Swedish Knitblogger who loves spinning, knitting, dyeing and yarn. I will do some other roundabouts about life too.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Yarnvacation (or family visit) Part III (IV)

Vacation tale continued. This is Part three of four! OK, I get the itch after sitting still. So, we packed mom, flowers, yarn, sheet, and hubby and left the beautiful mom recidence in Rälta. To go visit my brother. But, on the way we stopped at a place, where I earlier hoped I could meet my dear friend Anne-Maj (NOT in the picture), one of the virtuoses of Twined or Two-end knitting. She what showing her collection (!) of sweaters, skirts etc.(see Purple sweater!) . Unfortunately it worked out so I just missed her by a day. Ohh, I have tried to knit a two-end knitted sweater. it is VERY time consuming. Really for addicts (like me, I have not given up!). And the result is just amazing "Flip" channel, back to our "pit-stop": I had a hard time in the travel and heat, to convice my mom and hubby, that Näset was really just "a bit" outside our route (they caved in!). At Nästets bystuga, a wonderful group of knitters were learning this advanced craft at a surprising cheap cost (Strongly recommeded!). That is a course in my taste. Since two-end knittingis not ordinary knitting, and has a lot of tricks with it. So in the picture is the fantastic teacher, Beibritt Risberg. She has, with her brother, been knitting twined all her life. There was a picture at Näset of her parents doing the same. That is tradition! Wow. Below is the
two cours participants. Very focused indeed. Since if you are a great knitter, this is definitely a challenge. Maybe not for yarn"throwers", that already know how to knit by throwing the yarn. But for the rest of us that has learned the continental knitting. The trick is not only in the technique, but for two-end knitting, you do vice versa for ordinary yarn, spin the thread in a S-twist, and the twine the two threads into a Z-spun yarn. You also use two yarns, and throw them alternate, which (if there are two colours, can create great colours). Also there are special stiches unique for two-end knitting
All about it can be read in Anne-Maj Lings fantastic book. Buy it. It is a treasure. Below is Beibritt's mitten. If you click on it (all pictures are possible to enlarge) you see how cheap she sells them. It is about half price than anyone else. I think two-end knitted mittens are really stong (durable) and also, takes a week to make. So it is CHEAP.
Finally, there was a picture that caught my eye. A sheep with different fleeces. They are owned by Kerstin, who turned out to live in the Stockholm area like me. And these are her sheep grazing in Hallunda gård (I think, Nacka?) All of the sheep has of course names. Absolutely great in my opinion. I really sneaked in on her "fleece list", hoping to get some rovings to spin when she sheers this fall (autumn). That was a pleasent meet too. I sure hope I get some of the lighter, since I like to colour.. But great. Just great stop on a long and winding road from Dalarna to Västernorrland. The Fika-stop in Furudal was no disappointment either. Caffe Latte culture has finally reach the country-side of Sweden. Of course Starbucks is still not here, but there is a difficulty to get a good "latte" outside the cities. Homebaked does compensate.
I'm looking forward of the grand finale of this family visit (that sneakily enough from my behalf) ended up to a great yarn vacation. I think my husband is nice. Very nice. Please comment and drop by again. You should not miss the story about Pip-Larsson. The mohair-goat from South Africa.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kul idé med fåret :) Den kanske jag stjäl och använder mig av på något sätt för min samling av olika ullsorter. Har precis fått ytterligare tre till min samling. Om jag har tid kanske jag gör en liten uppföljning av allt kardande, spinnande och filtande av dessa i min blog. Bara tiden räcker till så ... Så här i början av semestern känns det som om man har all tid i världen, men så är det ju inte.

Anonymous said...

Hi

How can I contact the lady who makes those lovely mittens? I would love to buy some. Many thanks.

HPNY KNITS said...

what a great visit!

Anonymous said...

Tack för besöket i Näsets bystuga. Detta var tredje året i rad vi arrangerade denna kurs och vi är väldigt glada för vad vi lärt oss. Vi kommer igen nästa sommar vecka 28. Fler bilder från kursen kommer så småningom på min hemsida, (www.ullabritt.se). Men just nu är jag långt borta från bredbandsuppkoppling så det får bli när semestern är slut.