Book Review: Happy Nordic Knits

Most of us who knit know that knitting is good for our mental health. Norwegian designer Une Cecilie Oksvold pairs knitting patterns with the story of her mental health journey and the ways that being in nature has helped her in the book Happy Nordic Knits.

Many of the knits in this collection come with a story of her struggles with anxiety and depression, things she tried that didn’t help and how embracing outdoor living did. Of course, if you’re going to be outside a lot in Norway, you need the right gear, so the book is full of cozy sweaters, felted items and accessories perfect for wearing when it’s cold outside.

The 23 patterns include 11 sweaters, all with some kind of colorwork, 3 pairs of mittens, a pair of slippers, a balaclava, headband, sitting pad, socks, hat, insoles and a neck warmer.

Most of the patterns include colorwork and several of them are also felted for extra warmth. The sweaters are often shown in multiple color options or sizes (10 sizes are offered for each pattern, and some are shown on both men and women) so you can get a sense of how they might look using your yarn.

I like the Leif Sweater, which has a large scale diamond pattern that’s vaguely southwestern and inspired by the interior of the author’s camper van and the Frostbite Sweater, which has most of its colorwork situated at the bottom of the body and sleeves. Despite my preference for projects that aren’t allover colorwork, the bold, graphic and colorful designs found here are a lot of fun, too.

A lot of the accessories are simple, such as the Bitter Cold set of balaclava, neckwarmer, headband and mittens, all worked in a single color and felted (there are felting instructions, as well as some other techniques, at the back of the book).

In addition to these projects to keep you super warm, there’s a section of “zero waste” projects made with yarn leftovers. These projects include stripey sweaters, a single color hat and neckwarmer, and felted insoles made out of a knit and felted rectangle cut to fit in your shoes.

The projects are colorful, fun to knit and to wear, and certain to keep you warm wherever your adventures take you. And if you like reading about how others have overcome hardship in their lives, the stories are good, too, but you can also skip them if you’re just here for the patterns.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback. Published 2025 by Quarry Books. Suggested retail price $26.99.

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

Have you read?