My Icelandic yarn arrived

I came home yesterday to a parcel notice and rushed to the post office to pick it up, and my Icelandic yarn had arrived.

I love the ability to buy things from where ever I want on the Internet – it makes me feel so cosmopolitan.

Here is a picture of the yarn:

It is Ístex Loðband Einband, which is a wool lace weight with 225m to 50g, and I have never seen it in a yarn store. I got it from the Handknitting Association of Iceland.

I am very pleased with it. It is very woolly, if you are someone who doesn’t like animal fibres and thinks wool is itchy, then this yarn is not for you, but I like woolly clothes so that is not a problem. Actually it is not at all scratchy (to me), but it is not soft either. It is almost like spun crêpe paper. The closest yarn I can think of is Noro Kuryeon sock yarn, but this is quite a bit finer.

The impetus for this international yarn acquisition is this book I mentioned before:

Icelandic Knitting Using Rose Patterns by Hélène Magnússon.

I am going to knit this sweater:

I have been wanting an oversize sweater, and this just seems too lovely to pass up. It is going to be my first major project involving intarsia. I was just never so attracted to patterns that used it before.

I think this sweater is a very good example of a project where substituting yarns would greatly change the effect, and after listening to yarn store staff a couple times — I know that whatever yarn they carry in the same gauge is not always an acceptable substitute for me.

And see I am so committed I have already worked my swatch:

It is even the the right gauge on the first try (stitches and rows) — that never happens. I will cast on for the sweater today.

TagsIcelandic knitting, knitting, lace weight, patterns, sweaters, yarn