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:)

Operasjon støvletter

Let's talk about shoes, shall we? I have had a life long love/hate relationship with shoes. My Grannie trained me early to be very aware of stylish shoes (and purses, and wallets...). Some time in college I realized that I was fighting a losing battle with style, and opted out of the whole shoe fetish culture in favor of comfortable, practical shoes. At a certain point, fashionable and so-called "sexy" shoes just stopped looking appealing to me, and instead I was just perplexed over why people continued to wear them.

But that doesn't mean that I went over to the dark side of Footform shoes and Birkenstocks. I actually can't wear Birkenstocks because their insole doesn't even come close to matching the contours of my feet, which always shocks people. Here in Norway shoes, particularly in winter, are even more important. I can no longer just wear various Dansko styles throughout the year like I did back in the Pacific Northwest.

I have made do with some profoundly ugly Merrell winter boots for the past two years. One of my first days at work a Danish colleague took a look at them lying on the floor in my office (I change to indoor shoes at work during the winter) and exclaimed "Sikke børnesko!" (basically "look at these kiddie shoes!" in the mocking tone that Danes use for everything). I was mortified, and ever since I've carried out a low level but intense search for "grown up" winter boots that I can wear on the streets of hipster Oslo without too much embarrassment.

My search has been hampered not only by my problematically atypical feet, but also, it turns out, by my robust calves. It turns out that my calves are about 5cm larger in diameter than the standard for women's boots. I am not a particularly large person, but I am admittedly curvy. But still, if you look at my legs, I'm pretty sure I don't look like Popeye.

This week, I think I finally found the perfect winter boots at the best shoe store in Oslo, Lille vinkel sko.

They're called Albertville, and are made in elegant Italy but designed in Sweden for "Nordic conditions" as they say. They have a natural rubber sole, which is supposed to be good on ice and snow. They are real leather, and what's more lined with real leather, so they stretch and give and breath. And to facilitate the process of squeezing them over my meaty calves, I was given a magic leather relaxer spray, which seems to be helping.

I'm thrilled! Now I can finally wear skirts again, plus I can stop feeling so damned dumpy all winter long...

Løp og kjøp

I rarely go shopping, but today I finally had to do something about the long list of things that would really make our lives easier this fall. After dropping E off at school I headed into Oslo and spent about three hours doing some errands and shopping. Here's the haul:

1. Two wall-mount baskets for hats and gloves in our hall, 2. a new pair of slippers for E to use at school, 3. a red fish lunch box for E, and 4. a smaller yellow lunch box for me (both made by www.blafre.com), plus 5. a copy of the film Gatas Gynt, which is something I'd like to write about, and tucked up in the basket is E's surviving-the-first-week-of-school present, 6. some more lego roads to build on. I also bought 7. some rubber sheets, since E's response to the first week of school has been to start bed-wetting again (it's his primary response to stress, apparently), and I ordered 8. some print copies of a bunch of snapshots of E to send to my Grannie and Mom. It was exhausting, but worth the effort. The hand made slippers and baskets, for example, were from the handicraft store Heimen. I just happened to walk by and noticed they were having a remodeling sale, and I found the baskets for 50% off (after having looked in dozens of stores in the US, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway over the past few months) and the slippers for 40% off. Yay!

Møkkavær

Today we woke up to a blustery snow storm. I am not happy, to put it mildly. It's May, for goodness sake! For some odd reason I couldn't find my knitting bag last night, and since I had a bunch of left over Garnstudio Drops Eskimo and a crochet hook handy in my basket, I decided to start crocheting a hat rather than get off the sofa to look for my knitting. It's a rough life I lead. Turns out it was a good thing I did because it was so frigid on the way to work this morning that I really needed a toque. This one turned out better than nearly all my previous sorry attempts at making a warm hat for myself. Here it is:

It's supposed to be one-color with pompoms, but I'm not much of a pompom person (no surprise there), and I ran out of the rust. Luckily, there's a change in the pattern (from DC to SC) right where I ran out, so it seems almost natural to switch colors there too. It fits really well and is warm, though not the most attractive thing in the world. It's Drops number 93-36.

Today was a productive day at work, at least in terms of small nagging tasks. I took a little extra time on the way home to stop off in some clothing stores in Oslo. My clothing situation is becoming critical. Unfortunately, it was incredibly depressing to shop for clothes. There is so little that I even like, or that I think would be flattering and comfortable, and what little that does appeal to me here in Norway ends up being outrageously expensive. I don't know what it is with all the embellishments on women's clothing. Even a simple thing like a pair of jeans here has to have rhinestones or ridiculous heraldic crests on the back pockets. To make matters worse, this season's palette of colors is totally wrong for me. Lots of pastels and navy and cold tones of other colors, or else brilliant lipstick red. None of it works on me. It's a strange experience to walk into a store and feel totally turned off by just the impression that the range of colors makes.

Tomorrow and Thursday I'll be attending a two-day workshop on nynorsk i arbeidet, a crash course on how to improve one's communication in Nynorsk for state employees. I'm one of about 15 participants, and as far as I can tell the only non-native speaker. I'm actually pretty excited about it, though I'm afraid they're just going to kick me out since I've never had any formal training in Nynorsk at all. Should be interesting!

Nummer elleve

Why, yes! That is a finished Francis Revisited sweater you see there. I was beginning to think I would never finish it, since I ripped it out and re-knit so many times. It ended up being much longer in arms and torso than the patten called for. I think I'll wear it a lot this winter, and it's a much better fit than the first sweater I knit with this yarn.

This is the eleventh sweater I have completed this year. Now I'm trying to decide what to do next. I have two partially finished sweaters that I could finish. Or I could start something new--I have enough yarn in my stash for two sweaters.

• Lattice Lace Pullover (Ravelry link) started September 2008
• 64-17 Short Sleeve Lace Cardigan (Ravelry link) started July 2009
• Halle by Elsebeth Lavold (Ravelry link)
• another 112-24 Knitted Tunic (Ravelry link), this time in the color Natural instead of Black
  

My practical side says I should really finish the two works-in-progress. Both of them are lace patterns, though, and one of the things I've discovered this year is that I really don't enjoy lace knitting very much at all. I don't mind the process and have gotten much better at it technically. I'm just not really that wild about the end product (gasp! I know that's heresy amongst knitmeisters). I like the look of it in theory, but not in the practice of wearing things. I'll take another look at the short sleeve cardigan, as I don't think there's that much to go on it.

Yesterday we finally went to one of the flea markets that the Kiwanis Club puts on regularly here on Nesodden. It was totally packed with people, but quite fun. KE ran into an old friend, E had fun running around, and I got to scratch my current shopping itch (don't know where that came from, but I'm really craving the sensory input right now). We bought one item, an old-fashioned knapsack:

What's funny about this is that we went through separately, and on my round the only thing I came across that I really wanted to buy was one of these, but since I had E with me it really wasn't practical to start looking seriously (there were 3 or 4 of them). When we walked up to the cash register there was KE standing with this in his hands, asking the price. He had picked up the coolest one. Great minds think alike, clearly.

I bought my Mom's ticket online yesterday, so she'll be coming for E's birthday in December--yay! I also talked to my Dad and M on Skype yesterday for the first time. That was really fun. I also finally got my flight information for my trip to the Nordic Literary History meeting in Utah yesterday. I leave on Wednesday, so I was getting a bit frantic, and sent three panicky emails before I got a response. Now I'm really looking forward to the trip!