Friday, April 20, 2012

Sweaters warm my heart


The Icelandic Woolen Sweater
gotta love it!

I used to hate wearing wool things because they made me itch so much, but with time and some practice I learned to tolerate the wool and now I can wear it without any problems! scarves, mittens, socks, but most of all sweaters, lovely lovely sweaters!

The patterns are part of an old icelandic tradition, the colors were more traditional, earthy colors to begin with, but now you will see them in all different colors. 
My grandmother is amazingly talented and has made sweaters for the whole family since before I was born. She made three out of the four sweaters I own. 
The pink one she made for me when I was younger. Back then I hated pink and would never wear it, but now, ohh my goodness, I could live in it!
The black and brown one is a more recent sweater, my mom and my sister have the same kind in different colors. I originally asked for a white one with a black and brown pattern and mom asked for the black one, but then a while after we grandma had finished making them Mom and I realized we were always borrowing each others sweaters. So we switched.
The red, yellow and black sweater is very dear to me. It was made by grandma (dads mom) for my grandpa (moms dad) in the German colors because his wife, my Oma (grandma) was German. It suited him so well! He was an old icelandic fisherman, full beard and all. He ate sheep head and dried fish (fish jerky) like it was candy and grew up wearing woolen sweaters in the more traditional colors, until he got the German one. 
After he passed away I found the sweater in a bag in the attic and thought it was a shame not to use it. So I asked if I could keep it safe.
The grey sweater is lovely, I got it the other day and it is the first one I have ever bought. I got it at the red cross second hand store and got a good deal on it too.
Its not as precious to me as the other ones, but I really like the color and the pattern.

2 comments:

LMT said...

I love seeing you and those sweaters. They're 2 of my favorite things about Iceland.

Unifer said...

hahah love you too Linder :D I got a visit from a blogger you wrote me about :) gotta tell you about it!