Per Spook, a former Haute Couture designer with his own fashion house in Paris, designed this sweater for Husfliden (an handicrafts association with stores all over Norway) in 1982. It became a huge success and my first fairisle project. Like a lot of knitters I chose the original yarn and colours used, Rauma 3-tråders strikkegarn. Knitting a tension square to check whether it would fit as it should was not a task I thought was essential, at my inexperienced knowledge level. The result was, as you would expect, not that well fitting at all. It looked like a layer of sausage skin and I could barely move my arms. The lesson of tension learnt the hard way. I was lucky enough that a friend of my mother had a smaller grandchild that desperately wanted just that sweater and bought it off me. It is one of the old patterns I have kept from the 1980s and which I have knitted again, this time double-tapered. The pattern, now a classic, have been re-printed in numerous Norwegian pattern books since its heyday.

Welcome to my blog!

I am very excited to let you know that my first knitting book will be published in Norwegian by Cappelen Damm on the 24.th of January 2012. It contains sophisticated, flattering and fashionable garments knitted in luxurious fibers, inspired by top fashion brands. An innovative knitting book filled with fitted jackets, oversized sweaters and shawls that can be buttoned up.

Meanwhile, I will tell you more about how I came to love knitting and how the book came to life.  Next month I will give you a sneak peak. My mum taught me to knit and has for more than a decade unraveled and fixed my knitting mistakes. Before I finally took the plunge and learnt that I could improve my knitting by solving my own knitting issues. I still remember my first pair of mittens: one for my hand and the other for a giants’ hand! Making a matching pair took me quite awhile to master… And no, I do not have any photos of the pair, it was way too embarrassing. They lived a short sheltered life in my drawer…

As I am sure you understand, it took a long time before I attempted to knit a sweater. It was in the glory days of Mohair, in the 1970’s, that I knitted a stripy sweater in very fashionable pastel colours. Every time I wanted to wear it, I already found it on my brother, who had claimed it as his. Ok, I thought I can knit him one and re-claim the first one. I chose some darker colours for my brother that suits him better like indigo, red and a bright yellow. Did he wear it? Of course not. He preferred the first one and I ended up wearing the second one. The pastel sweater received a second life when it was sent on to my younger cousins, whom – I am sure – loved receiving second-hand clothing. Unlike my brother, they did not form a bond with the sweater but guess who did? Yes, my uncle did. Bless him!