Last Saturday I presented my book and my designs at a knitting retreat at Slobrua Gjestegård at Skarnes, an hour’s drive from Oslo. The invitation came via former owner of the online shop Projo, May Lis Martinsen who has been very active in organizing these events previously. Events co-ordinator at Slobrua, Wenche Sandberg confirmed it and offered a delicious lunch after my presentation. The shop Hobbytunet, with Manager Randi Bratt, had brought a large selection of Sandnes yarns & patterns, while May Lis had brought an exciting selection from her former shop stock including the Australian hand dyed yarn Koigu. There were about 30 knitters present this year, the 5th year in a row the knitting retreat has been organized. Above I am wearing my Lacy Rib Shawl with cowl and wrist warmers, one of the most popular patterns from my Norwegian knitting book: “To rett og en vrang. Designstrikk”. The English pattern is available on Ravelry where you can see the pattern details: Ravelry.com/patterns/library/lacy-rib-shawl.

I prefer to bring a large selection of my designs and put them on while I talk about my intentions for each one and all the essential pattern information. Afterwards everyone has the chance to study the garments in detail, feel the textures of the yarns and discuss edgings as well as techniques. The photos above are taken by my husband but you can see a few more photos in the local paper and note that the title of the article is “Needles and yarn is social therapy”, see Glomdalen.no. I enjoyed spending the afternoon talking about knitting! Thank you May Lis and Wenche!