Literally Touring Countries and Continents

Writing a blog and visiting the blogs of readers can hold many unexpected surprises. It literally leads to new literary ventures and adventures. I would compare it to opening doors to unknown worlds, holding secrets yet unknown. It is a bit like working freeform - patterns and yarns fall into place in structures one would consciously never have planned before the yarn went into this or that direction.

Maybe I was always aware of the popular saying that there are 'so many books and so little time' because I cannot think of a day I did not read at all.  When I was much younger, in a pre-blog and pre-Internet time, my reading mainstay were books written in English by English, Australian and American authors, as well as books in German, this being followed by a distant second from ROW - the rest of the world.

Sometimes authors from other continents and countries caught my attention in the bookstores I frequented or in magazines I read regularly. And it was always a very enriching first experience of 'discovering' authors for myself, old and new, until finally the map of my reads showed a bit more of a global balance.

In January 2013 I chanced upon the lovely blog of Vibeke from Norway "A Butterfly in my Hair". This sparked my interest in more contemporary Norwegian literature, quasi on top of those famous Norwegian authors of old we had read in school and the inevitable all-Scandinavian specialty of crime stories.

 
Novelist Per Petterson was the first author I chose, reading his book "Out Stealing Horses" - a novel having won an incredible array of awards. I was sad to put the book down after I had read it - as if it held a golden bowl of beautiful phrases and story lines that had suddenly come to an end - but they will linger on in my memory for quite a while.

Per Petterson is a famous writer, his books are translated into 60 languages and his work has won many distinguished awards and prices. As I said: so many books, and such little time... But please feel free to add your favorite book in the comments box at the end of this post!

This post is for Vibeke and her beautiful blog, generously introducing so many artists from countries around the world.

Speaking of Norway - don't we associate cold and long winters with Scandinavian countries? And long summers with short nights, and the further North we travel the longer the days until the sun never sets...

The above shown muffs in my No Chill series are useful against winter chills. Two square modules are crocheted together - you might recognize the POP blanket pattern?

A warm fleece-type fabric is cut to size and sewn together, forming a tube and sewn invisibly into the muff as a liner, making it reversable. Just before closing the last corner, I stuffed Scottish sheep fleece into the space between liner and knitted sleeve. Finally I added the the ribbed ends on either side (k2, p2) as cuffs, finishing the edge with a crocheted picot stitch. [Some muffs are for sale - please contact me via e-mail].