Icelandic Knitting

Knitting is a strong part of Icelandic culture. It's visible on the street, even on bikes

and on trees!

Cafes sometimes offer a knitting basket with a piece of unfinished knitting in it, in case you feel like knitting a few rows as you enjoy your coffee and peruse the newspaper.

As a knitter, I was happy to join not one, but two knitting groups. The camaraderie, the advice, the trading of patterns, the snacks, what fun! In Rome, a friend and I tried to start such a group, but there, knitting is thought of as an old lady's hobby. Getting my Italian friends to give it a try was near impossible. In the end, I did get one friend to join, and she learned enough to make a hat.

Here in Iceland, handknits are very popular. One sees all sorts of people -- babies and elderly, hipsters and teens, everyone -- wearing handmade Icelandic sweaters. Such a sweater is called a lopapeysa in Icelandic, after Icelandic lopi wool. Peysa means sweater. I decided to knit one of my own.

I chose a pattern called Sjón, published in the pattern book, Lopi 30. It was originally written to fit men, so it had a big, boxy shape. Since I wanted a better-fitting, long cardigan rather than a loose pullover, I made some changes to it.

Icelandic sweaters are usually knit in-the-round, which means using circular knitting needles and making a tube. This one is knit from the bottom up. First I knit the body from the bottom to armpit level. Then I knit both sleeves and joined them to the body. Next was the colorwork, the yoke design from the chest up to the neck.

To make a cardigan, you add a few stitches in each row so that there ends up begin a vertical column the front center, and when you are finished knitting your sweater, you actually cut it open. This process, called steeking, strikes fear in the heart of many a knitter. Here it is as a pullover, and you can see the center column where it will be cut.

I threaded some blue yarn along the column to make it clear where I should cut. Using a sewing machine, I sewed a line of red thread on either side of the blue column to reinforce the sweater and prevent it from falling apart once the cut was made.

Then it was time to put scissors to the carefully knitted garment. Scary.

Next I folded the raw edges under and inserted a zipper. This turned out to be the hardest part of the entire process.

I ended up putting it in, being unhappy with the outcome, seeking advice, taking out one side, and reinserting it. It was frustrating, but now it's finally done.

Front view:

Side view:

Top view:

Back view:

Snæfellsnes

Hi, Readers. We haven't been blogging lately, but it's not because we haven't been doing much. There are lots of fun things to do in Iceland, and we have been quite busy. At some point we plan to post photos of some of our activities over the past several months. For now, let's focus on last month's day trip to the Snæfellsnes peninsula, about 2.5 hours from Reykjavik.

We began on the southern part of the peninsula, and afterward visited the northern part. First stop, the tiny village of Arnarstapi, near the snow-covered Snæfells glacier (Snæfellsjökull). If you are a fan of Jules Verne, you might remember that this was the spot from which The Journey to the Center of the Earth began. Perhaps you are more of a New Age type, in which case you know that Snæfellsjökull is one of the seven major power centers in the world.

In Arnarstapi is a sculpture by Ragnar Kjartansson called Barður Snæfellsás. It represents a half-human, half-ogre who was written about in one of the Icelandic sagas.

There are some beautiful cliffs here, and the sea is an amazing shade of blue that reminds me of the Aegean Sea.

The village church has a scenic view.

Up the road a bit in an area called Lóndrangar, we stopped when we saw a sign that said "dead whale." We didn't see any whale, though. Turns out the sign was there from last year, when a sperm whale beached itself here and died. Anyway, there are some interesting rock pillars there.

Continuing our drive around the peninsula, we planned to have lunch in Hellissandur because the hotel/restaurant there is supposed to be open year-round, unlike most such establishments which close from September through May. Unfortunately, they were not open after all. Good thing we brought sandwiches. We ate them at a pretty beach called Skarðsvík.

As we followed the coast road eastward, we saw Iceland's most photographed mountain, Kirkjufell. Of course we had to take a photo.

Or two.

One of the fjords here on the northern coast of Snæfellsnes, called Kolgrafarfjörður, has been in the news lately due to massive herring die-offs. The authorities still don't know why thousands of herring were belly-up in the fjord. NPR did a story about it. During our visit, the fjörd reeked of dead fish, although the poor creatures were no longer floating in the water. They had been dumped into giant piles on the shore.

We followed that stinky site with another.

Fermented shark, known as hákarl, is a traditional Icelandic food. First it is buried in the ground for 6-12 weeks, and then it is hung up to dry for 4-5 months. One of the leading producers of hákarl is located here in Bjarnarhöfn. They let us look at their drying shed.

Mmm, mmm, don't that look appetizing?

Uh, no. Hey, at least you are not being exposed to the ammmonia stench! Count yourself lucky.

We finished our day trip in Stykkisholmur, where we enjoyed some cake at Sjávarpakkhusið. Alas, no photo of the cake, but here is the harbor, which we could see from our table.

Mt. Esja

A few weeks ago we decided to climb Mt. Esja, which we see every day from our window. We were lucky to be out there on a beautiful day, just a couple days before snow appeared atop the mountain!

The shot above was taken partway up the path. Our car is parked down by the road, which is that squiggly line near the water.

The next photo was taken a bit higher up, looking down.

Here you can see how steep and rocky the upper part of the mountain is.

We made it to the top after about 2 hours.

The marker at the top shows the relative position of neighboring mountains and towns.

Looking in the opposite direction, there is a mossy expanse. It's soft and cushy to walk on. Feels like walking on pillows.

We can see our apartment building from here. See it? You might have to squint.

Looking up from near the bottom, it doesn't look like a strenuous climb. Most of it was mild enough, although the rocky top part was a bit of a challenge. It helps to bring sandwiches.

Árbæjarsafn Open Air Museum

A few weeks ago we visited Árbæjar Open Air Museum.

It put us in mind of both Colonial Williamsburg and Greenfield Village in Michigan. If you haven't been there, Greenfield Village is a part of The Henry Ford [museum]. Henry Ford went to different areas of the US, collected notable buildings like the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and Thomas Edison's laboratory, and moved them to Greenfield Village so that people could visit them all together as a picture of American history. Well, Iceland's Árbæjar museum is a collection of Icelandic buildings that were moved to one location with the same sort of idea. You get a sense of Icelandic living standards changing over time by walking through the turf houses, ...

...timber houses, barns and churches of various eras.

It was a special event day, so many people were dressed in the traditional national costume, and there were performances of dance and music involving kids and adults. Everyone looked like they were having fun.

There were also displays about raising sheep and using their wool.

You could even visit with some sheep and feed them some grass.

Check out the horns on these guys. Two seem to be growing upward and outward from the temples, and another two come out of the area right next to the ears and curl downwards. How many horns does one need?

Berry-picking at Heiðmörk

We had great (sunny) weather on Sunday, and we decided to do something typically Icelandic -- pick wild blueberries. Late August to early September is the prime season for it.

Just on the outskirts of town is a public recreation area called Heiðmörk where people can pick as many berries as they want for free. We picked blueberries and red currants, but there are also crowberries and black currants. Here's one of our three containers of berries.

This little birdie, a meadow pipit, aka anthus pratensis, followed us around for a while. He was not at all shy and came up close to us, sticking by us as we picked berries, catching up to us as we moved along. Weird.

Reykjavík Street Art

There is lots of street art in Reykjavík. Some is evident in the form of murals.

There is also graffiti...

...and interesting social commentary.

Reykjavík City Library

The other day I walked over to the main branch of the Reykjavík City Library (Borgarbókasafn Reykjavíkur).

It's an attractive place with an exhibition space and cafe downstairs and most of the books, audio books, CDs, DVDs, and periodicals upstairs. I was especially impressed by the room of foreign language books.

There were lots, perhaps thousands, of English-language books, along with those in other languages.

Membership costs 1600 ISK ($13.26 at today's exchange rate) per year. Definitely worth it!