Pompom | Linda Marveng

Yes, this time the festival was in my city of Oslo, Norway. The premises the organisers of Oslo Knitting Festival had chosen was perfect, the Oslo Public Library, not only is it central, with high ceilings, plenty of sofas and cold enough to wear woollen sweaters inside. A smart move those of us who attended the book launch on Friday night, agreed. Above you can see the market hall, with around 30 different yarn stores, magazines, and others had their stalls with books and dvd’s as backdrops. The festival website is in English hence it had attracted several French yarn shops and the English/American magazine Pom Pom Quarterly, in addition to Norwegian shops and hand-dyers.

Here is Tweedy Todd with a selection of their tempting yarns. Tweedy Todd is a small independent hand-dyed yarn company based outside of Oslo. They offer a variety of semi-solid, variegated, tonal, speckled and dip-dyed looking yarns. I was good and did not buy any yarn this time. As usual I took a lot of photos and a lot of them are way to blurred to be used.

I was delighted to finally meet the two lovely women from the yarn store Fortuna near Trondheim: Ellen Haugen Bergsrønning and Marit Haugen Bergsrønning. I know them both from Facebook and Marit has test knitted for me. They are the Norwegian retailer for the divine German yarn Wollmeise and also stock the popular Hedgehog Fibres. See our selfie. Yes, I am wearing my Oydis again.

Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk was there and I could finally see the yarn kits made with my designs for real. We had a long chat about my designs and their new yarn the finer Norwegian Pelt Wool Yarn called Sølje Pelsullgarn.

It is many years since I last met up with Lydia Gluck who I used to work together with at Loop in London. Lydia and American Meghan Fernandes (also with a Loop background), set up their magazine Pom Pom Quarterly in 2012. Today it is one of the most trendy knitting magazines in the world. It is sold both in print and digitally. If you do not know the magazine maybe you know their podcast, called Pomcast. I was fortunate to meet Sophie Scott who together with Lydia make their Pomcast. Thank you, Lydia & Sophie!

Pom Pom has also started their Pom Pom Press published their first book by designer Fiona Alice and more are coming, Lydia revealed. They also offer in print the popular Interpretations booklets by Joji Locatelli and Veera Välimäki. Check out the table below.

The Squirrel’s Yarns was one of the French yarn shops present at the Festival, see below.

Yet another reason to visit the Festival was the book launch of Gyldendals Strikkedagbok /a knitting diary with presentations and patterns by Kristin Wiola Ødegård, Marte Helgetun, Paelas og Marianne Jansson Bjerkman. The host was Marthe from the Norwegian podcast Marthe&Marthe. The launch was held in the auditorium, as you might have guessed. I met several knitters I knew and enjoyed this frank talk about WIP (work in progress), stash and the planning of new projects.

After the launch, I went back to the market hall for a second look. The event was on for all of Saturday and Sunday with an offering of talks and workshops. I was teaching a weekend workshop for Østre Aker Husflidslag the same weekend hence had to make the most of my Friday visit.

Around 9.30 pm you could still spot a lot of knitters in the knitting cafe area. But I decided to take my knitting with me back home. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit! Well done, Oslo Knitting Festival!

A magnificent title that conveys the three parts of a knitter’s personality; we collect like magpies, we sometimes prefer the quiet of our own perch like any homebody but we also venture into the world to meet friends and gather inspiration like a nomad, Cirilia Rose explains in the introduction; Finding Your Inner Bricoleur, and continues: “The past decade has seen a proliferation of knitwear designers, myself included, and we’re all working from essentially the same sourcebooks, with the same basic resources: the knit stitch, the purl stitch, and a whole lot of yarn. So how does one innovate in an increasingly crowded landscape? The answer is, of course, through bricolage. The combination of elements from seemingly disparate cultural sources creates energy that didn’t exist before, and when each of us cultivates our own unique concoction of referents, it guarantees more idiosyncratic knits.”

This hardcover book is fascinating and well worth reading, as I am sure you already have discovered, in addition to containing 24 divine patterns. Like the title it is divided into three parts with excellent introduction to each part e.g. Magpies title: “I am, as I suspect many of you are, addicted to yarn.” Yes, that rings a bell, for sure! Each part also has two articles on Style inspiration: “Color Me Brave” and “Think Like a Stylist” in Magpies, “Surround Yourself” (read: with talented people), and “Substituting Yarns” in Homebodies, and “Finding Myself in Iceland” (read: inspiration and second home) and “Looking for a Come-up (aka Thrifting)”. As if that was not enough essential reading it also includes “The Canon” with recommended reading, sources for supplies, special techniques, abbreviations, acknowledgements and about the author. Do also enjoy listening to the podcast where Cirilia Rose is interviewed by her former employer Kathy Elkins of WEBS fame: blog.yarn.com and when visiting London having a party and plenty of giggles with the lovely Pompom magazine: pompommag.com.

Magpies, Homebodies, and Nomads is photographed by Jared Flood, hence utterly captivating. Cirilia Rose has worked with well known yarn companies such as Berroco, Skacel and Brooklyn Tweed and it shows in her fabulous designs and their scope. There are 8 designs in each part including: cardigans, pullovers, hats, cowls, tanks and more. You can study all the projects on Ravelry, or have a look inside the book at Amazon.com. I bought my treasured copy online at Adlibris.com.

Linda Marveng

Knit wear designer and author

Tag Archives: Pompom

Oslo Knitting Festival

Magpies, Homebodies, and Nomads by Cirilia Rose