I love looking at the houses and cabins in my neighborhood.

E was home sick from school for three days last week, which meant I got in plenty of knitting time on the Porticus pullover. Here it is, just before the last waist increase and before I'm supposed to start doing the pattern again as a bottom edging:

I can never get my camera to photograph the green of this yarn accurately, which drives me crazy.

Yesterday E was feeling pretty perky, so we took the ferry into Oslo to get a bagel (his standing request--one of the things he misses most about living in the US) and go to the Cultural Historical Museum, which E raced through, but seemed to enjoy anyway. Personally I think it's a pretty poor excuse for a museum. On past visits alone I had only ever been on the first floor, which documents Norwegian cultural history from the stone age up to medieval times. E was eager to race through the exhibitions on all four floors, and I was certainly not impressed by the hackneyed ethnographic displays they apparently haven't touched for the last 50 years or more. Now everyone knows I'm a huge fan of Norway and love living here, but this museum is a good example of what occasionally drives me crazy about this country. Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, and they spend millions on all kinds of things, but they seem to have no idea what to do to improve this museum. The first floor displays are exactly as I remember them from the early 1990s, including the ridiculously stupid embroidered goddess-y "art" installations that are supposed to do ... something? ... to enhance the Viking era display. Grr!

But really, the point of the expedition was to get E out of the house and give him some new experiences, and in that sense it was a totally successful day. He bought his own orange juice on the ferry ride home, and you could tell it was a big deal to stand in line and pay all by himself.

Digg

Oooh, I'm totally loving the Porticus pullover! At this point (just a few inches into the yoke), I'm thinking I want to make one of these in every color. I just saw a beautiful black one on Ravelry that made me think that this would be the perfect thing for all that recycled charcoal gray yarn I have tried twice to make something out of.

Here's what the turtleneck and beginning of the yoke looks like:

It's really stiff with this shetland yarn, but based on my experience with the Bulgarian pleated skirt, which I made with the same yarn held single, it should really soften up when washed. I can barely put this down, and I'm especially jazzed about the yoke increases all the way around (instead of the usual raglan shaping, which I'm getting a little tired of...). Stay tuned!

Ganske mye garn, gitt!

My next yarn foray in London was to I Knit London, south of the Thames near Waterloo Station. My colleagues at UCL were appalled to hear that I had ventured into enemy territory, but actually I really dug the no-nonsense vibe down there. It kind of reminded me of some of the Mexican neighborhoods I've been to in cities like Chicago and Phoenix. Which is to say: yeah, a little scruffy, but also lively and full of interesting things to see and do. I didn't have my camera along with me, so I didn't get any snaps of the shop or of Lower Marsh Street where it's located. The selection itself was a bit disappointing, at least for someone looking for British yarns and with my very narrow tastes. I ended up buying a gorgeous skein of Canadian Handmaiden Seasilk:

It's the most amazing green. What sold me on this yarn was the store sample of the ubiquitous Swallowtail shawl by Evelyn A. Clark. There are something like 10,000 of these registered on Ravelry, and the sample in the store made out of this yarn was to die for. I started knitting it almost immediately (and knit the whole way on the train from London to Edinburgh last Friday) and found it pretty easy, considering that it's lace.

As everyone always says, it's almost impossible to take good pictures of lace in process--it just looks like a blobby mess--so there probably won't be any photo documentation until after it's finished, I'm afraid. But I promise that I have made it through the fourteen repeats of the bud pattern, have dutifully inserted a lifeline, and am letting it sit for a few days before starting in on the Lily-of-the-Valley pattern with its legendary "nups." Should be interesting.

In Edinburg I tracked down the K1 Yarns Knitting Boutique, which was as charming as could be from  the outside:

(It's the bright blue storefront) For some reason, however, I remained for the most part un-charmed by the selection here, again given that I was looking for British yarns. They did have a fair amount of British yarn (after all, they produce their own line of yarns), but there is something about the color palette they offered here that left me cold. In fact, I found the colors themselves surprisingly (and off-puttingly) cold. I really wanted to buy at least a skein of something to support a small independent yarn shop, but the only things I came close to liking were produced in Germany I think.

Since I had to go to a department store or two anyway to look for other things, I stopped off at the yarn department in Jenner's of Edinburgh. Much to my delight, I found a bag of discontinued Rowan Silky Tweed on sale for 50% off. It was a beautiful blue-ish teal, so even though I have more than enough sweater projects to work on, I snapped it up.

The saleslady there gushed about how fabulous this yarn is to work with, so I'm excited to give it a try. I may make an Hourglass Sweater to replace the one I frogged a couple of years ago. I always really liked the fit of the one I made, and it was an incredibly useful garment to own (unlike many of my sweater projects). We'll see.

But for right now, I'm starting in on a different project entirely, a pullover called Porticus (Ravelry link here) that I'm going to knit out of all that green shetland yarn I bought in Denmark a couple of years ago. The yarn is a light fingering weight which I'll double to get the right weight. This design is pretty much perfect for me: it's top down, has a high neck, waist shaping, and mostly plain stockinette but with some interesting detailing. I really hope it works out, especially since I'm not all that happy with how the Graystone tunic turned out. I finished it while in London (hence the starting of the Swallowtail):

It almost works. Unfortunately I got worried that it would be too tight over the hips so I did a couple of extra increases that in the end turned out to just make it look lumpy. I'm going to wash and block it and see if that helps at all. If it doesn't, it's really not that much to rip out and reknit. The problem of course is that spring is coming and it is pretty much already too warm to wear this. Ah well, there's always next winter!

ETA: someone on Ravelry recommended a different yar shop in Edinburgh, McAree Brothers. Filed away for future reference:)

London, Loop, og Liberty

Golly. I hardly know where to begin after having spent a very intense week in London and Edinburgh. I was there for work as a visiting professor, which I'll write about on my academic blog later if I can gather my thoughts on the experience. And I think I'm going to have to break up the shopping and crafting updates into separate posts here too, since there's just so much!

I had a lot of work to do while I was there, and my hosts had planned a lot of really fun activities for me, so there wasn't a huge amount of time for being a tourist. I've also been in both cities before and seen all the major sites, so this time I used small, independent yarn shops as my guide for exploring. I went to two shops in London and one in Edinburgh, and also stopped off in the yarn departments of quite a few of the major department stores, so I feel like I got a pretty good overview of what's available.

My first stop was Loop in Islington, which also turned out to be my favorite of the shops. I really liked the neighborhood, which was in walking distance of University College London where I was based.

This is pretty much the perfect yarn shop. It's small, but has two floors filled with lovely yarns and it has a quirky vibe rather than the overly sweet pseudo-country style one often finds at such places. For some reason, I usually just ignore the sample knits in most stores, but the ones here (mostly lace shawls) were exquisite. My goal had been to buy some British yarn and to maybe find some buttons to replace the ugly ones on my Plain and Simple Pullover. Loop had both. They specialize in antique buttons and some of them are totally amazing (and spendy). Here's what I ended up with:

The yarn is Juno "Alice Sock," which is a fingering weight silk-alpaca-cashmere blend made in the UK. The color is called "Shadow Cave," and there's just enough to make some kind of simple shawl. I'm thinking maybe of making Henslowe (Ravelry link here). I even got a cloth bag to go along with the purchase.

Later that same day I stopped in at the Liberty department store, and couldn't resist buying some Liberty Tana Lawn. The idea is to make hankies, but I may just admire it instead. They were selling a packet of three hankies there for something like thirteen pounds, and I got enough to make eight hankies for twelve. The pattern is called "Lillian's Berries," I think. The yarn department there was almost entirely Rowan, which for some reason didn't appeal to me at all (Then. More on Rowan yarns in a later post...).

Dumme meg...

So back on Thursday I think it was, I was going to post a blog about the Graystone Tunic, which had been going great guns. I was racing through it, even though I had a sneaking suspicion that the size L was a bit big. I took a snapshot of my progress:

"Gosh, does that look big," I thought to myself. "Better try it on." And so I did:

Whoa! It was HUGE. Gargantuan. Colossal, even. And yes, that's right, I managed to mess up the ostensibly failproof garter stitch project. Not my finest hour as a knitter. To make matters worse, you can see that I very cleverly knit the sleeves before going on to the body, "to save time." So not only did I have to rip back four sets of increases, I also had to rip out two perfectly serviceable arms. I suppose you could say that's a negative about top-down knitting, except that it was totally avoidable had I just paid more attention and tried it on at an earlier stage.

Even though I'm knitting under a self-imposed deadline I was too demoralized to knit for a day or so, but now I've caught up (in the afternoon on Sunday, thanks to a full docket of winter sports on NRK today...) and am almost back to where I was when I started frogging:

I have tried it on, and it the fit is perfectly acceptable. And the good news is, it's quite flattering and just what I was hoping for. Phew. Now it's a mad dash to the bottom, with only a little waist shaping along the way. I will wear this tunic to at least one of my presentations in the UK next week, even if it kills me. (And yes, I should probably be worrying more about the presentations themselves than what I'll be wearing...)

Hvordan oppdra en nordmann

Every once in a while the cultural differences between me (a Pacific Northwesterner) and my husband (a Norwegian) become glaringly apparent. Take today, for example. Yes, the sun is shining. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that it is -15 celsius (that's a mere 3 degrees Farenheit). So what does a rational person do? I vote for sitting inside wrapped in woolens and knitting with a fire in the wood stove. KE on the other hand thinks this is a perfect day to be outside with E, skiing in the yard (that's still rational) and sitting in the sun. As in sitting still. In frigid temperatures. The man is insane, and so too, I'm afraid, is the boy. Here's proof:

Funny thing is, they actually seem to be enjoying themselves. All I can say is "cultural difference"!

Meanwhile, I'm progressing on Graystone. I've made it though the gargantuan cowl neck, and am about halfway through the raglan shaping:

As far as I can tell I haven't screwed anything up yet. I'm really curious how that over the shoulder cowl is going to look on me, and whether my neck will get cold... I'm also a little concerned about how that visible seam at the round join is going to look on the finished garment. I didn't think about that when I decided not to make the diagonal cable. I'm not sure if that seam would have followed along with the cable or not (I think not), and all the versions of this sweater that I've seen have been so dark that the seam wasn't visible. Time will tell, of course.

I also have really spectacular news to report: as of Thursday, I now have permanent residency in Norway! I got the notice earlier this week, and took the train from Oslo down to Ski (the administrative center for where I live), and got the permit added to my passport. In the end, after all that strife about language competency, it was totally painless. I can't even begin to explain what a relief this is! It means no matter what happens (barring ridiculous criminal behavior on my part, I suppose) the state can't separate me from my kid. I won't get deported. I can lead a normal life here (almost) just like anyone else. I think I'll even start being able to vote in local elections, which will be great, since I've always been such a firm believer in participating in the political process.

Skrekkstrikking

Oh my. Disaster struck yet again with that Alpaca yarn. Just before dividing for the arms, I discovered I had thirteen pattern repeats rather than twelve. That meant it would be impossible to have a symmetrical garment. I'm slow on the uptake, but even I realize this is a sign from the universe telling me to try working on something else.

So, I got out the weird, putty-colored yarn I bought in Finland back in August, and started in on the tunic version of Veera Välimäki's Graystone.

My plan is to knit it without the diagonal cable, and to knit until I run out of yarn or reach mid-thigh, which ever comes first. Please, O knitting gods, let plain garter stitch and worsted weight yarn on 5mm needles not be too difficult for me, as I apparently regress into knitting idiocy...

Last night we watched a movie on Netflix, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island from 2010. It kind of fits in with my work right now, as I've been watching some Norwegian thrillers (De dødes tjern and Villmark) this past week. Shutter Island was well made and visually interesting (some fun retro touches), but didn't make it up there into the upper echelon of really great psychological thrillers. We also watched Christopher Nolan's Memento a week or so ago, since KE had never seen it. It blew me away in the theater back in 2000, but doesn't really hold up a decade later and on the small screen. The next movie I want to watch is Cloverfield.

The days are becoming noticeably longer. It's almost light by the time E arrives at school. I still can't take pictures in the light, which is a shame because it's such fun to see him really starting to master skiing. On Friday he even showed me how he can keep on his feet over the little ski jump the kids have built near the classroom. It is so amazing to see all these seven and eight year olds playing wildly in the mornings, some on skiis, some sledding, some just balancing on their feet down an icy "slide" that they've made along the path to school. These kids have no fear, incredible balance, and obvious joy at the winter conditions they play in. It's no wonder that I'll never get as good as walking on ice and skiing as other adults here--I didn't have 15 years of wild, frolicking play in these conditions to train me...

Alle gode ting er tre...

Third time's a charm, right? I've been trying for months and months to make a longish sweater/tunic out of fourteen skeins of charcoal gray Garnstudio Drops Alpaca yarn, and failing miserably. I initially bought the yarn to make a cabled turtleneck from one of my ancient Vogue Knitting magazines:

The yarn was way too dark to do justice to so many fussy cables, so I frogged the project and started in on the very popular Still Light tunic:

I actually came really close to finishing this (just one arm to go), but a nagging voice in my head kept telling me that the style wasn't right for my figure at all, so it's been stashed away in time out for a long time. Recently, I decided to make a clean sweep of it, and just frog the whole thing. Rather merciless, don't you think? My latest plan is to make a monochromatic zigzag dress (without the stripes, obviously, but with the same texture):

So far I'm really liking it. It's addicting to knit in the same way the Bulgarian Pleated Skirt from this summer was. I'm not sure if I have enough yarn, but I think it will be okay to use a different dyelot.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention another smaller project that I'm not totally happy with. I was trying to use up some magenta (!) yarn someone gave me, and came up with this little girl's cardigan (Ravelry link), which I plan to give to the daughter of a friend:

I'm actually finished with the knitting, but got a little demoralized because I ran out of yarn only two rows into the six-row bottom edging, so it curls. All I need to do is sew in ends, block, and find buttons for it. Maybe the blocking will help with the curling bottom edge? It's kind of cute, no? But totally not my cup of tea.

So I guess the good thing about all this is that I am knitting again, but still kind of bumbling along, without much success other than the Selbu mittens.

Opphold

The absurdity in my quest for permanent residency here in Norway continues to increase. When we left off the last time, I had received a letter on Christmas Eve from the police saying that I didn't have documentation for taking 250 hours of Norwegian instruction, and that I thus needed to get a waiver from my local municipality. Of course the local municipality was closed for the whole Christmas break, so I couldn't actually apply until after New Year's Day. Then, as is often the case, the one person responsible for this kind of think was so busy that she wasn't able to get to it until today, the sixteenth. This morning she called me with information that makes me really fear for the future of Norway, a country about to be strangled by bureaucracy.

You see, it turns out she can't actually give me a waiver regarding the 250 hours of Norwegian instruction because, through a strange legal quirk, she doesn't think I'm required to have it. Although I moved to Norway this time in 2008, I have spent lots of time here before, including in 1993-1995, while I researched and wrote my doctoral dissertation, and it seems that--at least according to the local municipality--I am officially in "the system" as a 1993-model rather than a 2008-model. Unfortunately, the police don't agree, and they still think I need either proof or a waiver. Gah!

After talking to my local bureaucrat, I called up my case worker in the police, and had a conversation about all this. She's not sure she can give me a residence permit herself, and thinks that she may have to forward my case to the Immigration Directorate itself. Luckily, in the time that has passed since I submitted my application, I have managed to get a PDF-file of my university transcripts from the US, and she thought maybe seeing those might help.

Both of the women I spoke with were very nice, and assured me there's no real danger of me getting deported. There is just no way either of them can, well, think independently and critically, and make a decision in a case like mine, which is outside of the norm. They are completely locked in to bureaucratic protocol. On the one hand, I totally understand, and am trying to be really patient, but on the other hand this makes me want to scream! I still can't believe that it's the language requirement that is holding me up here. Anyone who's met me knows I speak and write Norwegian pretty much as "near native" as you can get without actually being a native. It's just totally crazy.

Sort/hvitt

I've been struggling with how to sum up 2011 in a blog post. It was kind of a messy year, with lots of thinking and fretting and frustration, and very little to show for it. I think it's symptomatic for the year that I:

• have more yarn stashed and more unfinished knitting projects that usual, and was only able to finish small projects (and not even always then) 
• made lots of plans for remodeling our house, but did  none of them 
• was judged to have professor status in my field, but don't have a permanent position to go with it  
• did a lot of thinking about the cabin book, but had to put it on hold so I only have about 90 pages to show for it all 
• had a lot of publications, but none of them count for very much because of the venues in which they appeared (note to self: be pickier about where you publish from now on) 
• experienced two deaths in my extended family but wasn't able to go through any rituals of closure because I live abroad
• did everything I could to prepare to apply for the one job I really want, but still can't apply because it hasn't officially been advertised yet
• still don't have my permanent residence permit worked out yet
• struggled with sleep issues and got almost no exercise

2011 is a year I am happy to leave behind. I'm not a person who does well with loose ends, ambiguity, risk, or uncertainty. I haven't felt like I have much of a support network, and I've been edgy and unsure of myself for most of the year.

I don't really have any new years's resolutions, but I think what I need more than anything right now is more order in my everyday life. We took a big step in that direction over the Christmas break by finally installing wardrobes in our house-with-no-closets. We also slightly redistributed how we're using the rooms in our house to better suit our patterns of activity. Things still aren't 100%, but it's much better. We still need to get a few more shelves and wire baskets from IKEA to finish out the wardrobes (though we did pretty well in guessing our needs, actually). The more things falls into place, the easier it is to eliminate the remaining pockets of chaos. This also means knitting from stash, as the amount of yarn I have is really starting to make me anxious, grateful as I am for all the free yarn I was given.

I'm also really looking forward to work this semester. This will be my first semester without teaching since 2007, and I'm so excited to maximize the opportunity. I'm also really stoked about all the conferences I'll be participating in this year. I really want to make the most of the opportunity to network and present good work in a stimulating manner.

I'm trying to think positively. It's not all black. In fact, in my knitting at least, things have been very black and white recently. First up, I finished the Fana pullover for E:

This was out of that Peer Gynt yarn that my colleague gave me. The black was originally red. As you can see, the finished product (a size 12!) is very big on this 7-year-old, but not nearly as big as I was expecting. Yikes, he's growing fast. And yes, that is a Playstation controller in his hands, I'm afraid. Resistance was futile when both son and father insisted.

Next up is my first ever pair of Selbu mittens:

The pattern is from the "Selbustrikk" booklet (LVS-5) published by Rauma Ullvarefabrikk. It's a women's mitten (pattern number 7) made with Rauma "old series" 2-ply yarn and one 2mm circular needle. They're not blocked yet in the photograph, and in fact I'm cheating, since the second thumb isn't yet knitted. If I had waited until I finished the thumb it would have been too dark to take a picture today!

All in all, I was super happy with the yarn, and did a much better job of the shaping than I have in the past on mittens. I was also thrilled to find this two-sentence piece of advice in the pattern booklet:

For at mønsteret i småmønstrede flater, skråstriper og lus skal bli jevnt, må trådene ikke bytte plass. [...] Strikkes det med begge trådene på venstre pekefinger, må trådene ligge i samme rekkefølge hele tiden.

To keep the pattern in areas with small patterns, angled stripes and spots even, do not switch the order of the strands. If both strands are carried on the left finger, they have to stay in the same order the whole time.

I have been doing two-color knitting since I was sixteen, and I never knew this. It makes a huge difference in the finished product, though it means the two strands get much more tangled. Previously, I have always twisted in order to avoid tangles, without paying attention to where the colors were placed as I was carrying them. So yay for an old dog teaching herself a new trick!