What About the Yarn?

OK, there have been a couple of queries about Sheila’s proposed yarn projects.  Some of you may recall that on our trip to Iceland and beyond, she made herself an Icelandic sweater (lopapeysa).

This trip, she made plans to do a crocheted version of a traditional Norwegian sweater from the Bergen area, a Fanatrøye.  Not what you’re probably thinking of.  The Fanatrøye comes in a couple of variants…one is in two colors, usually black and white or blue and white, with stripes and Norwegian 8-petal roses and so forth. Sheila felt that the lopapeysa was sufficient colorwork, so decided on the second variant, the all-white nattrøye or “night-sweater”. Visual interest comes from texture patterns at the cuffs and hem, and sometimes at the shoulders, but mostly the sweater is knit in plain garter-stitch. It has woven bands around the square neck, down the front, and at the cuffs, and pewter buttons.

While in Bergen, she went to the Husflid…a shop that deals with all sorts of handcrafts. She had written to the shop previously, so Irene was not too shocked that someone wanted to CROCHET a Fanatrøye. But there was no discussing the option to make it in any other color than the traditional white. There are green ones and red ones, but “they are NOT from Bergen!”  OK, then.

A certain amount of testing was required, but finally some stitch patterns were decided on, so here is the start of a sleeve:

However…Sheila also wanted a project for the plane trip, and to work on prior to arriving in Bergen.  She had chosen some mittens done in a technique called pjoning, which is basically all slip-stitch.  Not her favorite stitch. And using yarn left over from the lopapeysa.  After several restarts, followed by many hours that only produced 2” of mitten plus a very sore wrist (the fabric is quite stiff and hard to push the hook through…), she abandoned that pattern.

The next pattern proved much easier to work, and progress was made up until the yarn for the sweater was purchased.  Much more interesting to sample stitches, figure out what size hook to use, and so forth.

BUT! On a mid-winter trip to coastal Norway, involving standing outside at night for long periods of time, the mittens seemed more immediately useful.  The sweater is going to take weeks or even months.

So, back to the mittens.  They were almost done, but proved to be quite a bit too large. An awkwardness in the pattern, perhaps.  This involved backing up a certain distance and making some changes. One is now finished, and only the cuff left to do on the second.  Hopefully this will happen before we head out on the 5-hour tour with a professional photographer from Tromsø…an attempt to take some photos without being on a moving ship.