This year the annual knitting weekend for Norsk Strikkeforbund/Norwegian Knitting Association was held in the beautiful town of Ålesund, on the west coast at the entrance to the Geirangerfjord. Ålesund is known for the art nouveau architectural style in which most of the town was rebuilt after a fire in 1904. Just as last year in Oslo the weekend was a blast! It began on Friday morning with a day trip by coach to Rauma Ullvarefabrikk for those who signed on, or you could join the knitting party (vorspiel). Michael joined me and we arrived just before the kick-off at 6 pm. The view above is from the “Fjellstua” terrace, 418 steps up the Mount Aksla.
Here you can spot the “Fjellstua”/Mountain Lodge from the harbour, taken Saturday morning before my first climb up the stairs. The tall building in the centre is Scandic Parken Hotel where we stayed. The climb offered magnificent fjord and mountain views on the way up.
A selection of the stairs were numbered to aid you on the walk to the top and benches plus seats available for you to take a short rest. Above is another majestic view, including some of the lower steps.
Back to the knitting weekend, after the welcome speech from the leader Margrete Slettan and the major of Ålesund, the first presentation was by Øyvind Gjerde Kamsvåg, Head of Design at Ulstein International AS – a ship building company! The parallels he drew to knitting were amazing and I only managed to take a couple of photos. Check out the text above: It translates to “I don’t work with yarn. I work with resistance.” After the talk, we had dinner and then a Knitting Party with Knitting Bingo! Great fun with all 115 members joining in!
The annual meeting itself that was held on Saturday morning, as usual lead by designer & editor of the membership magazine Tove Fevang.
After lunch three of us held workshops: Tove on Finishing, Janne Wie on Crocheting on Your Knitting and me on Tucks. Above you see a photo that Marit Haugen Bergsrønning co-founder of Garnbutikken Fortuna took as she participated in my workshop. I am wearing my Juul Cardigan with cuff tucks.
I realised that I should have photographed us doing Knitting Yoga, led by designer Merete Norheim Myrdahl, but I was too preoccupied by doing the exercises right. Above you can see about half of the prizes for the raffle, sponsored by yarn companies, designers and members of NSF. As you can imagine the winners were ecstatic!
Another post on the program was an interview with Janne Vatn Molvik of Second Edition about her design history including working her twin sister who lost the battle with cancer – that lead to using the motive “FCK CNCR” on a number of designs. It was such a strong emotional story.
Former leader now board member & designer Terje Tjelle told us about the board’s discussion of the location for the next knitting weekend in 2027 and asked Chat GPT to make a map locating our previous weekends: Bergen, Ålesund, Tromsø, Hell, Gardermoen and Asker. The result is hilarious with only one of six places in the right spot – Bergen – and three in the wrong country; Sweden (Gardermoen-Oslo Airport, Hell close to Trondheim, and Tromsø). See a correct map here. The winner is Gardermoen, Scandic Oslo Airport to be precise.
Debate leader was television presenter Odd Kristian Dahle (not a knitter, but an experienced debate leader), me wearing Kaen; Lars Myklebust, Designer and Culture School Head Master; Hanne Hovlid, College Student working part time in a yarn shop and Siv Dragsund, Knitting Oracle from Husfliden Ålesund. To sum up: The annual meeting was a blast and I had a wonderful knitting weekend in Ålesund! I want to thank NSF and everyone I met! I hope to see you all at the next annual event at Scandic Oslo Airport in February 2027!
