Knitting

For those who followed, after mum told me at Christmas that i was not to leave her house or the country before I had learned to knit, and tied me down to a chair with threads of yarn, and forced me to watch and learn and knit and watch and learn and knit, I returned to this peaceful country unscathed.. or so i thought!!

In retrospect, it seems like some part of me must have been receptive to this incredibly terrible maternal drill (hello mummy, I love you, wave wave! :o) )... because when Alice's mum and aunt came in June, we went to the Westfjords, and this uncontrollable urge to put our hands back on the wool took hold of us.. Not a day passed without us talking about stitches, needles sizes and balls -of yarn- colours and patterns, and lopi here, and lopi there, lopi bloody everywhere!! :o)

Alice is still hooked, on a boat somewhere to the West of Iceland, knitting through the night, and here I am in front of the computer, partly knitting, partly staring in absolute awe at some masterpieces of lopi and non-lopi knitting I've found on the web.

Lopi:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lopapeysur/

http://www.helloyarn.com/freepatterns.htm

Pretty awesome, not?

And look at the colours on these!! I totally love the design, they are so beautiful!!http://www.helloyarn.com/fiddleheadmittens.htm

This lady also makes such cool stuff! Seems like her site hasn't been updated for a while, but there's enough on there to keep me fed for some time..

http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/

I'm incredibly impressed at what one can do with wool, and am totally looking forward to learning more about it.. in fact, I sort of wish i had more hands, and maybe bigger storage in my brain as well!

So far I've made a brown scarf for Alice, a blue one for Sylvain, and am currently playing on a red one for mum. As you have probably figured, this one is the blue one, and it's a so-called basket pattern, copied from the beautiful orange scarf I bought in Huaraz in Peru. (if only the lady who sold it me knew what she started!! :o) ) I have just bought another 10000000 ton of wool and am planning to take over the world hum *cough* , I mean knit my way across the ocean to Newfoundland.

Knitting scarves is nice, but I'm looking for something a little more exciting now.. upcoming projects are leg warmers and my first lopapeysu, after the first disastrous try Alice and I made in June :o)

Hiiiiiiii, I'm so excited!!!!!!

Águst

It's a little hard to condense the last month or so in one small sheepish post.
Loads of things have been going on recently, including a lot of rain, a lot of sunshine, a couple of trips down the South coast, mum's visit :o) ....
Lots of visits at home generally.. for some reason mostly Germans.. (in fact it feels almost like a total German invasion, I hate to say.. there are 6 at the mo, only Ale and I representing the latin part of Europe (yeah, especially me) )
Some days I'm almost losing count as to how many people live in our house.. on a renting basis I believe there are 5 of us at the moment, + 2 girlfriends, a rabbit, the occasional couchsurfer, and it seems at least a visit for each flatmate the past 4 weeks. Which leeds to pretty funny situations like some CSer turning up and asking how many people live there, me totally unable to actually answer, and him asking if it's some sort of guesthouse we have there. Actually, I was beginning to wonder.

I like having people round, but sometimes it gets a little trying to turn up at home and ALWAYS have someone new around, specially when one doesn't feel like making conversation or hanging out in ones' sitting-room in anything else than a t-shirt and underwear. Ah well.

Mum on the beach in Vík. Conveniently it did not rain whilst we were outside, and when it did, we had the sense to go and be favourable to the waining Icelandic economy by consuming large amounts of cake and gallons of coffee in the local hangout, Halldor's cafe.. Yum.. :o)
Flower power in the botanical garden!
Look at this beautiful Icelandic cardy! Although I've started knitting recently, i'm not quite up to those standards YET.. However, it's coming on.. just went and bought me half a ton of icelandic wool so I can knit my way across the Atlantic when I leave..
Bog cotton. Grows in bogs. You get your feet wet! :Þ
Our buddies from the Vestmann Islands.Vík again..
Sergeant Pepper's lonely heart sitting on a volcano..

It's my last working week this week, only 4 and a half nights to go.

I can't say I'm too sad to be leaving.. this job has had its good sides (like, a week off every other week.. there's nothing like liking a job for the non-working areas it offers ;o) )but has also taken its toll on my general health, I think.. fucked up sleeping pattern, crazy hours, eating badly (well, that goes with my general lack of discipline..)

It's always a little strange and exciting to move on; and it's definitely time for me to do it now.. I came here with a one-way ticket and no idea how long I was going to stay, and I daresay 17 months is long enough to stay static for someone who had originally decided to remain nomadic until further notice upon arriving.. Well.. there's nowt like changing your mind, it just proves how flexible and morally superior one is :Þ

So that's it. After 497 days (WHAT???!) I'm finishing work here on Monday, 8 am.. My sister is arriving at KEF at 9.30 for almost 2 weeks, and then I'm on a roll from there until I leave; not sure quite what the exact date will be, but somewhere between 10 and 15th September..

Ooooofffff...

Something tells me it's going to be a little messy, as usual. In fact, it totally reminds me of last time I moved out of a place I'd been living for a long time, back in the days when I was living with JM in Rennes. Incidentally, my sis had also come to visit and left 3 days before I was due to move out on December the 30th, of all convenient days.. Baader-Meinhof? This time, Flo is leaving on the August 28th, and as far as I know, we have to be out of the house by September 1st. I still have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to do with my stuff, if I should just dump/burn it or keep it here as some kind of mental token that i WILL some day come back, oh yes. Like I did with my bike in Chile. Like my climbing shoes that remained in Canada for quite some time until they were sent to me (Thanx Andrée and Daniel!) .. :Þ (man, now that I think of it, i really wonder what i'm going to find in my boxes in Louis' parents' loft!!)

Ah well. First things first. I'm off to cast on another few stitches.. :o)