Knitting in the Faroe Islands, and on Outlander

I found a couple of fun articles related to knitting this week that I thought you’d enjoy.

First up, a Guardian reporter traveled to the Faroe Islands (a collection of 18 islands about halfway between Norway and Iceland) to learn about their sweater knitting traditions. Their super warm sweaters made with native wool use simple repeating patterns and a straight, unshaped body. While knitting has ebbed in popularity even there through the years, many still knit traditional sweaters that can be found throughout the world and were made even more famous by the Danish crime drama The Killing.

They also have some pretty excellent knitting clubs there, the reporter found, which must be a good way to pass the time on those super cold, dark winter nights.

Speaking of knitwear on television, BuzzFeed strikes again with some fun knitting content, this time about all the great knits found in the Outlander series. I haven’t watched it so I can’t say — as the clickbaity headline does — that the knitwear is the best part of the show, but it does look like there are some great pieces, and some of the designs I’ve seen that were inspired by the show really are amazing.

So if you are looking for knitting patterns from the Outlander series then this is a great start to finding the Highland patterns.

{Photo by Bardur Eklund via the Guardian.}

Next Pattern:

One great thing to knit when the weather is warm (or honestly any other time) is dishcloths and washcloths. They are fun and easy projects and a great way to play with new skills. Pretty washcloths make cleaning a tiny bit more fun, and they’re great to have on hand as a quick addition to a store-bought gift.

The Daisy Delight Dishcloth from Yarnspirations is a fun one for using leftover bits of green in your cotton yarn stash. What looks like the bottom in the picture is actually the left side as you knit it, and each little color section is worked with its own ball of yarn, intarsia style.

That’s a little fiddly for a washcloth, but the effect is cute, and it’s a simple way to learn the basics of intarsia knitting (as well as reading a chart) if you don’t already have those skills.

One the knitting is done, you add the flowers with a bit of lazy daisy embroidery, which is really easy to do even if you’re not that into embroidery. You could also potentially add flowers in duplicate stitch if you’d rather.

This may be the most work you’ve put into a dishcloth, but isn’t it adorable? It would be fun to use as a hand towel through the spring and summer, and if you already have some leftover green yarn from other projects it should be pretty easy to do.

You could also take this same concept and make it different colors. All dark green stems with stars on top might be reminiscent of Christmas trees, or brown with daisy stitch on top in different colors could be trees in the fall.

However you stitch it, this looks like a fun little project for knitters who are comfortable with intarsia and reading charts or who are ready to try those skills.

You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

Book Review – Dishcloths for Special Days [Knitting]

Book Review – Holiday Knit Dishcloths

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