A journey of a single sweater begins with a thousand stitches.*

Icelandic sweater is a funny thing.

The first time you see it, it's ugly.

The second time you see it, you start wondering what is wrong with those who wear it.

The third through the hundredth time you see it, you start wondering maybe there IS something about it.

The hundred and first time you see it, worn by a beautiful girl or by a cute guy clubbing in Reykjavik, you think hmmm not so bad after all.

After that, you just want one.

There comes a moment you enter one of those tourist shops to look at sweaters and that's what you do - after realising one would cost you about 150€, you just look at it and leave the store.

Then, and by that time you already need that sweater, you meet this cute American girl spending her evenings in a little town called Pingeyri knitting herself one, which costs her ten times less - the cost of wool. And so the moment you accidentaly stumble accross a wool store in Isafjordur, you're hooked - you're knitting yourself a damn sweater! 

You buy the wool. 

The wool hitchhikes through Iceland with you. 

Then it takes a ferry to Denmark with some Polish dudes you meet a day before you leave the island (kinda problematic to fit everything in you 30l backpack and have it ready for the Rayanair crew 'one piece of luggage' verification).

After a month long trip in France and Spain you hitchhike from Frankfurt to Warsaw and stop in Poznan, to pick the wool up (which later has you hitchhiking from the middle of the highway praying for your life; it also has you taking photos with your GPS camera, so that your dad tells you how many kms you have to walk alongside the road to reach the next gas station..).

The wool finally gets home and sits in the closet for 2 months, cause you don't have time to learn how to knit.

And finally, there comes a day (yesterday) when you decide enough is enough and you pick up those scary needles and get on with it.

The plan is to have the sweater ready in a month's time, so that it can keep me warm during my trip to Brussels. Everyone, my mum included, says it's kinda impossible, especially that I want some patterns around it (what would an Icelandic sweater be without the Icelandic patterns, I ask you!). 

Challenge accepted! 

 

A sample I was learning on yesterday. The only unfortunate thing is that the wool I need to start knitting with is much thinner and not spun so tightly, making it a lot more difficult and needing me to be a lot more careful with what I do. But hey, nobody said it was gonna be easy..

Alright then, off I go to knit!

*You inspire me, Jim! ;)