Baby Knitting

These are a two of the baby hats I knit for pregnant co-workers! Once again the star cap from Baby's Lace Set in Homespun Handknit. I love this pattern! I used the remnants of socks I knit last year in Lerwick to make the purple cap and the blue one was knit with homespun merino/tencel fingering weight yarn. I finished a pair of socks on the plane home and used the leftovers to knit a third, but I finished it at work and happened to be working WITH the recipient that night, so no picture of that one. These caps are a nice way to use up sock scraps and they knit up relatively quickly.

Time me!

This is some fabulous roving I bought at the at Stof2000 in Copenhagen. We found it on our way back from the Arbeids Museet. It had beads, threads, buttons in tubes, zippers, and various specialty fabrics on rolls--I didn't see any cottons or blends on actual bolts. We are so spoiled by JoAnn Fabrics and Hobby Lobbies because everything is right there, but you pay the price with stock that does not rotate much and does not specialize. It is still interesting to look around and to see what people buy and you think about what kind of home sewing this culture does. A lot of the fabric was very pretty, but it was a color combination or a design that was just odd and you just wonder what they would DO with it! I didn't see any quilt shops in Denmark but there are some FABULOUS ones in Holland.

This store had a few stray skeins of acrylic yarn, and next to it a basket of 15g merino wool balls of roving! It was intended for needle felting, but I was pretty sure I would not have another opportunity on this trip to get any fiber so I bought 2 balls of 5 different colors for spinning! I couldn't wait to play with it when I got home! My suitcase was still in the living room and I was spinning this into a heavy worsted thick and thin variegated two ply yarn!
I was VERY pleased with how it turned out! I knit myself a Maltese Fisherman's Helmet like the one I'd made for Deedee, and I had JUST enough yarn! I hadn't spun on the wheel for a while and I and already thinking of de-stashing some fiber! This has to be a record for the quickest I've used up a bit of newly acquired stash!

Field Trip!

Mom and I just got back from a trip to Holland and Denmark! We spent one week in Amsterdam and another in Copenhagen! Of course we didn't get to see or do everything that we wanted, but I would gladly return to either city. We had a great time visiting museums, chapels, towers, markets, monuments, etc. There were also plenty of knitting points of interest! Here are just a few pictures for the time being!



We saw the Rembrandts and Vermeers and Van Goghs in Amsterdam, including a recently discovered early painting "Rembrandt Laughing" that will soon be returned to a private collection. We traveled to outlying areas in the Copenhagen area to see Roskilde Cathedral, the Vikingship Museum, and Karen Blixen's home.

I parted with a lot of money in the yarn shops, fabric stores, haberdasheries, department and grocery stores and BankRot-caliber stores found along the way! These are the prized souvenirs I seek out for myself! I'll post pictures of my plunder later!

One of my favorite discoveries from this trip was this collection of knitting spools we saw in a window on our way to The Houseboat Museum. I remember making these with old wooden thread spools and larger versions with pencils and oatmeal canisters. We call them a Knitting Nellie and I know in Norway they are called Strikke Lise, but I found a Strick Liesl in Holland and a Stricke Sussel in Denmark!

We got to see The Little Mermaid on the waterfront. I had seen pictures of her since I was a little girl, so it was neat to see her up close. You'd never guess from this picture that there were about 5 tour buses worth of people clambering around on the rocks next to me!

We also went to Kronborg Castle, better known as Hamlet's Castle, in Helsingor. We traipsed through the apartments, chapel, and finally the casemates where we met Holger the Dane! Legend has it that if Denmark is ever threatened, he will rise from his slumber and defend the nation. And all through Denmark, jeg snakket norsk med alle jeg traff--og de SVARTE meg pa Dansk! That was SO rewarding to me! I haven't been able to interact like that since I was last in Norway in 2001. Jeg elsker meg i Skandisk land!