Chilly

It's been a bit on the chilly side in Lillehammer lately. -28C/-18F at the barnehage the other morning, but a balmy -23C/-9F down at our house. We've been so pleased with our new soapstone wood oven that we installed a few weeks back. The stone retains heat for hours after the fire has burned out, and we're able to turn down the radiant floor heating. Tika's lovin' life, snoozing away in front of her new altar.


As for keeping the rest of us warm, I was greeted with a note from "Greta" at the barnehage that read "Jeg trenger en ull genser" (I need a wool sweater). I was mildly annoyed, maybe because it had been only just the day before a teacher had said to me, "Does Greta have a wool sweater? She gets cold outside." I thought, "the kid has a bucketful of fleece sweatshirts, vests and wool long underwear. Is this not enough for you people?" But my annoyance was also, "jeez, how quickly must I respond to these demands? A day is barely enough time to dig through storage boxes, as if I had a dozen wool sweater packed away for a rainy day." But, if I've learned anything in the last 18 months, it's that Norwegians love their wool, so I stopped in to the local Salvation Army (on the tip of a Norwegian friend) to search for a pint-sized wool sweater. No luck. 

So. . . I rose to the challenge. I picked up some thick Aran-weight wool, and on Friday night I began knitting a pink and pink striped sweater. (Yes, you read correctly: pink and pink). Roll-neck, raglan sleeves, roll hem, using an 18 month size pattern with thicker yarn and bigger needles. I knit and knit and knit til my fingers ached and my hands were nearly permanently curled. I hoped to be finished by Monday morning, to triumphantly return to the barnehage with a handknit wool sweater ("oh, she needs a wool sweater? here, I just whipped this up over the weekend"), but it proved to be a bit too much. Instead, I will almost as triumphantly return to the barnehage on Wednesday with one.