Hrungnir was one of the giants from Jotunheim. On one visit to Aasgard, Hrungnir drank all the ale from Thor’s cups. While he was drunk he boasted that he was going to drink all the ale from the Aasas. Thor took insult and slayed him in a duel. Hrungnir had a heart of stone, sharp and three-sided, and even his head was of stone. But Thor defeated him with his hammer.
The special shape of Hrungnir’s heart is also known as a Valknut – a knot of three interlocking triangles. In Skáldamál (part of the Prose Edda from the 13th century) it says “Hrungnir had a heart that was famous. It was made of hard stone with three sharp-pointed corners just like the carved symbol hrungnishjarta [Hrungnir’s heart]”, and the symbol can be found in a number of different stone carvings, including one at Stora Hammars on Gotland, Sweden.
Double-knitting is a form of two colour knitting that produces a completely reversible fabric. Each side looks like stockinette knitting – but the colours are reversed between the two sides. There are no visible floats, and thus no “wrong side” of the scarf.
The pattern is available as a PDF download, and includes detailed instructions on two different methods of double-knitting.
For my scarf, I used Arial from Twisted Fiber Art. One skein is in the colourway shadow (blue), and the other is a Twisted Evolution in Firefly – long colour-runs going from bright yellow to gray.
Here are all the finished shawls for my upcoming book with Cooperative Press.
This picture makes me so happy. It represents months of hard work, and it’s very colourful – just what I need to brighten an otherwise gray and dreary winter day.
A day at a hockey tournament turned out to be just what was needed to finish Vampire Mitchell’s Mitts.
They were actually “almost done” for a while, but I had procrastinated sewing in all the ends. All twenty of them.
It’s still too cold outside to actually wear them (-20C), but I’m hoping warmer weather is around the corner. Somewhere.
In the meantime, I’ll wear warm, wooly sweaters, and drink copious amounts of hot tea.
The third and final pattern in the Fairy Tale KAL is Ali Baba – based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from Arabian Nights. The complete story can be read in an earlier post, and I really had a good time converting this story to a shawl. The reason I chose this ruby port colour and a silk lace yarn was that it made me think of Persian carpets.
The gold coins Ali Baba found in the thieves’ cave are depicted on the shawl. There are also forty of them – for the forty thieves. Underneath is a set of gates, all with an extra yarn-over. This represents the first time the thieves tried to find Ali Baba’s house and marked his gate with chalk. His trusted servant then marked all the surrounding gates with the same chalk mark, so the thieves could not find him.
The second set of gates all have a missing yarn over, representing the chunk that the thieves cut out of Ali Baba’s gate the second time they tried to find his house. Again, the servant marked all the surrounding gates by chipping them as well.
And then along the bottom edge are the flames from the burning oil that the servant used to smother the thieves hiding in the barrel.
Finally, the shape, four equal quarters (which makes the shawl half an octagon) was chosen because Ali Baba’s brother was quartered. This may just be a little too much information if you ever want to show off your fancy silk lace shawl, so feel free to leave that out if you’re talking about your shawl. 
It’s time to start getting ready for the Folk Song KAL – the spring version of the Seasons of Lace hosted by yours truly. This season we will be knitting three lace shawls that are inspired by three different folk songs.
The other day I went on a ski-trip with my children’s school. It was a lovely day, but it involved spending 1.5 hrs each way on a bus full of grade 5 – 8 students. And while they were very well behaved, that just didn’t seem like the place to be knitting intricate lace designs. So I cast on for a much simpler project. A pair of fingerless mitts, designed to look like the ones Vampire Mitchell wears in the British version of Being Human. Except…. his are green, and sometimes green with white stripes. And I like blue. So I used a blue yarn from Marks & Kattens with long colour runs. I really like the way it’s knitting up.
We had quite the snowstorm here in Ottawa (and many other places) on Wednesday this week. Lots of snow, and even more importantly, lots of wind. So the streets were closed, the school buses not running, and we decided to spend the day at home with a fire going.
While there was some seating available outside, I decided that it would be a lot nicer to sit by the fireplace instead. I sat down to finish off a shawl I’ve been working on. It’s almost done – maybe another 15-20 minutes left of knitting, and…..
SNAP!
I sat down on my needles. So instead of being able to finish the shawl, I would have to hunt for more needles in the same size. I’m sure I have some, somewhere. 3.5 mm needles – anything would do – straights, circulars, even dpns.
But after a halfhearted attempt of finding a suitable set, I decided to do what any sane person would.
Wind some yarn and cast on for a new project. This is Glacier Ice from Rocky Mountain Dyeworks. A lovely laceweight yarn in a warm and sunny colour – exactly what I need to distract me from snow.
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