Selected Highlights

• Learning how to use a lucet. I love the Danish word for it: "at nulre".
• Biking around Copenhagen. Easily the best way to navigate Cph City.
• Being told I'll get a sewing machine for my birthday in February.
• Walking around the new prehistory section of The National Museum. It's really good.
• Having way too much good food - and bringing back various specialities.
• Finding a beautiful hand-embroidered table cloth for just 50p.
• Spending time with people who really really matter.

I have a few rants to share - the state of the Danish language, how embarrassing people can be in an airport, biased TV-journalism - but I'll save them for a rainy day. Likewise, I have a few knitting-related things to discuss but I'll get back to them after I've done the laundry (it is so good not living out of a suitcase) and unpacked my things.

It's good to be home. I just miss people already.

Wonderful, Wonderful..

The train journey from my childhood landscape to Copenhagen takes about 90 minutes. The distance from Glasgow to Edinburgh, more or less. I often think about the cultural divide between Glasgow (young, vibrant, edgy) and Edinburgh (heritage, self-aware, conservative) - but this divide pales when compared to the cultural divide between my childhood landscape and Copenhagen. Today the train took me from rural Denmark to urban Denmark; from the way things have always been to the way things are; from my childhood to my adulthood. Every time I step aboard that train, I grow up. This is a roundabout way of saying that I am in Copenhagen once again.

During the 90 minute train journey I was working on a shawl. A girl came up to me asking if I knitted the jumper I was wearing. Seeing I was wearing my Snorri jumper, the one with the Icelandic yoke, I was happy to confirm her suspicions. This led to a long discussion about how she did not knit, how she admired people who could and where she could learn to knit .. and how I found the time to knit. I maintain that most people should be able to find pockets of knitting time: I knit on public transport, I knit during my commute to and fro work, I knit during lunch, and I knit whilst watching TV or listening to the radio. Knitting is an addition to my daily routine, not something which stops me doing things (Except reading. I still haven't cracked how to knit and read at the same time. No, audiobooks do not count).  I do not think I convinced the girl to give knitting a try, but I demystified a few things. I'll continue to preach the gospel anyhow.

A crafts happening was taking place in the Central Station when I arrived. It was a good omen.

Copenhagen has been lovely. I picked up some Faroese, Icelandic and Swedish yarns (mostly laceweight and "sheepy"; definitely things I could not find in the UK) as well as some .. fabric. I learned that I'm getting a sewing machine early next year, so I thought I'd get a few interesting fabrics whilst in Denmark. Do not give me that look..  Anyway, I've also been biking around the city and seeing some very lovely people. It's almost like I never left .. except a few things have changed such as my leg muscles (tomorrow my muscles will ache in interesting places) and my ability to deal with impolite customer service (eyerolling may have been involved).

I'll be in Copenhagen for a few more days. More people to see. More muscles to re-discover. I am breathing again.

PS. Actually, right now I could be anywhere. I'm listening to BBC Radio 4, the rain is pouring down, and I'm typing away..

Family

The Danish landscape is more subtle than Scotland's but no less beautiful. My parents live on the outskirts of a large bog area famous for its archaeological finds (link in Danish) and today we went for a long drive through the area: small lakes, rolling hills, undisturbed bogs, Viking settlements and numerous megalithic tombs. I always wonder why Denmark does not market its history as a major tourist attraction (Scotland has already twigged that tourists love history). My childhood landscape is steeped in impressive history and I think tourists would love to visit these places.

I spent the afternoon having a mutual brainstorming crochet workshop with my mum. We were armed with crochet hooks and various balls of wool. It was a lot of fun and super-inspirational. We were both tossing out ideas, workshopping to find solutions to conundrums, and trying out techniques. Crochet has always felt more intuitive than knitting and I really enjoyed what we ended up working on .. I'm the latest one in a long line of crafters and doing a workshop with my mum felt fabulous. If we lived closer, I could definitely see us collaborating on a few projects.

Incidentally, iSketch is way too much fun.

DK: Knit

DK: Knit is an exhibition of contemporary knitwear design by graduates from the Kolding School of Design currently on display at the Danish Cultural Institute in Edinburgh. Being both of the knitterly and the Danish persuasion, I thought I might as well check it out. Unsurprisingly, most of the pieces are machine-knitted and at a fairly fine gauge. Some pieces explore garment construction (like the piece shown left), other pieces explore the idea of "fabric". One particular piece resembles a big pink bath sponge plunged on the floor - I can admire the skill in its construction whilst at the same time reject its aesthetic, can't I? - whilst another piece looks like an upmarket version of IKEA curtains (and uses the same stitch pattern as the Summit Shawl).

My favourite pieces are the ones which add twists to so-called classic knitting: items that acknowledge their debt to generations past whilst still trying to pave the way forward.

Hans-Christian Madsen has two pieces included in the DK: Knit exhibition and I really liked both. My favourite was the pullover shown right: a traditional Icelandic yoked sweater in subtle colours - but when you get closer, you can see that the colourwork yoke incorporates unusual materials.The surface is broken up - but by texture rather than colour.

Katarina i Geil also draws upon knitting traditions - most obviously from her native Faroe Islands - but uses cables in a really organic, free-flowing way. I am also impressed by her use of embellishment and contrasting texture. One piece is handknitted(?) in rustic wool with clever crochet ornaments in silk. Sadly my photos has not turned out well nor does she have any web presence, so you will have take me at my word.

For a handknitter, DK:Knit is not the most inspiring exhibition. I can see some possibilities in the play with surface textures, but I think fashion students will find it more worthwhile. I did enjoy my chat with the friendly staff and I was alerted to a new Danish bakery in Edinburgh. Mmm, tebirkes!

The knitterly content continues tomorrow..

Yes, there is more. Oh yes, there is more.

Midsummer

Call for test-knitters! I have a pattern I need test-knitted before I can make it publicly available - we are talking one ball of Rowan Kid Silk Haze plus beads. Knitted lace. Get in touch by email (distantsunATgmailDOTcom) or via Ravelry. Today is Midsummer's Eve. In Denmark they will be lighting bonfires and singing songs right now. I always miss my Danish friends and family whenever special events come around. Midsummer's Eve, or Skt. Hans Aften, is that curious Danish blend of pagan and Christian traditions. You gather with people near water - beaches are popular although many places it will be near a lake - and when dusk falls, you set fire to a big bonfire adorned with an effigy of a witch which is said to "fly to Blocksbjerg" (most Danish names for Hell are places in Germany. I kid you not). Oh, and the Danes sing. We sing whenever we can and, since Midsummer's Eve is a Big Thing, we even have a special song (although most people prefer singing the modern version).

The photo was taken in 2006, my last Skt. Hans Aften in Denmark. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic tonight - especially because I know tonight most of my Danish friends are gathered just north of Copenhagen and I would have liked to have celebrated the longest day of the year with them. The older I get the more attached I become to my personal traditions and I have lost a fair few of them in recent years. It's a bit difficult to stage a big bonfire here in Glasgow without getting arrested for disorderly conduct .. "Honest, guv, I was just celebrating Midsummer's Eve. That old woman burning up? Well, it's tradition.."

I Need Distractions

My great-grandmother's bedspread/blanket arrived today. Every single square was knitted individually in moss-stitch and then sewn together before she picked up stitches, knitted an edge, cast off, and crocheted a decorative edge. (So much work. I can deal with the huge amounts of mustard yellow in the spread, in other words.) I wonder if I should drape it over our sofa.. We live in a rented flat, so some of the furniture is not exactly to our taste (particularly the pink-yellow chintz sofa).

Thank you for the comments on Becoming Less than a Magpie. After writing it, I went straight to Ravelry and started weeding out my queue. It has gone from 247 patterns queued to 77 projects queued. It feels very liberating. I know the new autumn/winter collections will be hitting the web soon, so I am prepared to see my queue get a bit longer, but I am keeping the following self-imposed rules in mind:

• Will it flatter my figure?
• Will it work with existing items in my wardrobe?
• Do I already have similar objects in my wardrobe?
• Will I get any use out of it?

In other words, I will assess concrete things like gauge and shape as well as abstract things like style and wearability. Also, I will no longer be queueing fifteen patterns when one well-chosen pattern suffices.

Style is quite abstract, isn't it? I am not fashionable (although for one brief month back in 1995 I was outrageously trendy) but I do think a lot about style. Being Danish I have grown up with a certain Nordic aesthetic - you might best know it from countless IKEA catalogues. Scandinavians like their simple lines, plenty of light and very little nonsense to their architecture/furniture/designs. A typical Danish knitting design would be something along the lines of Topstykke, Duet or Granite. Plain knitting with a little twist. On the other hand I have never been a very good Dane and I turned into an bit of an Anglophile when I was very young, cue the love of tweedy things with cables and fair-isle (or, in other words, everything Rowan). Add to that, an uncompromising love of Modernist art and design (and that pesky Scandinavian mid-century modern influence) and that is pretty much where "my style" is at.

See why my queue has shrunk so much? Yeah.

Now I'm off to wave a tiny Danish paper flag about. The Danish football team is playing their first World Cup match today and I'm slightly worried as they are meeting one of the top contenders, Holland. It is going to be tense and I still cannot knit.