Tag Archives: norwegian knitting patterns

Favorite Pullover For Women

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Wednesday, February 14, 2024

I was up early this morning and wanted to be sure to write a post about having finished my Norwegian pullover. Did you read that? Read it again, please. I am finished with my Norwegian pullover! It’s been nearly a year since I cast on but I have finally finished it … and it fits! I wore it yesterday despite the fact that it was still a little bit damp in the colorwork areas.

I started on this journey by taking a class with Knitography Farm. The first class turned into a couple more classes and culminated in knitting this sweater. I had to purchase the book Norwegian Knitting Designs 90 Years Later on Amazon to get the pattern as it appears it’s nowhere else. This book is a coffee table book of traditional Norwegian knitwear designs. The original book is in a pocket at the back of my book. (Since I have some leftover yarn, I’ll likely find another small project to knit up with the yarn.) I loved the Favorite Pullover for Women immediately and knew this was the “genser” I wanted to make.

I ordered the yarn from Patricia at the farm. It is a Norwegian wool, Ask Norsk ullgarn, and it’s a bit sticky but squishy, too. Perfect for colorwork. The yarn is a sport weight that looks like fingering, frankly. I purchased 5 hanks of the main colorway and one each of the remaining colors. I chose to make it in the traditional colors as shown in the purple colorway in the middle of the photo above. I didn’t love the yellow color and have a sweater’s worth of a brick red-ish color but had nothing in purple which helped me make the choice. (I have one hank of the main color leftover and quite a bit of the darker grays, just a little of the light gray.)

Knitting the yoke was the most fun, of course! Once the sleeves were divided, the stockinette stitch down the body and sleeves was tedious at best. It had been set aside for my Arne & Carlos Advent Mini Jumpers, and a 1-year-old’s bikini and a mermaid tail and sea shell top, among others but I brought it with us when we went to the beach in September and worked away in bits and pieces when I found a few minutes. I got most of the first sleeve finished in early October and then hit a “snag” because I had a wrong number of stitches for a colorwork pattern with an 8-stitch repeat. While I pondered the predicament, I knit a couple of pairs of Christmas socks, designed and knit a 1-year-old’s Christmas sweater and hat, and I may have started knitting a pair of pink mittens among others (again! See the theme developing here? Hit a snag, cast on another new project.)

I chewed on the adjustments that I needed to make for quite a while, consulted a few knitting friends and then I knit, re-knit and re-knit again the first sleeve to get the decreases spread down the sleeve correctly and so I had 64 stitches at just the right spot to start the colorwork at the bottom of the sleeve. I knit the second sleeve first with the same adjustments and when they were both the same length with the same number of stitches, I tried it on to make sure the sleeves would be the right length and knitted the colorwork and ribbing. Success sure felt good when it had all worked and I could move forward again.

The colorwork at the cuff was very simple and quick as was the ribbing and before I knew it, I had a finished sweater. Finally! I blocked it Monday night and wore it yesterday … it fits! I’m delighted.

Favorite Pullover For Women blocking Sunday night 2/12/24

Gone knitting.

Hurricane Lee Day

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September 16, 2023

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. Hurricane Lee has been heading toward New England and thankfully, it’s been downgraded to a tropical storm but is still hitting the northern coasts of New England with some pretty powerful wind! We are getting wind here but so far, minimal rain and our power is hanging in. (We are very fortunate to have a generator so that’s not really a concern.)

We arrived home on Tuesday afternoon from a week-long vacation in Rhode Island with my three (adult) children and their significant others and their dogs and our granddaughter. What a wonderful week we had together. I am so grateful that they all want to spend a week with us and that they carve time out of their busy lives to be together. We enjoyed wake-ups with Sylvie in the morning since we’re the earliest risers and we had beach time, photo shoots, a wonderful lobster feast al fresco and a wonderful visit to the Mystic Aquarium. It was a family-full week and we left with full hearts.

I didn’t get a whole lot of knitting time because being together was the priority but I managed to get some time in the car on the way down to finish up a little Plymouth Encore sweater. The yarn was gifted to me by one of my students who doesn’t have any “tiny” ones to knit for. I knitted up a yoked sweater, a Plymouth pattern, 2649 Baby & Toddler Top Down Cardigan. I just need to attach the buttons and give it a good wash. With the leftovers I made a hat designed by Susan B. Anderson from her Itty BItty Hats book. It’s the Inca Hat. It’s a quick knit and I love having ear flaps for little ones.

While we were there, I did get some nap time knitting in on my Norwegian Genser. I added a lifeline so that if it didn’t actually fit me that I could frog back to a place where I could make some adjustments. I use dental floss for lifelines because it’s slippery and it’s fine/thin enough to not make my stitches change their size. I’ve tried other yarns, etc. but dental floss does the trick for me. I don’t buy the mint flavored for obvious reasons but I have to admit to heading to my knitting bag when I get something stuck in my teeth. Haha. You can barely see the lifeline at the place where I split for the sleeves. I tried it on shortly after this and I think the size is going to be just right and even better if I lose my vacation pounds. Again, haha.

I love the purple! I think the design is stunning and I am excited to be able to wear it. The yarn is ASK yarn from Norway and it’s a rustic sport weight wool so the sweater won’t be too warm. I hope. Now I just have inches and inches of stockinette stitch. I will be trying it on again soon – maybe today – just to check the fit once more. Fingers crossed.

I’ve cast on a pumpkin hat and will make two of these to send to my daughter’s friend who has two boys. I never sent anything when the second son was born so I’ve been thinking about it for nearly a year. The pattern is Patrick’s Pumpkin and I’m knitting them in Encore worsted by Plymouth. I’ve made several in Brown Sheep’s Cotton Fleece but I thought that Encore would be an easy care choice for these hats. Life with two young boys isn’t “easy”. I also made a bit of a change in the pattern. Where the band calls for knitting with two strands held double, I’ve chosen, this time, to knit with one strand and when I got to the increase round, I increased with a M1. It seems to be ok and the band isn’t as “inflexible” as I remember it being. I’ll plan to finish the first hat, a large size, today and start a medium size when I finish the first – hope they’ll both fit for fall’s cooler weather.

I pulled out some fingering weight scraps of yarn to bring to the beach but I never touched it. The plan was to knit up a few gnomes. I bought Sarah Schira’s Grimblewoods Collection several months ago and want to make a little gnome family for our house at Christmas time – and maybe it’ll be out all year, too. Anyway, I never touched it. I didn’t get much knitting in while on vacation but I will get one cast on today or tomorrow. I fell in love with the collection because of Gnedward (my hubby’s name is Edward.)

Some unhappy news is that we lost our grand-dog Bessie. She had had a seizure when they were out in California and despite having put her on anti-seizure meds, she’s continued to have seizures. While they were on the Cape visiting the other grandparents after our beach trip, Bessie had five seizures and they couldn’t get them controlled. Bessie was a “foster fail” about eight years ago. I was there the day she was adopted and then returned. My daughter was so protective of Bessie and I knew she was home forever at that time. Somewhere I have a photo of Bessie and Mabel on the couch in their NYC apartment. Mabel looks like she’s praying to be rid of the big dog that Bessie was (they nicknamed her “Bus”). Our family has a 60 pound hole in our hearts and the kids are really suffering her loss. Rest well, sweet Bus. We will all miss you.

Gone knitting.

Twenty-One!

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Friday, August 25, 2023

Today I’ve begun number 22 which means that all of my Arne & Carlos Mini Nordic Jumpers Advent Calendar through number 21 are finished!!! Yay, me!

I’m so excited to be coming near the completion of this project. It was WAAAAAY bigger than I had imagined considering that these are little teeny sweater ornaments. Regardless, each one takes about a day to knit, seam and block. So, I’ve spent the better part of a month by the time that these are all finished – and it’s going to be so worth it! I can’t wait to hang them up at the end of November and fill them with little treats for our Advent calendar this year.

We have some of the original windows from the original house here in Maine that we saved before the house was demolished. The windows are the wavy hand-made windows and we’ve hung two of them at the bottom of our staircase. I’m going to hang a red and white butcher’s string on the two windows and hang the jumpers from the string. I’ll post a photo, of course!

Gone knitting.