Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Icelandic Sweaters

Before Weaving Works moved to their new location a while back they had a sale in which for $50 you could stuff as much yarn into a bag that would fit.  That is how I got all of this Alafosslopi.  The abundance of Icelandic wool allowed me to explore Icelandic patterns.  First I made a rather large Afmaeli sweater. Using the same pattern but making LOTS of modification I made this grey one. This time I took some of the lighter yarn and over-dyed it, getting these dark purple and forest green colors. 
When it comes to Icelandic patters, there's a lot of weaving in of the yarns to finish the project. I have discovered a little tool to make in go 100 times faster. It's a curved yarn needle---brilliant!  The sweater was suppose to be for me but alas, it's too small. I needed to find someone smaller than me, who appreciates wool, and is not afraid of wearing something that weighs 4 lbs. The perfect receiver: my current student midwife. She's always cold and she doesn't wear store-bought clothes. My only deal with her was that she'd have to let me photograph her wearing it. She agreed.  Now the sweater is blocked and drying. Soon we will take the photos. 

Since I still would like an Icelandic sweater for myself, I made some adjustments with my calculations and tried again. This time I'm going with a button up design. I'm still using the Afmaeli pattern and again I'm making a lot of modifications. Knitting the body is quite boring but I'm just to the part when I can attach the sleeves and start the pattern work. My favorite part! I'm not totally set on colors but the skeins below are what I have to work with.


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