Bohus Stickning (Bohus Knitting)

I came home from NYC to this


That's the smoke from the Griffith Park fire hanging over our neighborhood, and the firetrucks blocking off the park.  It still hasn't re-opened so we can't find out if our wedding spot is still there yet.

But the next day I was distracted by my knitting guild's class in Bohus Knitting.  My knitting guild (Sand & Sea Guild) hosted the incredible Susanna Hanson and she gave us two great workshops.  The first one was on Bohus Stickning (Bohus Knitting).  Bohus knitting is named after a region of Sweden called Bohuslan.  It was a knitting cooperative started by the governor's wife in Goteborg to help the quarrymen's wives earn some money during a depressed economy.  The bohus knitters made high fashion sweaters.  Susanna told us a lot of interesting history of this particular type of knitting and shared her incredible collection of original sweaters with us.  You can also learn more about this type of knitting in the book Poems of Color which was recently re-printed by Interweave Press.








Some sweaters had matching tams.  These sweaters are incredibly beautiful, knit at 8.5-9 st per inch with yarn that has approx 50% angora in it.  The halo from the angora helps the colors blend softly into each other and creates an optical blur that is enhanced by the large number of colors in the designs.


The pattern we got to knit is called Blue Shimmer.  Here are two different Blue Shimmer hats.  The top one is knit from a kit that is available from Solveig Gustafsson at  Sol Silke in Goteborg, Solveig is the dyer who makes the approved kits for the Bohus museum.  The bottom hat is from a kit available from Kimmet Croft and based on the pattern available in Poems of Color.  The patterns in Poems of Color are re-worked at 7 st. per inch.  You can see the difference when you use a larger scale, some of the softness is lost.

Here is one of the sweater kits (guld = yellow) that is available from Solveig at Sol Silke.  This is the kit for the same sweater that the Yarn Harlot knit recently.

And here is the cuff that we knit in class.  This is my finished Blue Shimmer cuff.  I chose to have rolled edges so that the cuff would be narrow enough for my wrists.  This cuff is so soft and warm.  I really loved knitting it, although my gauge changed a little from the beginning to the end.  I used size 000 dpns but they were a bit too long and slippery to work well.  I think I would rather use 2 circulars next time.

I wish I lived closer to Susanna.  She's a fountain of knowledge and a great teacher.  And she's fun too!

Comments

[Francesca]

Janel, will you post about the domino workshop as well?