Norwegian Knitting and Reading

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Hello! I hope all is well with you and you’re looking forward to the weekend. With a busy time ahead of me, I want to fill this weekend with as much quiet time knitting and reading as possible. The knitting project I started last week ticks two of the boxes on my ‘would-like-to-do list’ for 2024:

  • Norwegian Knitting
  • Make everyday things for my family and myself

It’s a sweater for our grandson with a colourwork yoke.

It isn’t a traditional Norwegian sweater, as it is knit from the top down and has a round yoke. But it comes from a Norwegian knitting book, uses Norwegian wool and has a Norwegian feel to it, so I think it counts. It is the Vinterkonglegenser, or Winter Pine Cone Pullover from Klømpelømpe de vier seizoenen.

The original title is Klømpelømpe strikk året rundt, and the title of the English edition is All-Year-Round Knitting for Little Sweethearts. The English title isn’t very well chosen, because there are quite a few patterns for adults in it, as well. The sweater has a matching hat and trousers to knit.

The pattern describes many sizes, for both children and adults. The swatch I knit, a sweater that fits our grandson now, and the numbers in the pattern told me that I needed to make the size for 6 years. Six?!? Our grandson isn’t even two! Surely that couldn’t be right?

I know that we Dutch are some of the tallest people on the planet, and our grandson is of above average size for a Dutch child, but surely Norwegian 6-year-olds can’t be the size of a 22-month-old Dutch boy? Well, I’ll place my trust in the numbers and if I’m wrong I’ll just rip it out and start anew.

I like the colours the designers used, but am using a very different combo for my grandson. Originally I had chosen a pale taupe for the pine cones…

… but after knitting a few rows I decided that it was rather insipid and swapped it for the golden brown left over from this little fella knit in the same yarn (Sandnes Garn Tynn Merinoull). Much better!

While I sat quietly knitting, a thought popped up. Wouldn’t it be nice to enrich this year’s Norwegian knitting experience with some Norwegian reading alongside? My small Scandinavian library mainly consists of Swedish literature, but there are four Norwegian books (in English and Dutch) among them – three books by Sigrid Undset and one by Trygve Gulbranssen.

The slim book Vigdis Gunnarsdochter* by Sigrid Undset seems like a good choice to accompany the small sweater on my needles, so I’ll start with that. The Norwegian books I own are all older classics and I’ve read two of them before. I’d like to read some new-to-me and/or more recent Norwegian books, too, but have no idea which ones. Suggestions welcome! (I don’t read thrillers).

*Original title Fortaellingen om Viga-Ljot og Vigdis; English translation Gunnar’s Daughter.

10 thoughts on “Norwegian Knitting and Reading”

  2. Mooie trui, ben benieuwd naar het eindresultaat én de pasvorm!
    Ik nam ooit uit de VS een babytuinbroek mee voor het zoontje van een vriendin, size 18-24 months. Hij heeft hem kunnen dragen tot hij 9 maanden oud was…

    • O, haha, grappig! Hebben wij reuzenbaby’s? Het is fijn breien. Nu maar hopen dat het goed komt met de maat.

  3. Book talk, how nice! Can you knit and read at the same time? I suppose I could if the knitting is not too complicated but I never tried.

    First a disclaimer, I haven’t read any of these in original language which is pretty shameful since Swedish and Norwegian are quite close. The titles below are all in Swedish but the Norwegian ones are probably quite similar. Here goes:

    Maja Lunde is a very interesting author and I highly recommend her first novel of a quartet Binas historia (The history of bees). It three stories from different times and they all come together in the end. Climate change plays a great role. The sequels, Blå (Blue) and Pzrewalskis häst (Pzrewalski’s horse) are similar and also very good but I wasn’t bowled over in the same way by them. I just bought the fourth and final book, Drömmen om ett träd (Dream of a tree) but I haven’t read it yet.

    There is no getting around Knausgård in Norwegian literature. I read four of the Min kamp books. They are good albeit a bit tedious. When he is good he is brilliant and he has a knack of making the most mundane happenings interesting to read about. My sister who is an avid reader praises his later books, one of them is Morgonstjärnan (Morning star).

    Vigdis Hjorth writes about complicated family ties, two titles I have read are Arv och miljö (Heritage and environment) and Mor är död (Mother is dead).

    Ingvild Rishöi is known for short stories. I have read the slightly longer story Stargate en julberättelse (Stargate a Christmas story) which was quite sweet.

    Roy Jacobsen has written a trilogy about fishing families in the far north of Norway in the early 20th century. The first book is De osynliga (The invisibles). Very well written, maybe not feelgood though.

    Wow, I chaste myself for reading too much American trash but apparently I should go easier on myself!

    • Wow, thank you for this list! I’ll take a look at all of the books and see if I can get them. I’m not planning to read them in Norwegian, but either in Dutch or English, whatever I can get. I can knit and read at the same time, but don’t do it very often anymore. It is how I got through a lot of reading material at uni.

  4. Knitting, reading and a cup of tea – wonderful, especially by a sunny winter window. You have given me/us some areas to explore. Dawna in our CMYT group knits and reads at the same time.

    • Simple pleasures – essential on gloomy days and even more enjoyable on sunny winter days. Isn’t she a wonderful knitter? So productive and enthusiastic. A real inspiration!

  5. Noorse boeken – ik kan Tjarjei Vesaas’ boeken aanraden – vooral The Ice Palace (de Noorse titel staat niet in de versie die ik heb, en ik heb geen idee of het in het Nederlands is vertaald). En van Per Petterson Out stealing horses; ik zie dat er een film van gemaakt is, maar ik heb die niet gezien.

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