Strikke-along signups!!

Yes, it's that time. The time for us all to lose our minds and join in another of the crazy knit-alongs around here. We officially begin October first, but I like having a decent lead-in for knit-alongs so people can be better prepared for them.

The original idea I had, back in the spring, was for everyone to choose a pattern from "Norsk Strikkedesign" and knit one. I thought that was a good theme, and it'd produce a lot of kickass sweaters/jumpers. (For those who don't have the book, there is a listing of kits available, here, that gives you a good idea of the content of the book.) I love just about every pattern in the book - with color shifts in some cases - and I figured everyone else would agree, and off we'd go.

Then I did the Steek-Along. And while the Steek-Along rocked, and was truly awesome, and I'm proud as hell of the three people who joined in and held on to the bitter end, the fact remains, it was three people. A pretty small group. And I knew that if I did something like "choose a pattern from Norsk Strikkedesign", I'd have a small group again, because let's be honest, those patterns are hard core.

So I started turning over the idea of having some kind of knit-along that EVERYONE could join. And I thought about the Scandinavian influences on knitting in general, and I thought we could do something Scandinavian-themed and still include everyone, if we tried hard enough.

I have given you this long lead-in so that you understand the reasoning behind the madness, when you read the eligibility list.

YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO JOIN IN THE STRIKKE-ALONG IF:

-You are knitting anything from Norsk Strikkedesign, of course. Or Poetry in Stitches. Or, hell, anything by any Scandinavian designer (Elsebeth Lavold for instance) or any Scandinavian design house (Dale of Norway, Garnstudio, etc).

-You live in Scandinavia or are of Scandinavian descent. Or speak a Scandinavian language. Or have blonde hair or blue eyes. Or red hair.

-You are knitting a pattern or using yarn from anywhere the Vikings ever settled. (North America, Greenland, Iceland, the UK, Ireland, Russia, most of Europe, and all those islands in the North Sea and North Atlantic.)

-You are knitting socks, a hat, a scarf, or mittens. Because it gets cold up there, and they wear that stuff.

-Heck, if you're knitting anything warm, for that matter.

-You have ever eaten lutefisk or drunk aquavit. Or that rotted shark stuff from Iceland. Or dairy products. Or, um, any other Scandinavian food. Pass the lebkuchen.

That should include everyone. If not, let me know, and I'll make up a loophole for you.

With this kind of two-sided history, I made up two buttons. I figure we can use one button for anyone hard core enough to knit something from Norsk Strikkedesign, and use the other for eveyrone else joining in. Of course if you like one button more than the other, just use it; I'm not gonna police blogs and tell people they're using the wrong buttons.

The Norsk Strikkedesign button:

The background, in case you're wondering, is from the Princess-Line Gansey that I'm halfway through knitting.

The let's all join button:

The curlicue is the prow of a Viking long ship from the Oslo Ship Musuem. The photo itself is from "Sue and Jerry's Adventure in Scandinavia", a page that popped up while I was doing an image search for Viking long ships. Their photo was just what I wanted (in fact, the original contains them, too). No idea who Sue and Jerry are, but if anybody knows them, tell 'em I said hello and thanks for the photo.

Anyone who REALLY wants to get into this, there's a handy translation page here. You can use Scandinavian knitting terms (from the language of your choice) for the entire month of October. Or the rest of your life. If you don't already.



FOR THE HTML CHALLENGED: I've been trying to put the code in the blog without it showing up as a photo, and it's SO not working... in fact, it's a nightmare. So e-mail me and I'll send you the code and you can cut and paste it into your template.