Hyrna Herborgar

I finished my first "Hyrna Herborgar" this week - it was made in a second KAL RodPrjonar, Gummi and Knittingmydayaway did together. At first, we wanted to make Laminaria but then we decided to make Hyrna Herborgar first and that Laminaria would be our next project. You can see Rodprjonars result here.
I really learned some new things making this shawl and once again had to admit to myself that patience is be REALLY important when knitting lace. :-)

I love my new "Herborg" and I´m sure that I´ll make more of those - this one looks so much more complicated than it really is. I also love the colour of this yarn - I dyed it with crowberries and the colour seems to bee in "3D"... it is not only plain grey, but it also has a glimpse of purple, blue and something else I can´t really put in words... you just have to see it with your own eyes because pictures never show you the real beauty and depth of the colours.

Details:
yarn: my own einband (what else? :-), handdyed with crowberries (krækiber)
needles: 3,5
Pattern: the beautiful Hyrna Herborgar, from the book "Þríhyrnur og langsjöl"

Here some pictures...

And just for fun: an update on my process on "Kyrrð"... I´m almost done, just about 8 repeats to do...

Progress on my chili-plants

I´m really excited to to tell you, that I got some chilis on my own, homegrown chili-plants... and it looks like there are a lot more to come!! :-) Here some pictures:

My walk today, 21 sept

I love every season of the year - each and every one is wonderful in it´s own special way.
At the moment it´s beginning to look a lot like fall and what I love about fall are the following things

1. It´s getting darker again - that´s quite cozy after having light 24 hours a day during summertime. Sooo... we can finally light some candles in the night and actually enjoy them.

2. The colours of nature

3. The cold breeze from the ozean, getting even cooler

4. When everything outside looks like someone spread diamonds all over the place after the first nights of frost

5. You can start wearing your warm, knitted things again - that´s so cozy!

This morning I went for my walk along the coast. The last night was the first night we had some real frost so that some of the plants looked so beautiful with little frost-kristals all over. It was sunny and no wind at all so that the ocean looked like a mirror. Seven wild goose flew about 1 meter above the ocean in a straight row, a dog barked somewhere far away, I heard the sound of the water when it hit the beach, some plants where starting to get red, brown and yellow and it was really chilly. Down at the beach, there where no footsteps in the sand besides my own and two little birds flew away with a lot of noise when they noticed me.
After my wonderful walk, I went directly to the thermal-pool "Lágafellslaug" and enjoyed being the only guest in the swimmingpool, sitting in the hot tub and finnish sauna.

I found a lot of peace in my heart this morning. I also feel really lucky and thankful, having those wonderful landscapes, incredible nature and perfect thermal-pool with a real finnish sauna just 2 minutes away from where I live.

My question for you is: what do YOU feel thankful and lucky for and what do you like about fall?

Here some pictures I took this morning (please click on them, so that you can enjoy them in full size)

The beach with no footsteps

That´s my path, along the ocean - far away you can see Reykjavík

People playing golf

Ocean-mirror

Plants (crowberries)- looks like fall

Plants... so yellow- looks like fall

Nice...

Last week, something really nice happend, that really made my day... Johanna B. (knittingmydayaway) sent me some magazines and a shawl-pin. The thing is, I really LOVE knitting-magazines and I haven´t seen those Johanna sent me - Vogueknitting Early Fall 2011 and Verena - in any store here in Reykjavík yet so this was very exciting! I´ve been browsing through them again and again and again...

The shawl-pin is just perfect for me: an owl-pin... like made for me!

Thank you Johanna, you really made my day - or should I say the whole week?

Lopi-sweater for Bidenam

I just finished this lopi-sweater for my older one, Bidenam. It´s the second time I knit this pattern and I really like it. The fun thing about lopi-sweaters is, how different one pattern can look, depending on the colours you choose.

Details: pattern: "Barnapeysa með hettu" (click here) yarn: léttlopi; colour: my own, brown from lichen (skófir) and yellow from alchemilla vulgaris (Maríustakkur).

And of course, I just LOVE the icelandic wool, that has some really special characteristics. It consists of 2 different types of fibres:

inner fibres: insulating - fine, soft, highly insulating.
outer fibres - water-repellent: long, glossy, water-repellent.

Together, these two distinctive fibres create a wool that is lightweight - lighter than most other wools, keeps you warm and comfortable
water-repellent - repels rain and stays feeling dry.
Breathable - moisture passes through the fibres away from the skin, keeping you dry and comfortable.

But anyway, here is B´s new lopi-sweater:

my new hat

I made myself a hat, using the same yarn as I did for my aeolian shawl (here). I dyed the yarn myself, using icelandic lichen. I really love this hat - it is quite festive, very light (like a feather), wide and cosy at the same time. I took me about 2 days to make it and I must say, that I was not knitting all day long. I had fun, knitting every single row of this pattern and I´m definitely knitting more from this book ("Einband")...

Details:
Pattern: "Mark" by Védís Jónsdóttir from the book "Einband".
needles: 3,0
yarn: einband (loðband), colour: my own

Something new and something from Finnland

I made something for myself this weekend... guess what?


Last fall, I went to Finnland to be at a very, very dear friends wedding. We had some wonderful, perfect days together and this really was one of the highlights for me so far. One of the many things I love about Finnland are the berries. I love berries... I always have... and because of that, Finnland is something like a berry-heaven for a person like me. I ate berries every single day in many different versions. One of the things I tried out was a cake my friend baked for me. The other day she sent me the recipe so I could try it out with my freshly picked wild, blueberries. I turned out just perfect - the recipe is very simple, the cake is not too heavy, not too fat, not filled with sugar and made out of 50%/50% whole-wheat and flour... and the best thing is: it reminded me of my wonderful days in Finnland and my dear friends there.



to

red turnip

What colour would you expect your yarn to get, from a red turnip? I was expecting purple or pink... but as always with natural yarn-dyeing, you don´t really know what you´re going to get. After having soaked the sliced turnip in water for about 24 hours I cooked it. I used mordant for the the wool before I dyed it.
The colour I got was a unusual shade of orange/pinkish... can´t really find words to describe it so here are some pictures:

I love rhubarb...

I love rhubarb... everything about it, the taste, the colour... you can eat it, cook it, bake it and the best thing is: you can dye with every single part of it - from root to top! :-) This week I´ve been very busy cooking and dyeing with the rhubarb, my friend gave me the other day. I made jam, a cake and of course: I did some yarn-dyeing with it!!!

When you are dyeing with plants, it´s always fascinating to see, how different 2 skeins yarn can turn out, coming from the same pot. I dyed about 7 skeins of yarn, and almost none of them is exactly the same. Some of them have some brownish-red spots (skellur), some of them are much darker and others a bit lighter in colour. But exactly that´s the fascinating part of the yarndyeing, you never know what you´re going to get! And most of the time, you don´t get what you expect!

Again I must say, the pictures don´t really show the beauty of the colours - but if you click on the pictures you can see them in full size:

the wool

on my balcony, preparing for the winter:

Rhubarb-jam
cake with rhubarb (hjónabandssæla), recipe from my grandmother

A really good day

I finished a new, very simple shawl yesterday called "vinkonusjal" (Fleiri Prjónaperlur). It´s the second time I knit this one and I really like the pattern - it´s so easy, quick and so very different every time, depending on the yarn and needles you use. This time I used the soft, icelandic "kambgarn" and needles 3,5. The piece is really small and cute- it´s more like a bactus or a shawl for a little girl.






I also have to tell you, that today was a really good day. It all started with a cup of coffee with a very dear friend, who sent me home with a black garbagebag filled with rhubarb for my yarn-dyeing... but I´ll probably make sume rhubarb-jam, pie and some other things with it too, since it really is a lot! She also gave me a small owl for my collection and some owl-napkins which I love:

On my way home, I stopped at a thriftstore and got a really beautiful retro-oil-lamp, a HUGE pot for my yarndyeing (my biggest one so far) and a candle-holder which I´m going to use for special project I´ll show you later... I just couldn´t believe my luck: