Lots of family stuff went on as well as lots of knitting. My Mormor is the most amaizing knitter, she can knit thoose intricate Scandinavian jumpers with two colours and steaks with NO pattern - just from her head!
She's 85 in May but still very active - I met her at the shopping centre, I walked and she cycled:
Her knitting group make blankets and other things for the childrens villages, last year the group made 135 blankets and many other things. They also sponser a child, their first sponsered child has grown up and is over 18 now, she passed all her school exams and still writes to the ladies. It makes me feel quite emmotional that these ladies who are quite elderly, spend so much time and energy making things for unknown children in villages far away. I also feel guilty that I spend so much on yarn and really I don't need it - if you feel the same, please donate some of your yarn money to a charity or give some of your knitting time to making something for one of the organisations.
Enough with the charity thing! bring on the knitting! having said that here is a combined knitting and charity thing. Mormor is putting together a blanket made from squares knit by a very old lady who can hardly see - you can see below she's crocheting round the edge with a picot stitch. Each square is garter stitch from one corner of 3 stitches increasing the second stich at the beginning of every row (knit into front and back) until you reach the desired width and then decreasing again to 3 stitches, bind off. It's great for using up bits of yarn - you can make the squares strippy if you don't have enough for a whole square.
I also gave Mormor some Debbie Bliss Rialto that I got on ebay really cheaply, she was delighted because on her pension buying yarn is not that frequent an occurance. She has found an stitch pattern and is using it to make a cardigan. This sleeve in the picture is a couple of hours knitting time (wish I was that quick!) - I love the pattern and it is reversible, I'll try and get some instruction on it and write it up here. Reminds me of the ribs on some plants like a cactus. I also bought some self stripping sock yarn for Mormor to make socks - we all own several old pairs of Mormor knit socks but she got out of the habbit of making them some time ago. However the self stripping stuff that she had never seen before made her laugh a lot and she has got back into making socks - the brighter and more crazy the pattern the better!
I went to Strøget in central Copenhagen, there are a couple of good knitting shops on Fiolstræde which I went to look at - I did buy some yarn but more on that at a later date! I walked down to the main shopping street and as I came round the corner I saw this - apparently they do it every Saturday!
The last thing I wanted to share was this picture - all this yarn (admitedly mostly cotton and wool/acrylic mix) is in the SUPERMARKET!!!!! yes that is correct they sell yarn in the supermarket - wow - If only the rest of the world was so forward!
1 comment:
Yay Denmark! :D And you got to see the guys who wear small bears on their head, too. I'm not quite sure why we have those guys, but I think they protect the Queen or something. I don't know.
I think grandmas have magical knitting hands. It's the same with mine. She could rival the Harlot in knitting socks at high speed, I swear.. :P
Glad to see you had a nice trip! I've never been to yarn shops in Copenhagen, sadly, but I'll have to go have a look next time I'm there! I've heard they're nice. :)
Post a Comment