Great Journey 🇳🇴 Day 551
Time and again, handicraft work inspires us. Whether it is woodwork, silversmithing or sewing & knitting, it seems to trigger a great inner joy in us.
It is the same with wool. Nevertheless, wool also has its very sad side: mulesing (feel free to start a picture search under this term). And whether one should (let) exploit animals for humans (the word "farm animal" already hurts my heart) is something everyone has to decide for themselves.
When I knit, I either use rubbed-up, recycled yarn from old garments or buy mulesing-free yarn that is as fairly produced as possible. I can't really imagine evenings and commutes without wool and knitting.
In Lofoten, there is a textile craftswoman called Ragnhild Lie. When she learned that most Norwegian wool goes abroad, she decided to change that. On her small farm, she looks after local sheep, sends them to the high mountains in summer and turns the wool into the well-known North Norwegian Lofoten Wool in winter.
Of course I had to go there. Even though it was closing day, she took me in and showed me everything. I was allowed to look at, feel and try undyed wool, wool dyed naturally with plants and finished knitted garments.
But who knits all these individual pieces? Women and men on Lofoten who love to knit. The winter evenings are long, there is a lot of knitting going on here. Ragnhild Lie gives people a task and Lofoten visitors beautiful souvenirs, and with me it has a place in my heart forever. Here they produce locally on a small scale: the wool and the clothes.
Even though I already have a ball or two of wool with me: I wanted to buy some Lofoten wool. It should be undyed. And Ragnhild had a good tip for me: there are black sheep in every family. In the sheep family here, too. So I decided on a nice dark brown from the 2018 vintage. Let's see what I will do with it.
#Handcraft love 1TP5knitting 1TP5wool #ingridsweater
@lofoten_wool #nomulesing
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbErEx_K38S/
Dear Heike, I am delighted with your wool report + I also love the small wool production pp.
There's something about your knitting and the pattern - what do you want it to be?
Best sunny greetings to you both in Lofoten..... It's finally getting warmer here again, at least during the day
Hello dear Babsi,
It's slowly getting warmer here too, the snow is melting and the roads are clear again!
I think I'll knit an ingrid jumper, something like that:
https://www.petiteknit.com/collections/erwachsene/products/ingrid-sweater-3
But you know me, it's possible that "on the way" something completely different will come out...
Greetings from the north!
Gerd & Heike