I have a lot of books to talk about in relation to my 2017 Year of Colorwork project,so it was tough deciding which to do first.  For example, I’m very excited about Joy of Color by Janine Bajus.  Then there is also Alice Starmore’s Fair Isle book, along with a number of others.  Ultimately though, I decided to talk about them in the order of the projects I am doing.  Therefore – Norsk Strikkedesign.

This is not a new book – it was published in 2002, and is a collection of sweater patterns from what I presume are prominent Norwegian knitting designers.  The patterns themselves are an interesting mix, ranging from pretty traditional folk-influenced items to fanciful modern designs.  A lot of it features colorwork of one kind or another, and some also call for embroidered embellishments and a bit of cabling.

I bought the book about a year ago (I think) in our local fabulous used book store, Title Wave. I brought it home and flipped through it a bit, and landed on the Princess Line Sweater,

which I immediately fell in love with.  The pattern calls for Rauma Finull yarn, which I had not heard of at that point.  Out of idle curiousity, I went looking for it on the net – preferably somewhere in the US, but I am willing to order from overseas, even though that can be a somewhat nerve-wracking experience.  And you know what?  I found this.  http://www.nordicfiberarts.com/norskstrikke_kits.html. There’s a dang shop in New Hampshire that not only stocks this brand of yarn, but has ready made kits for this very sweater.  In the space of around 2 hours, I went from not knowing this sweater pattern existed to having a kit on the way.  It’s that cool!

And then I didn’t do anything with it for at least a year but take it out and look at it occasionally and make big plans.   Then the idea of just focusing on colorwork for a  year occurred to me, and I knew this had to be my first big project.  It’s a little complex, but at its heart, it’s two color stranded knitting with a little bit of accent duplicate stitching on top.  The design is a little problematic – its definitely got a goofy shape at the top, and I still don’t know about that neckline, but that can all be adjusted.  It will all work out!

This project will help me with tension (still), doing shaping while doing colorwork, and practicing not having a nervous breakdown because of steeks, which I am going to have to do in a couple of place.  I’ll let you know how it goes!