Scottish yarn and mitten book!
Having a blog has brought thing to my life that I couldn't think of before the blog. There are so many nice people leaving comments, and many friendships have begun from comments on the blog. I love exploring the blogs mentioned in the comments, and I have found many blogs that I now regularly read. This entry has to do with the result of comments.
Last week, after having posted about my Bayrische socks I got a comment from Kirsty in Scotland. I followed her link to her blog and her yarns hop and came across the most beautiful yarns. And remember, I'm not the world's hugest fan of variegated yarns, but Kirsty's hand-painted yarns are stunning. I forgot in a blink my promise not to order new yarn before those 300 g were used up, and put in an order for a hank of Robe&Bowl and a set of stitch markers.
The yarn arrived on Wednesday, and was a welcomed piece of beauty and light in a week shadowed by the fact that my daughter's hamster, two years old Nino, died on Tuesday. I liked the furry little animal as much as my daughter, and haven't got very much done this week. The yarn is a 100 % Soft Merinowool Superwash, and I have no idea yet of what to do with it. I'm playing with the thought of Pomatomus socks, but nothing is settled yet. My pictures are not very good, the weather here is so damp and grey that the outside pictures were even worse than those taken inside with flash. Go and take a peak at Kirsty's shop, she has beautiful pictures of this colour way and other colours too.
Then on Friday did a second parcel arrive.
I'm now, thanks to the help of a frequent mitten commenter on this blog, Susan who lives in the States, owner of the very interesting mitten book by Inger Gottfridsson, The mitten book (also if I understand right sometimes called The Swedish mitten book). The patterns were collected by Hermanna Stengard (Stengård perhaps?) from the isle of Gotland outside Sweden. She was born in 1861 and did her knitting research while working as a teacher on Gotland. She published a book called Gotländsk sticksöm that is long ago out of print, but some of the patterns are reproduced in this book. Gotland was a trade centre and the influence from the other countries around the Baltic Sea is easily seen in the patterns. In this book you find pattern resembling those from Estonia, Finland, the Swedish mainland, and perhaps other places too, but I don't recognize them. Which way the pattern has travelled is not known to me, but I find it very interesting.
Update on the WIPs and no longer WIPs will follow tomorrow.
