Per Spook, a former Haute Couture designer with his own fashion house in Paris, designed this sweater for Husfliden (an handicrafts association with stores all over Norway) in 1982. It became a huge success and my first fairisle project. Like a lot of knitters I chose the original yarn and colours used, Rauma 3-tråders strikkegarn. Knitting a tension square to check whether it would fit as it should was not a task I thought was essential, at my inexperienced knowledge level. The result was, as you would expect, not that well fitting at all. It looked like a layer of sausage skin and I could barely move my arms. The lesson of tension learnt the hard way. I was lucky enough that a friend of my mother had a smaller grandchild that desperately wanted just that sweater and bought it off me. It is one of the old patterns I have kept from the 1980s and which I have knitted again, this time double-tapered. The pattern, now a classic, have been re-printed in numerous Norwegian pattern books since its heyday.
I don’t ordinarily comment but I gotta tell thanks for the post on this one :D.
Thank you! Essential tension lesson for me and if I can spread a little knowledge I am happy to!
An excellent post, providing something good to read,it’s just good to came across the post on hand sets and its features.
Where can I find this pattern? Is it in any books currently in print or otherwise available in the US? I want VERY much to knit this sweater.
I have not found this pattern in a book translated to English but have sent an e-mail to Rauma the yarn company who published the original pattern, asking if they know and will let you know when I receive a reply. The pattern is available in Norwegian in the newly released book “Moderne Norsk Strikk”,see here http://www.emblaforlag.no/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=13&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=91&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1 if you are an experienced knitter and can manage with Garnstudios excellent dictionary, see http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/us/dictionary.php
Tusen takk! Jeg leser litt norsk and do have a good glossary in Judith Dahlin’s pamphlet “Knitting Norwegian Sweaters,” so I should be able to manage with “Moderne Norsk Strikk.” But I’ll look forward to hearing what you find out from Rauma. I’m not as experienced a knitter as I’ll need to be to make this sweater, but I’m starting with some less difficult projects, an Icelandic and then a Mariusgenser.
Så bra! That sounds like a good plan! The pattern is not as complicated as it looks, but it is easier if you have knitted a Fairisle project previously to achieve an even tension. This sweater was my first Fairisle project and I did tighten the yarn too much, creating a different tension and hence size to the one given.