The Faun's veil

One late summers day when I was four, my mother took me and my two older siblings into the forest to pick blueberries. At one point, my mother warned us about a beehive. But I could not see any hive. I just saw trees and heather. It was as if someone had drawn a veil before my eyes. As if I could not focus. I saw absolutely no hive.

It went as it had to: Both my siblings walked around the hive, while I, who saw nothing, went straight on. I just stumbled over the beehive. When the others asked why, all I could reply was "I didn't see it." The next thing I remember is sitting in the kitchen taking off my T-shirt. I was covered in beestings. Every time I think of this memory, I still smell the vinager my mom used to make the stings less painful.

In the movie "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", the little girl Lucy meets the faun Tumnus under the lamp post which marks the outer border of Narnia. He takes her home for afternoon tea, where he plays his flute for her so that she falls into a trance and do not discover that something is wrong. Tumnus actually plan to hand Lucy over to the White Witch, but luckily for Lucy, Tumnus feels guilty and fails to complete his plan.

When I saw the film for the first time, the story about the faun Tumnus made me think of the blueberry trip that ended so dissasterous. It was as if a faun had played his flute for me, so all I could see was trees and blueberry heather. Unluckily for me, my faun had no qualms throwing dust in my eyes, unlike Mr. Tumnus, who failed to betray Lucy in the end.

The pattern in the center of this shawl is called The Faun's eye, and looks like the head of a faun. This is a pattern I found in Barara G. Walker's book series "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns". On the inner border, I have used a pattern of blueberry heather, with nobs for berries, which I have composed myself.

The outer border is also partially self-composed. It consists of two patterns; leaves on a sling and three berries in a pile. The outermost pattern is a modification of a pattern I found in Sharron Miller book "Heirloom Knitting". The leaf pattern in the inner loop of the outer border is self-composed, inspired by a sweater I saw in a newspaper.

At first glance, it looks like this shawl is covered by blueberry heather. But if you look closely, the eyes of the faun emerges. When you have seen the eyes, you discover that there are many of them. The whole center is covered with fauns.

Now, as an adult, I know that the reason I did not see the hive was that I was simply too short to see it over the vegetation. However, at the time, it seemed almost magical. It is funny how we try to find an explanation when we observe something we do not understand.

Star light in a bleak night

 One autumn day when I was five, me and my sister (who was eleven at the time) got lost in the woods. We had been hiking with our brother, but wanted to go home before him. That was the day I learned that my sister does not have any sense of direction what so ever. We were not far from home, and the trip should only take about fifteen minutes, but it was not long before we became completely lost. We went in the opposite direction of what we were supposed to: so instead of going towards our house, we went straight into the deepest parts of the forest.

We walked and walked for hours, and the night became pitch-black, both because we were in the woods and because it was raining. I became very frightened and began to cry. After many hours, we came to a clearing in the woods. I looked up at the sky. The clouds had lifted and the sky was covered with stars. It was a beautiful sight.

When we came to the clearing, we also spotted the out door lights of some houses nearby. We went towards the light, and discovered that we had been going in a big circle, and had ended up not far from our house. When we came home, it was over nine o'clock in the evening. Embarrassed, but very happy, I went to bed that night.

I really wanted to make a shawl of the starry night sky through the foliage, as I remembered it from that night in the woods. In the center of this shawl, I used a pattern called "Star Light". The pattern looks simple enough, but is one of the most challenging patterns I've ever knitted. For the inner border, I used a simple leaf pattern, which I have modified slightly so that it will fit with the increases in the corners. I have also added rain drops on the leaves. The outer border is a variation of the wet leaf pattern, which I composed myself. 

I have knitted the shawl in a thin and hairy alpaca yarn called Air from Du store alpaca. It is knitted in a dark steel gray colour (no. 111) which is very bleak, as that night in the woods. I wanted to make a big, thick but light shawl, which cover everything and make it dark, but where you could just make out what lies behind.

That night in the woods gave me an experience that defined me. Now, I always make sure I know where I am and where I'm going, and I do not take for granted that others (espesially my sister) know. But it also made me an optimist: If I don't give up, new opportunities will always emerge, even if everything seems very bleak and without any hope.

A rose garden

Throughout my childhood, our garden was filled with roses. We even had a huge Rosehip hedge that smelled lovely, and which gave sweet hips during the fall. Apart from that, it was a pain in the neck. Every time you tried to pick a rose or a hip, your fingers would be pierced by thousens of small and very sharp thorns.

Within the Shetland tradition of knitting lace shawl, ring shawls are the finest and thinnest. They are worked in a very fine yarn, and it is possible to thread the shawl through a wedding ring. These shawls have large and elaborate patterns, and was used for bridal shawl in the old days. There is a lot of work involved in knitting these shawls, and I've only made one such shawl before. I really wanted to make a ring shawl with lots of roses on it.

This shawl is built in the traditional Shetland manner; with a centre, an inner and an outer border. I have used a classic Shetland pattern called "The rose lace" in the centre of the shawl. For the inner border, I have used two versions of the same pattern: in the innermost part of the border, the pattern is knitted on every row, while in the outermost part the same pattern knitted with a row of plain knitting inbetween. The latter gives more body and texture to the pattern, while the first (where you knit pattern on each row) gives a very elegant and airy pattern.

I have partly composed the pattern in the inner border myself. I planned to use a classic Shetland pattern called "Mrs Montague's pattern - as a fine lace," which I found in the Sharron Miller's book "Heireloom knitting". The problem was that the pattern chart in the book was incorrect and did not fit the picture of the pattern. This error also made the pattern internally inconsistent. I had two options: either to go back to the pattern in the picture or to make the same mistake twice so that the pattern became internally consistant. I chose to do the last because, if you look closely, this pattern looks like an inverted rose. For the outer border, I used a pattern that Sharron Miller had constructed on the basis of "The rose lase".

For this shawl, I used a very thin cotton yarn called Gossamer Cotton, which I bought from Sharron Miller's web-store called "Heireloom knitting". This yarn is incredibly light and thin, and runs 1000 m on a 25 g skein. I used just one skein for this shawl. I thought the shawl would turn out light and nice with such an incredably thin yarn, but in hindsight I'm not sure.

Because of the thin yarn and the delicate pattern, this was such an impossably demanding shawl to knit, and I simply could not be bothered to make it as big as I really wanted. And it is so light that the it does not really fall nicely, but rather curls up. Neither does it tolerate moisture without losing its shape (something that happened when I took these pictures). In hindsight, I wished I had knitted the shawl in a slightly thicker and and more heavy yarn.

We sold the house and the new owners removed the Rosehip hedge. I miss it some times, and whenever I think back on my childhood, it's always there. But I must admit that when I moved into my current resedence, I removed the Rosehip bushes that were there. They are incredibly beautiful and smells sweet, but completely unapproachable and impossible to live with.

The thistle shawl

Throughout my childhood, we used to go for long walks on Sundays, as most respectable families in the 70's. My favorite places to go hiking was a large rock with 3000 year old rock carvings at Penne, "Bøensbakken" at the end of a narrow fjord called Framvaren, and on one of the many Lista beaches. The beaches are especially beautiful during the winter, when you can walk on the sand without falling down and without getting sand in your shoes.

In the ditchs in the fields along the beaches grew thistles. They are really quite beautiful, with thick and spiky silver leaves and stems and with a lovely purple flower. When the flowers of thistles wither, they become burdocks, which get stuck everywhere. I especially remember one Sunday when my brother and I had a burdock fight. I do not remember the fight, but I remember very well how much harder it is to get the burdocks out of long than short hair.

Yet, I have always liked thistles. The plant may not be particularly welcoming, but the flowers are beautiful. And it's fascinating how well the burdocks adheres to almost any surface.

An Estonian pattern, which goes by the name of "The most beautiful lace pattern in the world" gives me associations to thistle flowers. I've used this pattern before, including in the center of "The Most Beautiful" Shawl in the world". You can find this pattern in Siri Reimann's book "The Haapsalu Shawl". In this shawl, "the most beautiful lace pattern in the world" is used on the outher border of the center. In the the middle of the center, I used a pattern called "Thistle Leaf Pattern", which I found in Barara G. Walker's book series "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns ".

In the rest of the center, between the leaf and the flowers, I used a classic Shetland lace patterns you may find in Sharron Miller's book "Heirloom Knitting", where the pattern is called "Small leaf". I've used this pattern in several shawls, and it gives a very airy lace, like a sea breeze. I have composed the pattern on the outher boarder myself around the flower of the thistle in a modified version of the "World's Most Beautiful lace pattern".

I have knitted the shawl in a very thin merino wool yarn called "Fine Merino". This lace shawl is almost invisible, like the smells of salty air. The problem with this yarn is, however, that it is so thin and lightweight that the shawl does not really falls as nicely as I had hoped. It was also a bit damp in the air when I took the picture, which led to the shawl loosing shape and elasticity.

In hindsight, I should perhaps have chosen a slightly heavier yarn to knit this shawl. I was, however, happy with the composition of the shawl. It is a bright, light and airy shawl, like a happy childhood memory of a Sunday stroll on the beach.

The most beautiful shawl in the world

The pattern used in this shawl became very famous in America, and is known as "the world's most beautiful lace pattern". Hundreds of shawls with this pattern were ordered from Haapsalu in Estonia to the United States. Personally, I think the pattern looks like the flower of a thistle. This is a very beautiful pattern and it's easy to see why it became so popular in the U.S..

This shawl is made up of a centre with the pattern known as the most beautiful in the world and an outer border. "The world's most beautiful lace pattern" can eg. be found in Siiri Reimanns book "The Haapsalu Shawl". I have chosen a classic Estonian rounded border as the pattern for the outer border. This pattern can be found in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia.

For this shawl, I have chosen a mixed silk and mohair yarn, called Alchemy of Haiku in a beige colour called 124m - Husk. If you do not have  much training knitting laces, this type of yarn can be a bit challenging, and it may be an idea to switch to a smooth and slightly more elastic wool yarn. It will probably bring forth the pattern a little better as well. However, laces knitted in such a thin and fluffy yarn becomes very beautiful, and the shawls are very warm, light and airy at the same time.

The world's most beautiful pattern requires some practise to knit, as the number of stitches changes across rounds. However, if you follow the pattern, the structure in the pattern will suddenly appear. After that, it's not as difficult to knit as it looked at first glance. If you have some experience in lace knitting, or is sufficiently motivated, it should be okay to knit this shawl. However, it might be an idea to knit a sample patch first, so you get the intuition of the pattern before starting on the actual shawl.

Brittle autumn leaves

The inspiration for much of what I have knitted lately comes from childhood and adolescent memories. Many of the older memories have been very clear to me lately.

I've always been fascinated by what I remember and what I forget. It's not always the memory of big events that are clear in retrospect. Sometimes it's the small things; such as the cool zipper on my jacket and the dandelions under the porch, from my very first childhood memory from when I was a little over a year. Or the light on the pier of my grandparents' house on Furuholmen outside Kragerø, when I was five and needed to go to the outhouse one summer night in the early 70's.

I have always thought that memories are like brittle autumn leaves. There are two types: those who fall down into large piles on the roads and lawns, and those who stick on to the twigs. The majority of leaves are of the first kind. They hold their shape for a while, but soon go to pieces and become a shapeless mass, and one can no longer distinguish the fragments of various leaves.

The second type is more rare, and may be found on the winter oak and on my neighbour's hedge (see photo at the left). These leaves stick on the twig throughout the winter although they are brown and dead, and do not fall down before new shoots come out the next spring. Such memories are almost as clear today thirty-five to forty years later, and I can still remember the smell of cats giving birth and freshly baked cookies. I have always believed that happiness is easier to find if there is a majority of good memories among the leaves of the winter oak.

When I was visiting London during the fall of 2011, I bought a beautiful silk and mohair yarn called Alchemy from Haiku. I bought different colours of this yarn and have knitted several shawls with it, including "A sensation of the forest." I also bought three bunches in a green brown colour (127e-strange fruit) that reminded me of autumn leaves that have fallen to the ground. I have thought a lot about old memories lately, and ended up knitting this shawl. In the centre of the shawl, I used an Estonian leaf motif called the birch leaf pattern. I have modifyed it slightly, so that it fits the shaping of the shawl. The bottom border is from another Estonian pattern, which I also found in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted laces of Estonia". It is the same pattern as in "The Crown Prince shawl".

This shawl is very easy to knit, but beautiful in all its simplicity. I do not know why all these old memories have come up recently. Maybe it's me being annoyed about becoming middle-aged or the associations I get when I am making all these shawls. Who knows. It is really not that important. For me, the important thing is that they give me the inspiration to create things. So maybe something good comes out of the fact that my body is withering away like brittle brown autumn leaves.

Dainty Chevrons

In my book project, I plan to show different types of knitted laces. I had already Incorporated both Estonian and Shetland patterns (often in combination);  hairy and smooth shawls; with and without nobs. But I had no sheer shawls. A large part of the Shetland tradition with knitted laces is to make almost transparent laces which you may tread through a ring (so-called ring shawls). I just had to make one of these for my book.

I was a bit unsure about the pattern to chose for this shawl. I wanted something stylish and timeless. Often, ring-shawls have elaborate patterns. However, I wanted something simple and airy, in black, as a veil over a nice dress.

After searching my books, I found two patterns in Barara G. Walker's book series ”A treasury of knitting patterns” which may fit such a shawl. The patterns are called "Dainty Chevron" and "Daintier Chevron". It is really just one pattern. The difference between them is that in one, the pattern is knitted on both sides, whereas in the other, a round of plain knitting is included on the purl side.

The centre of the shawl is knitted in two halfs, and then sewn together to make the pattern symmetrical. Then the outer border is knitted on in a traditional Shetland way: where the border is knitted across and attached to the shawl by knitting the last stitch in the border together with the next stitch of the shawl. I chose a simple border from the book "Heirloom Knitting" by Sharon Miller. This pattern is knitted on both sides, which makes it very airy as well.

I used a very fine charcoal coloured merino wool yarn called "Fine merino", which I bought at "Purl soho". I also used this yarn for My first ring shawl. This yarn gives a very light shawl, and together with the fine lace pattern it made the shawl almost invisible.

This is a challenging shawl to knit because of the thin yarn and the very fine lace pattern, but I got the shawl I wanted in the end.

Thousands of blue anemones

I love walking in the forest during spring time, when the forest floor is covered by small flowers. In particular, I love when I am so lucky as to find blue anemones. In my search for simple patterns to make shawl patterns for my book project, I found this pattern that looks like a myriad of small flowers. I decided to use this pattern to make a shawl with thousands of small blue anemones.

Since this shawl was planned as a beginners shawl for my book, I chose a very simple lay out; with a flowery centre and an outer border. I have used this flower pattern in may of my other shawls, as the Lilac shawl, the Valentines day shawl and Wrapped in a pink cloud. This pattern is marginally more difficult to knit than the pattern in the Trellis shawl, as you need to be able to knit three stitches together symmetrically, but still easy enough to be feasible as the first shawl.

I found the outer border in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia". In Nancy Bush's book, this border is knitted in stockinette stitches, but I chose to knit them in gather stitches to add some structure.

The shawl is knitted in a lovely lace weight wool yarn from Rowan called  "Fine Lace". The yarn gives a relatively shiny wool shawl, which wraps heavy around the shoulders. The blue colour is a bit light for the blue anemones, but it was the closest mach I found in the store.

I chose a narrow shawl, as the lay out of the shawl was so simple, with not much variation in the pattern. It is a fast and easy shawl to knit, and I liked how it turned out in the end.

Learning to Tat

On a recent trip to Venice, I desided to learn how to tat. I had never tried it before, but had bought all nessesary equipment. I just needed the right soroundings to get in the mood and be inspired.

As far as I have understood, there are two different ways to tat: either by a shuttle or a needle. I had bought equipment for both, but I chose to start with the shuttle. I think this decision was based on the fact that among the shuttles I had purchased, there were some beautiful wooden ones with my name engraved. And I really wanted to try them out.

I found a very nice introductory book on tatting, with a CD course included. The book was called "Learn to Tat" by Conny Ellison. It was a good introductory book, and it did not take me too long before I could tat most of the projects in the book. The pictures you see is the production I had during my four day stay in Venice. That is, tatting is fast both to do and to learn.

I had problems finding equipment for tatting in my local craft stores, so I went online and found several good stores.  I ended up buying several things from this store. I also have to talk about David Reed Smith, who makes such lovely wooden shuttles. They are somewhat more expensive than plastic ones, but infinitely more beautiful.

If you like to try, do not hesitate. It is a bit unusual in the beginning, but you will soon get the hang of it. It is also fun to be able to make your own tatted laces for bunad shirts and other projects.