I hear they make good ice-cream there

This morning, I fly out to Iceland, and I cannot wait.  The first part of the trip is for The World Scout Moot.  This is an international event for young people aged between 18 - 25.  The general format is that everybody starts off in one location, then move to a second location, known as an expedition centre (Kenya in 2010 had three or four; Iceland has ten) before all joining back up together in a final location.  In this case, our final destination is Úlfljótsvatn Scout Centre (where my friend Amy will be staying with a group of Guides just after we leave).

I've spent most of the prep time (up until the last fortnight or so) feeling entirely under prepared.  I didn't go to the first briefing weekend and I slept through half of the second.  I hadn't slept well on the Saturday night, woke up with a headache and halfway through breakfast felt like I was going to throw up.

Half asleep in a tent; exactly how I expect to look in Iceland

I have a two bag allowance for both the outbound and homebound flights.  On the way out, my tent will be my second bag, and I'll be taking this pouch in my rucksack.

On the way back, this pouch will be opened out into my second bag, containing my tent

Oh look - lots of lovely space.  What on earth could I put in there?!   Since my friend Jane wants to knit this sweater (PDF) from Istex and I want to knit the Lauvisa jumper by Karie Westermann I don't think filling the bag is going to be much of an issue. If I can find any Icelandic related stitch markers, or nal for nalbinding, then so much the better.

Of course, I've prepped all the essentials:

Yarn: Opal 20 Years, Kerzen/Candles colourway
Patter: Flying North by Maria Montzka

The pattern is free on Loveknitting and is called Flying North which is exactly what I'll be doing.  As we're above the Arctic circle, there'll be a lot of orange and yellow sun, and orange is the colour of the moot, so it all works out quite nicely.

I've got a list of stuff to do - including a thermal spa (it's been a horrifically stressful week; I'm surprised I've cried as little as I have).  I've been told about the Icelandic Phallalogical Museum which sounds right up my street.  As part of the trip, I'm going to be snorkelling in (or near) Thingvellir National Park.  As it's a Scouting event - there will be badges.

Naturally, I'll be visiting The National Handknitting Association of Iceland.  This blog mentions wool being available at the grocery stores, which is something I want to see for myself and this blog mentions Icelandic yarn with silk.

 I need to be on the train in about an hour and still haven't bought my insurance.  (Yes, I've sorted my knitting, but not the important stuff; priorities!)  I've got a three hour flight which will be dedicated to sleeping rather than knitting.  I have no idea how all my gear fitted into the rucksack, but it did.  

Let's do this.  See you on the other side - with photos and yarn! 

London Calling

The Shard, in the centre of the picture, was near the attack last night

It seems spurious to be blogging about knitting, in the aftermath of last night's terrorist attack in London.  It's a city I know fairly well, as I've lived and worked here since 2011.  I was aware of something going on via social media before I went to sleep last night.  Mr Knitty was awake before I was this morning, and told me it was a terrorist attack by giving me a massive hug when I woke up. London is a city I know and love, inhabited by people I know and love. All the places on the news where the attack took place are all places I have woven into my life story.

London in the cold light of day

Again, my sadness is for the people directly involved.  Tomorrow may be interesting; it appears that some of the injured were taken to the hospital where I work (thank you Swedish media) and I also have an appointment at Guy's tomorrow, which is right next to where the attack happened.  It is moments like this when I am incredibly proud to work for the NHS.  And again, Twitter took the mickey in the way that we British do best.

My uniform and international necker - for a foreign visit last year

Yesterday was a better day.  I spent all of it at Girlguiding Regional Headquarters with other international advisors, discussing Plans and sharing ideas.  Our voluntary role is to advertise international opportunities to all members, help to select girls and leaders for international trips and support groups going away if needed.  Above is my uniform top and neckerchief from when we went abroad last year.  The union flag badge is one you sew on your uniform when going away internationally. 

The plan today was to sit and knit a hat, using Sockmatician's Invisicrown pattern (Ravelry link).  The yarn was bought for my nephew's blanket and I have a purple and red ball left over.  In a day of feeling out of sorts, creating something seems to be a good way of being productive.  Very annoyingly, I cannot find the double point needles that I need to swatch and knit.  Instead, I'm putting together ideas for another international trip to Bruges later this year.

Oh - and I've finished the cable breaker.  

Well.

I have a secret project which I wanted to get finished on a deadline, which I've finally got round to swatching for today.

The pattern and yarn were bought from an online retailer; the yarn was recommended for the pattern by said retailer.  The pattern says that 26 stitches and 34 rows measures 10cms on 3.25mm needles.  I know I'm a loose knitter, so started with 2.75mm needles and it came out at about 13cms.  I tried today with 2.25 needles and got down to about 11.5cms, knitting absolutely as tightly as I could.  I do have 2mm bamboos, but I fear I'd snap them if I tried knitting too tightly.

My knitting guru, Extreme Knitting thinks the yarn I have is too heavy for the project  and it might not drape well.  She's suggested a different pattern for the yarn, as forcing the gauge risks me knitting something I'm not happy with (and as it's supposed to be a gift, I darn well want to be happy with it). 

I'm not going to name the retailer, as I've not yet had the chance to contact their pattern support - but for the time being, I have a pattern with a yarn I can't use, or yarn with a pattern I can't use - whichever way you want to look at it.  And that makes me a little grumpy.  Of course, there are always options about what to do with the yarn and the pattern, one of which may be learn crochet.  I rather suspect the project I want to complete, is not going to be complete in time, which also makes me a little grumpy - and disappointed in myself. 

In the interim, I'm re-knitting the sick day pi shawl in the correct weight of yarn.  Yesterday, we had a briefing day for the girls we're taking to Slovenia and Croatia in the summer, at the end of a stupidly busy week.  As part of the day, we went to Pax Lodge, one of the five world

centres for all Girl Scouts and Girl Guides.  They're celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, and I got a badge to mark the occasion.  Everything got a bit too much for me somewhere after lunchtime, so I sat and knitted whilst the girls played games.  The leader in charge of our trip asked if I could teach her to knit, as she thought it might be something she'd enjoy, so I'm counting that as a double win.

What have you been knitting this week, successfully or otherwise? 

Wintercamp

Last weekend, I spent two nights in a muddy field with some dirty Scouts.  When I say 'muddy field' - that was just the Scouts.  I was tucked up nice and warm inside, thank you very much.  I wasn't joking about the mud though.  There were muddy fingernails, dried mud up to the knees; I even saw one lad with mud splashed across his face!  The Twitter feed is here which has some muddy photos, to give you an idea.  The event itself was Wintercamp, run by the Scout Association.  Split over two sites, it's the largest camp run by the association.

As well as being inside to sleep, I was also inside to do activities. I turned up ready to do whatever, and the 'whatever' I was allocated was:

Result !

Because there are rules about publicity photos and the internet etc, I didn't take any photos of the young people who were at the event, which is a shame because the stuff they created was amazing and creative and colourful.

In the craft room, we had Jean

who was doing something with paint on the first day and duct tape roses on the second:

She's married to:

who declined the offer to have his photo appear on the internet, but was happy for me to take a photo of his name, so I could remember who he is.  (If you can't read it clearly, it says Mike).  He was making stuff from fantasy film, the plastic stuff you dip wire into:

You know Hama beads ?  We had those too:

The young people were making coasters, by putting them into a circular tin and melting them all together with a paint stripper type torch.  Wish I'd taken photos of those, just for the colours.

There were knotted phone charms:

I did these in Sweden (for the World Scout Jamboree in 2011) in the faiths and beliefs zone.  If the body of the man is slid up, it means the person is happy, if the body of the man is slid down then it means he's unhappy.  There's something about the six knots which make up the body being related to six somethings in Buddhism, I just can't remember what the somethings are.

There were proggy squares:

This is a form of rug making.  Whilst I understand the technique is used all over the country, the name is specific to the North East.  There's a BBC article here, a blog article with examples here and Tyne and Wear museums have a detailed tutorial sheet here.

As for me, I was doing dreamcatchers from floral wire and acrylic yarn.  This is the example I made to show the Scouts what they were aiming for.

I did think about bringing my knitting to do in the moments of waiting for the room to get busy, but decided that an orange cotton/alpaca mix wouldn't go very well with mud.  Instead the Scouts challenged me to knit with bits of  spare floral wire, which I sort of could and sort of couldn't do.  Casting on was easy.  The problem was with the ends of the wire, which had been cut with scissors rather than wire cutters, so kept catching the yarn each time I made a stitch.  There was a small internal shudder every time I called it wool instead of yarn, but I don't think anybody noticed.

There were dreamcatchers with stars on, with hearts on, without the middle circle, with the middle circle.  One Scout made a dreamcatcher with a cat sitting on a mat.  I wish I'd taken a photo of every single one, because they were so clever and creative.  The two below were both made by Scouts.  The swan dreamcatcher was made by a female Scout who gave it to me.  (I don't think she liked it).  The red and black one was made by a male Scout on the last day.  I offered him yarn to take with him, so he could finish it at home, but he said he didn't think he'd have the time - so I finished it for him.  The black and red were his choices; I chose the green:

And then on the journey home, from dreamcatchers to sweet dreams.....