The Icelandic Sweater

It rained yesterday and all through the night, but today I was able to walk a trail with friends. It was a little sloggy with mud here and there, but it was good to be outside in the sun and fresh air.

It has been another slow weekend. A little housework, a little homework, a little knitting.

I've got the bottom of a sweater made and now am at the place to stop and make the sleeves. The yarn is Lettilopi, sticky Icelandic wool. When I was a girl, well about 18 years old, a guy I knew (my former locker mate) went to Iceland. He sent his mother a bunch of sweaters he had made there, those classic Icelandic type sweaters with a patterned yoke. I remember her taking them out of a bag, three or four of them, laying them out and showing them to ladies at church. 

I was struck. I wanted to make something like that! I could picture him, sitting somewhere quiet in the evenings as a fire crackled, knitting. I wanted to be him. 

And I have remembered those sweaters and my image of him all these years. When I learned to knit, it was with one eye on that old dream.
So, here it is. The beginning of my patterned yoke sweaters. I hope to make quite a few, even though I live in a most un-Iceland like climate. But that cold place is part of the dream too, going there and sitting indoors quietly some evening as the fire flickers.

Little, by little I'll get there.