But it is lovely to see Denmark + fashion + knitting. It makes me feel proud (and very homesick) to see this video:

KAFFESLABBERAS // MADS AND ERNA (SUBTITLED) from Kaffeslabberas on Vimeo.

‘Kaffeslabberas’ is a knitting club in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Amager. Its members are female pensioners, whose rich history and zest for life overshadows their advanced age. This project partners up these ladies with Danish artists and designers, with the intent of creating a connection across generations, through the strengths of craftmanship, diversity and experience.

I wish the subtitles were grammatically correct and the spelling was better, but we can’t have everything.

Thank you to Angela for pointing out the article and video.

Following Carol’s pattern (from an old Rowan magazine), I made a necklace from some mercerised cotton and a leather string. It was super-easy and very quick. I think it took me about an hour from the initial idea to the finished object. The leather string’s a bit too skinny, but I’m still quite pleased with the result.

My partner snapped a photo of me wearing the necklace that very evening. I do apologise for lack of make-up/styling and the crap indoors lightning, but you can clearly see how smug I am about my lovely new accessory.

In other crafting news, I have purchased some black corduroy and I am very excited about making another skirt. I have a very, very specific idea for this skirt. I’ll need to try my idea first, though, as it could be a complete disaster. I tried googling my idea but everything I find is twee crap. I am many things, but I am not twee.

This week I have been grabbling with Apple as someone in Canada has set up an account using my email address as her AppleID. Personally I would have thought that Apple have checked that her email was her own, but apparently not. I am currently on my fourth (rather terse) email to Customer Support. I am not impressed. Definitely not impressed.

This week Something Very Good happened. Denmark finally decided that they had had enough of xenophobic party Danish People’s Party being the kingmaker in Danish politics. Cue Denmark’s first female prime minister.  The DPP played a part in me deciding to leave Denmark and when I heard they were not longer the power behind the throne, I shed a small tear. I cannot begin to express my relief – although I think it will take a lot of time to undo their damage (Denmark has some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe and you encounter casual racism everywhere).

The Danish essayist Carsten Jensen wrote an excellent column (google translate + tweaked quickly by me). I do not agree with everything he wrote, but this passage really struck a nerve.

Something went terribly wrong in Denmark during the past decade. We did not just damage the foreigners who found themselves among us, whether they were refugees or immigrants and their descendants. We did not just damage the countries whose domestic problems became ours thanks to reckless wars.We also did moral damage to ourselves, and the marginal, ambiguous election victory of the Left shows a lack of willingness to confront ourselves – something which we must inevitably must do, if we are to forge ahead and not only think about growth, but also morality and humanity. We have toyed with callousness too long, and this has left an unhealthy cynicism within us.

Here is to better times.

The Skald shawl. Looks pretty, non?

I chose to knit Spring Trellis by Linda Choo which is a free Ravelry pattern (and well-written too). I ended up running out of yarn and had to omit the nupps on the border. I quite like the contrast between the lace and the solid border, but would have preferred the shawl with nupps.

The yarn was Sirri Tógv 1ply – a Faroese wool which I purchased on my last visit to the mothership Copenhagen. I loved working with it: it was rustic, sheepy, woolly, and beautifully unprocessed. However, it took five rinses to get all the natural lanolin out and instead of the soft, gorgeous fabric I had imagined, Sorri 1ply had bloomed to such a degree that my shawl looks like a cat has slept on it. No, like a cat has slept on it for weeks.  The marriage between pattern and yarn proved to be an unhappy one – the yarn would have worked far better in a simple garterstitch shawl – and lessons have been learned.

I have more Sirri yarn kicking about. I’ll need to think carefully about what to do with it.

I got as far as the yoke on my Fenris jumper when I realised I had to rip it out. I loved that yoke, I tell you. I had combined Nordic motifs that I’ve known and loved my entire life – particular that wheel design which reminds me of the Trundholm Sun Chariot. The Chariot was found very close to where I grew up and the Bronze Age wheel motif is so .. it is part of my psyche, you know?

For the body and sleeves I used a pure wool aran (sold to me as bulky!) which I bought at a very favourable price in my mum’s local supermarket. Denmark’s great for yarn, I swear (although not so great in other ways but that’s for another day). I used remnants of New Lanark aran for the colourwork yoke. A big thank you to Paula and Bronwen who gave me scraps that I’ll incorporate – in that way the jumper won’t just represent Denmark but also Scotland.

A bit of a departure for me: baby knitting! A colleague is expecting a baby and I wanted to make her something she’ll actually use (rather than a fancy baby cardigan that’ll languish in a drawer).

The patterns are from Erika Knight’s excellent Natural Nursery Knits (probably my favourite baby knitting book) and I used oddments of Patons Washed Haze DK. I really like the booties, actually. They are knitted flat, then seamed quickly up the back. I managed to squeeze out a pair during one knitting group session. Score.

Finally, a black hat. I still need to do a modelled shot, but the weather has been too good!

I used some workhorse aran (again from my mum’s supermarket) and got the general gist from a Norwegian hat pattern although I didn’t follow the pattern exactly (I lost it, ok?).  I knitted this with winter in mind. Last year I knitted Intuitive and loved it for about two weeks before I lost it on a northbound bus. I am not going to face another winter without a black hat.

I’m currently working on a laceweight version of Karise. There won’t be a separate pattern for the laceweight version – just some extra numbers added to the pattern.

So, yes, I do knit. Look! Evidence!

Felice Cohen lives in a 90 sq-foot/8 sq-metre apartment in Manhattan, New York. This is her choice and I respect her for the decision. However, it brought me back to the eight years I spent living in a 16 square-metre/170 square-foot pad in Copenhagen.

I moved into my place when I was 19 and just started university. The first few years I loved my haven: I shared a huge kitchen with other students and we had a great time getting used to living away from home. Then the building was refurbished; my little pad suddenly had a kitchenette where I once had storage; and student life got mixed up with people who lived there because they had split up with their partner or because the authorities thought it a good place for “vulnerable adults” to mix with “normal people”. Things got very claustrophobic. These were the times when I bought an obscene amount of interior design magazines just to fly away on escapist dreams.

Copenhagen is a very expensive city – including real estate – so moving elsewhere was not an option for many years. One of my friends coined the phrase “3D Tetris” which was terribly apt. Finding room for your tin of baked beans became a competitive sport at times. I look at that video of Felice Cohen and I can see several ways she could use her space better. And I’m not a naturally organised person. The space has a high ceiling and I’d utilise that height a lot more.

I still miss this view

Eventually I got my own flat with a separate kitchen (it felt like such a triumph), but it was a real Copenhagen apartment with no bathroom (the shower was in the bedroom I rented out), a tiny toilet (you’d bang your knees on the door when you sat down), and no laundry facilities.

At the time I thought I was happy there but it was a place where time fell into the cracks between the floor-boards and I was actually terribly unhappy there. I lived there for two or three years. I miss the view from the kitchen but that is all.

What home means is such a difficult thing to pinpoint but I know what it is like not having one (I lived in my suitcase for a year. I cannot recommend this). Home means privacy. I shut the front door and shut out the world. Home means space. I can stretch out my arms and not touch walls. Home means peace. I can relax and be quiet. And home means my partner. This is exceptionally sappy, of course, but it is very difficult to imagine a home without him curled up with a book.

Now I’m off to grab my iPod (loaded with Danish-languaged postcasts on culture, society and language), my work and I’m heading out into my Glasgow version of Ms Cohen’s Central Park. Enjoy your day.

Sometimes I tell myself: “I’m way closer to Four-Oh than I am to Two-Oh. I should start dressing my age. Maybe tone things down a bit. Invest in sensible, long-term wardrobe staples. Get a couple of timeless pieces in neutral colours.” Clearly I don’t listen to myself.

Pictured alongside my favourite coat: the very gawjuss Kaffe Goes Bollywood wrap. You can find the specifics at the Ravelry page, of course, so it suffices to say that I am pretty damn happy with it. It is too long, though, as you might be able to tell and so I’m primarily wearing it as a scarf (wrapped around several times) so next time I make one, I’ll cast on fewer stitches and do 130-150 rows total.

Headline of the day comes courtesy of a Danish local newspaper: Knitting Ladies’ Vandalising Rampage Through Broager (equivalent to the UK’s Flitwick or Crewes: tiny and outskirtsy). If you are really keen, you can try Google Translate on the article but, in short, even rural Denmark has discovered yarn-bombing.. Bless.

Food is such an expat thing, I tell you. I never used to care so much about traditional Danish food as I do now. I saw tea rusks in my local supermarket today and could almost taste hot elderberry soup right there and then.

(And seeing this little guy try out salty licorice (salte fisk!) made me beam. He’s a very cool kid even if he says that salty ammoniac licorice requires “an advanced palette”.)

Happy new year – happy Hogmanay – godt nytår! I’m off to try and balance four pots cooking at the same time..

I have also spent time thinking about why exactly I want a sewing machine.

Of course I want to make my own clothes. Being a proficient knitter has taught me how amazing it feels to wear something that fits ‘just right’ and in colours I like. Like many others, I find clothes shopping an ordeal – partly because I never seem to fit into one particular size and partly because I don’t like most of the clothes bought in shops. Upcycling old textiles is also greatly appealing (and nothing new to me – my favourite pair of trousers as a teen were fashioned from old 1950s curtains) and being able to mend things in my home strikes yet another cord. Perhaps I’m just trying to convince myself that this is not just another act of consumerism but actually a practical purchase. That is how my head works.

However, I do find myself slightly scared by venturing into the world of dress-making. I went into a few fabric stores in Copenhagen and I was petrified. This was presumably how I felt the first time I went into a yarn store, but I really cannot remember nowadays. I was surrounded by rolls of material and I had NO IDEA what most of them were or how they could be used. I have mostly dabbled in cottons, so I was quite unprepared by the sheer variety available.

I am still knitting, of course. I finished a project whilst on holiday, but I need to sit down and work out pattern before I post more details. It’s an own design and it’ll be available in a range of sizes. I have a lot of things on my plate work-wise (going on holiday is great; coming back is always slightly stressful) so I don’t know when I’ll publish it. I only have the sleeves to do on my red alpaca cardigan. I have two more charts left on my Faroese yarn shawl. And I have a sample I need to knit with the deadline looming (yes, it’s for a publication; no, not my design; yes, it’s super-pretty). All so many projects almost done.. just not there yet.

Random links:

• This headline made me convulse with laughter.
• What a shame my Christmas shopping is done.
• Some people are geekier than me. Or you. Or my Significant Other. Although he enjoyed that site.
• What a way to wake up every morning.
• The geekiest thing I’ve seen on YouTube. Well, today.
• 10 Essential Books from the Last 25 Years. Exactly what it says on the tin.. not. Too token, too white, too male, and much too US-centric. Also curiously omitting the book which named the referenced generation and no Atwood either (take your pick but The Handmaid’s Tale would be my choice).
• This Danish criminal case has rattled me. For years I lived very, very close to where these crimes took place and when I heard about the police trying to find the perpetrator, I had a horrible feeling I knew the guy. I’m very, very, very glad to be proven wrong (if indeed the arrested man is guilty).

For a knitter, I have very few hats. This is strange because I love wearing hats. I love matching them with my outfits, love having warm ears and love using up random odd balls of wool.

2011 will be my Year of The Hat.

It’s official. I’ll knit eleven hats and my head will never be cold ever again.

Now to a bit about Recent Stash Enhancement of the Scandinavian kind. My purchases run completely counter to my Year of the Hat because, well, I am helpless in the face of North-Atlantic laceweight. Quite apart from the sweater’s worth of bulky pure wool which I found in my gran’s supermarket, I succumbed to a slew of gorgeous laceweights from an assortment of places: the Faroe Islands, Iceland and, well, Sweden. I also found some cheap preyarn/unspun yarn which I’m looking forward to trying as well as some double-knitting yarn in a very pretty green/teal combo.

Two other delightful things happened whilst I was in Copenhagen:

Firstly, my Bestest Friend Ever decided to give crocheting a go. Now she is on Ravelry and is talking about needing more yarn. I cannot be held responsible for this (cough) but it makes me very happy to see her employ all her cunning and skill in a crafty manner. She could rule the world if she put her mind to it. Next we’ll be exchanging placemat sets and toilet roll covers. Just wait and see.

Secondly, I was taught how to use a lucet as previously mentioned. A friend sent me a peculiarly looking instrument this spring and I had no idea what it was, what it did or why she had sent it to me. I had some inkling it might have to do with textile history as I’m a big geek and, well, she is into historical re-enactment (and thus costume history). She brought a friend along for afternoon tea and this person taught me how to use my strange little gadget. It makes me very happy to know people who just happen to know what a lucet is and how to use one. It is so freaking cool.

So, anyway, yes: tell me about the hats you like, the hats you have queued, and the hats of your dreams. I need to plan my hat extravaganza a bit but going through 81 pages of hat patterns on Rav is a bit daunting.

Guess which type of brain I have.

Ten days in Denmark. The longest I have been back since my big move some four years ago. Today I was standing in my local supermarket wondering why an elderly couple was speaking Danish. As it turned out, they were not – but right now my brain automatically assumes background noise must be in Danish and I have to makes a conscious decision in order to recognise the language as Scots English. Likewise, I’m searching for words: what’s English for parabolantenner or ‘Bare på beløbet, tak’? I know these words, of course, but I have to dig deep before they pop into my head.

Interestingly enough, I only have these problems with spoken language, not written. I’m sure there is a perfectly good (neurological) reason for this.

However, I refuse to believe there is a valid neurological explanation for the way the Danish language is being mangled by people who really ought to know better. Danish is being invaded by English – and it is not even correct English in many instances. I have never been a militant language purist (the way I acquire and use language prevents me from being too holier-than-thou) but I think I am becoming an old grumpy lady. WHY write “den perfect carwash du altid har drømt om” when the correct phrasing would be “den perfekte bilvask du altid har drømt om“. WHY WHY did my gran‘s woman’s weekly write about “en crunchy banankage” when Danish already has several words meaning “crunchy” AND most of the magazine’s readers do not understand English in the first place? WHY WHY WHY would a major national newspaper gleefully write “livet er one long bundy jump” in the middle of an interview with a Danish designer thus mangling BOTH Danish and English? I nearly cracked when I was sitting next to a bunch of Swedish golf-buddies on the plane back to Scotland who kept shouting “EXACT!” but I’m told that is a valid Swedish expression which admittedly feels a bit deflating after I’ve been foaming at the mouth since Monday night.

Last day of my holiday today. I shall celebrate with some knitting and some tidying. I finished reading David Mitchell’s latest novel last night but I need to mull over it before writing anything about it.

I have a few rants to share – the state of the Danish language, how embarrassing people can be in an airport, biased TV-journalism – but I’ll save them for a rainy day. Likewise, I have a few knitting-related things to discuss but I’ll get back to them after I’ve done the laundry (it is so good not living out of a suitcase) and unpacked my things.

It’s good to be home. I just miss people already.