Tag: tromsø

on seasons

DiannaLeave a comment

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A bit related to my post on darkness: today I’m thinking about seasons.

For awhile now I’ve found it curious how so much our modern (western) society chooses to strictly adhere to the astronomical seasons as the only true definition of “season” (that is to say, the idea that each solstice or equinox marks the first day of a new season). As if seasons have borders. The winter solstice is December 22 this year, but does that mean that December 21 is “technically” still autumn? Plenty of people would say yes to that question, but for any of us who live in a climate where it’s been snowing already, that actually makes zero sense. Autumn one day, winter the next? (Maybe so, but that day came weeks ago here.) Perhaps printed calendars have something to do with it, but the older I get the more bizarre I find it, all the same.

In some ways I feel like social media has amplified this effect in my own life – many of the people I follow, and I myself, often post about the changing seasons at the solstices and equinox. (See a few of my old examples here and here) But the more I see posts about how it’s not “technically” some season yet but it sure feels like it is, the less relevant this strict adherence to astronomical seasons feels. So I guess I’ve been craving something different. Does it “sure feel like winter”? Cool, sounds like it’s winter to me.

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There are, both today and historically, different ways to define or conceptualize a season. Many places have or have had only two seasons: either a summer/winter dichotomy, or in more tropical regions, a wet season and a dry season. The Nordic countries are one of the regions that historically only distinguished between winter and summer – which makes the idea that Midsummer happens around the summer solstice make much more sense. I’m sure there must be others, but that’s the example I’m most familiar with.

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Even in four-season models, there are different boundaries for the four seasons. I’ve already mentioned the astronomical sense, where the seasons begin on the corresponding solstice or equinox. But do you know about meteorological seasons? Professional meteorologists in many regions use these definitions, and they correspond very neatly to three-month chunks: with winter beginning December 1, spring on March 1, summer on June 1, and autumn on September 1 (this is vindication for all you autumn-lovers out there who consider it autumn once the calendar hits September – remember this piece of information and you can use it next time someone tries to tell you “but it’s no technically autumn until September 21/22”).

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There are systems with six seasons, systems that pay no mind to the calendar at all but rather correspond to temperature or other natural or ecological cues, and other ways of marking seasons that you’ve probably never even considered. The “Season” Wikipedia page actually has a lot of interesting information about all of this, if you find all of this as fascinating or as liberating as I do to learn about.

It goes without saying that I speak from my own perspective as someone who grew up and has always lived in the northern hemisphere, so the dates here correspond to that. The photos in this post are all from 2015-2017, when we were living in Tromsø (which is probably the place where I started to disengage from the supremacy of astronomical seasons, because they made so little sense there beyond the summer/winter distinction).

love letter to norway

DiannaLeave a comment

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I’m just back from a 10-day trip to Norway. I mentioned in my last post that Norway had been on my mind lately, and thinking ahead to this trip is part of why. It was the first trip back since my husband and I moved away a year ago, and we visited three cities spanning the country on this trip (Tromsø, where we lived for two years, Trondheim, and Oslo). There was so much to enjoy, and I did my best to soak it all up.

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I love this time of year in Norway – early September in northern Norway means the birches are just beginning to turn golden, and the cool air was a respite after the grueling hot summer Montreal has had. We were extremely lucky with the weather, and enjoyed clear skies for most of our trip, and even got to wave hello at the northern lights again in Tromsø (I have missed the northern lights).

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In Trondheim, the maples were beginning to turn orange and red, which made my heart very happy. I hadn’t spent much time in Trondheim before, but it is a charming little city.

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And in Oslo, I walked some of my favorite oft-trodden paths. I’m incredibly fond of the little wooded paths southwest of Frognerparken, called Skøyenparken. Even though most of the leaves were still green on the trees and flowers were still in bloom around the city, here you could see that fall is coming.

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The trip left me with a lot to think about – and for me, ten days isn’t nearly enough for a trip to Norway anymore (especially when divided between three cities). It was lovely to visit old haunts, see old friends, hear and speak Norwegian again instead of French. But I’m also glad to be back home in my own apartment now, ready to dive into work for this fall after a very busy August. There’s a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. I hope that you’re having a good September wherever you are.

FO: norwegian wool dalur

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I finally had a chance to get some photos of my finished Dalur this week. I mentioned in this post that I’d finished it, but that this post would have to wait until after my thesis was in – and here it is! This has been a really special project for me, so giving it a proper FO post feels important, and I want to share some of the details with you all.

I’m pretty pleased with the photos I finally got of this sweater, which I took last night around 11 PM while I was out for my daily walk – and yes, you read that time right (thanks, midnight sun!). If you’re sitting in summer-like temps as you read this, I apologize if the photos make you break out in a sweat, but I was actually even more bundled up for the walk. I removed my jacket, scarf, hat, and fingerless gloves to take these photos, as it was about 3°C / 38°F when I was shooting. Nonetheless, I hope you like the photos too, and I hope they give you a sense of how this sweater fits seamlessly into my current landscape and northern climate.

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I first shared my plans for making this sweater back in March, at the beginning of Tolt Icelandic Wool Month. The grey yarn used in this sweater was originally slated for a different project last year, but it wasn’t the right yarn or the right pattern for the recipient, really, so it went on the back burner until I could figure out what to do with it. While the pattern is Icelandic (from Knitting with Icelandic Wool), the yarn is not. I used all Norwegian wool for this particular sweater, and I can’t sing its praises enough. The charcoal and the grey are both Hifa Blåne, whose fiber comes from the pelssau, or literally “fur sheep,” a breed that resulted from crossing Gotland with the old Norwegian spælsau, both northern heritage breeds. I have mentioned in the past that Blåne reminds me a little bit of Álafoss Lopi, although it’s not an exact match. Blåne is made up of two distinct plies, while the structure of Lopi more closely resembles a single ply yarn. Both yarns are “hairy,” but I’d call Blåne better behaved, if that makes any sense – the hairy fibers are less unruly than they are with Lopi. In some of the closer shots you may be able to see the slight halo that results when Blåne is knitted into a fabric.

The grey used in the sweater is the natural undyed color of the Blåne, which doubles as the base for the dyed shades. This meant I needed a different yarn for my white contrast, and I opted for Hifa Troll, a bulky weight from the same company with the same structure as Blåne, but I believe Troll made from wool from the norsk kvit sau (the hybrid Norwegian white sheep, which is very common in Norway). I went for the bleached white because I wanted a high contrast between the different colors in the stranded sections.

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I wrote a little bit about making this sweater on Instagram when I first finished it. The pattern is a relatively straightforward bottom-up seamless circular yoked pullover. The biggest modification I made was that I added short rows to the back of the sweater before beginning the yoke for a better fit around the neck (there are no short rows in the pattern as written). I also added length to the body and the sleeves, although I went a bit overboard with the body, because I underestimated my yoke depth (I deliberately used a slightly larger gauge because I liked the feel of the finished fabric). My quick fix was to take scissors to my fully finished and blocked sweater – I cut the body apart at a point where I had joined a new ball of yarn, frogged about 2″ of length, put top and bottom halves of the body back on needles, and then grafted it back together using Kitchener stitch. Full disclosure: I honestly really enjoy Kitchener stitch, so this process was a no brainer to get the finished length I wanted. I’m really happy with the length of the body now, but I kept the extra-long sleeves. (I’m six feet tall and wear a small or medium on top, so ready-to-wear sleeves are never, ever long enough for me. These super long ones are like a special luxury.) The final modification I made was to do a tubular cast on for the body and sleeves, and a tubular bind off at the neck.

A heads up to any of you who may want to make Dalur for yourself: some (though not all) of the colorwork rounds involve carrying three yarns at once, so I wouldn’t recommend it to total newbies of colorwork. If you struggle to work with more than two yarns at once in colorwork, you may find a stranding guide like this one a useful tool to help keep your yarns separated.

I’m SO pleased with how this yoke turned out, and so happy to finally share it with you all. It’s gotten a lot of wear in the past month and I think I’ll probably be able to continue wearing it in the evenings through the summer. If you’re interested in more details (like the exact amounts of yarn I used), you can find my Ravelry project page for Dalur here.

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late may postcard

DiannaLeave a comment

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My thesis is turned in (hurra!) and the midnight sun began about a week ago, both of which sound like markers of summer’s approach, but we’re still trying to free ourselves from winter’s grasp up here in the north. Tromsø has been declared “snow-free” based on the marker outside the weather station, and it is mostly snow-free now, but when you get off the roads and into the woods, or up on higher ground, there are plenty of stubborn patches still hanging around. I took a walk up to Prestvannet this evening, wanting to see what it looks like this year at the end of May.

We had snow early in the month, and while that’s not unheard of here, winter has lingered longer this year than it did last year (looking at this photo from roughly a year ago, I can say definitively that the mountains still have a lot more snow on them now). There are hints that winter’s grip is weakinging, however. The first leaves are finally getting ready to unfurl on some of the trees, a marker of spring/summer that I’ve been eagerly awaiting since the beginning of the month. Most of the branches are still bare, as you can see in these photos, but hopefully not for long. The temperature hovers around 5-7°C (40-45°F) during the day, and while the snow has largely retreated, Prestvannet (which freezes over and accumulates several feet of snow on top of the ice during the winter) hasn’t yet melted, though the thaw is definitely in progress. The many migratory birds that make this their home during the summer are here and out in force – they make quite a racket, and around the clock too, since the sun never sets. I’m glad to hear them, though, because it means that summer is coming. The sound of running water is another small pleasure I’ve been enjoying in recent weeks.

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Even with these encouraging signs that soon, soon this landscape will be transformed into a lush green summerscape, I have to admit I’m really glad that I’m escaping to Oslo this weekend, where there are definitely flowers in gardens and leaves on the trees and I plan to enjoy the positively summer-like temperatures being forecasted. While I truly love Tromsø, the lack of a real spring is one of the things I find most challenging about living here. Lucky for me, it’s a quick trip to Oslo and I’ll get to see some friends while I’m there as well. I’ll be packing the sunscreen.

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april musings

DiannaLeave a comment

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As the rest of Norway is getting ready for påskeferie (Easter holiday), stocking up on Solo and Kvikk Lunsj (orange soda and Kit Kats, basically) and preparing to head to their cabins for a cozy week of skiing/reading/knitting/beautiful time off, I am in the throes of my thesis writing, which will continue all through the Easter holiday. No time off for me. It’ll be really sleepy around Tromsø, but maybe that’s a good thing? As my thesis deadline has crept closer I’m spending more time inside, hunched over the computer, and I get out for fewer walks. Maybe the Easter holiday will be a good excuse to improve upon that situation. I could definitely use the fresh air.

April in Tromsø means a constant cycle of melting snow, rain, and dips in the temperature that bring fresh snow again. Indecisive skies mean sun one minute, clouds and precipitation the next. But that indecision and constant change sounds like April in most places, doesn’t it? (Even if in most places it involves more flowers.) I’ve been deeply envious of all the springy flower photos from back home I’ve been seeing on Instagram recently, but today I find I don’t mind this indecisive Arctic “spring” weather. I suspect this is the result of eating well this week, cutting back on refined sugars (I have a horrible sweet tooth) and going for fresher foods. The longer days help, too. Today’s sunrise was at 5:20 AM and sunset is at 8:10 PM – the midnight sun begins in just a month and a half.

In any case, for now I am living from day to day and keeping that thesis deadline in sight (it’s May 15). It may be a little quieter around here while I work on finishing my thesis. I get in a little bit of knitting time in the evenings, but not more than that. But because it might be a little quiet around here in the coming weeks, I thought I’d share my current progress on the projects I’ll be working on during that precious evening knitting time.

First up, I’m knitting away on my Norwegian wool Dalur (blogged here), having finished both sleeves. After the colorwork section at the hem, the body is just stockinette in the round, so once I cast on for that I think it’ll go quite quickly at this large gauge. But I’ve been waiting for a weekend day when I can dedicate several hours to getting the body started, because I’ll work a tubular cast on which takes some attention (and in that charcoal yarn, probably also some good daylight). Apparently I haven’t taken a new photo since I finished the sleeves, but this still gives you an idea of what a gorgeous sweater this is going to be. I’m really looking forward to working the yoke once the body is finished. And I am loving, absolutely loving, knitting up a sweater out of the Hillesvåg Blåne. This yarn is really special.

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I’ve also been working on both pairs of socks I mentioned in this post, and they have been every bit as soothing as I’d hoped they’d be in this busy and somewhat stressful time. I’m on the second sock of both pairs (Siv is a little further along than Fika at the moment, but I’ve been dividing my time between them pretty evenly – they’re both past the heel now).

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Above is the first of my Fika socks, which I’m knitting up in a BFL Tweed Sock base from Jorstad Creek. It’s such a lovely springy green to be working with at this time of year, and I can’t wait for them to be finished. I used the teeniest bit of Welthase Fingering Light in Hazel for the contrasting toe stripe.

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And my beautiful Siv socks. I wrote about this on Instagram, but the combination of this yarn on these needles is really doing it for me. It’s such a pleasure to knit with. The yarn is the MCN sock base from Kat’s Riverside Studio in the Storm colorway, and I love that I think about my trip to Montréal every time I pick these up to work on them. And I am going to love wearing these.

I actually have more socks planned for my next project – I’m really looking forward to casting on a pair of socks with this super gorgeous yarn I picked up from Hannah of Palindrome Knits (I’m thinking By the Seine River might show off the colorway really nicely) and there’s something super special coming in the mail from La Bien Aimée as well, but I’m definitely waiting until I finish at least one of these pairs before starting any more socks. With any luck it won’t be long now, even with the long writing days.

march

DiannaLeave a comment

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I think March is one of my favorite months here in Tromsø. It’s often beautiful outside, and definitely still winter, but by the time we reach March we’re practically dashing towards the equinox, in the middle of the few magical months where daylight and darkness are so in balance this far north. And when there’s still so much snow, the daylight can have special qualities.

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On a sunny day, it can be positively blinding. But yesterday the light was stranger, moodier. A change in the weather was beginning as we moved into a week of unusually mild, above-freezing days. The clouds hung in the sky like a heavy curtain of gauze, not blocking out the sun, but turning the world around me into one big softbox. The mountains to the south looked flat, like two-dimensional block prints across the horizon in light and dark grey.

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It was, I have to admit, one of my favorite kinds of days for walking. To revel in the bright whiteness of untouched snow without being blinded by it – but at the same time getting to see depth in the sky, and knowing where the sun is too. Since I knew that the weather would be changing this week, yesterday felt like my one chance to get that kind of walk in before it all turns sloshy. The city streets quickly turn into the world’s northernmost Slurpee. (That bit is not one of my favorite parts about living here.)

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In the midst of longer work days, trying to squeeze in some extra transcription for my thesis project which is now due in just two months (eek!), it was so nice to set aside a little bit of time for a long walk. Despite the shifting weather, it was very calm and quiet yesterday. I stood at the southern end of the island, and when you are standing at that point staring out across the strait at the mountains beyond, it is so easy to remember to breathe in big, and to breathe out slowly. In, and out. The slow, calming rhythm is encouraged by the gentle waves lapping at the rocks on the beach.

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I’m sharing these photos so that I can soak up this late winter landscape – and I can’t help but notice it’s full of all of the colors and nuances that drew me to the sock yarn I bought in Montréal (mentioned in this post), which I’ve enjoyed knitting with immensely. Sometimes people ask about how my environment influences my knitwear design work, and there are several ways to answer that question – but it’s always clear to me that the landscape seeps into whatever it is I’m making through colors first and foremost. And aren’t these lovely colors to see outside your window?

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december light

DiannaLeave a comment

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Today is Luciadagen, or St. Lucy’s Day, traditionally a day for celebrating light in the darkness here in Scandinavia. We started our day with an early morning walk up the hill to Elverhøy church for a fairly traditional celebration: one of the university choirs and a youth choir joined up to put on a Lucia procession and concert, lit only by candlelight. One of the girls from the youth choir was dressed as Lucia, with the wreath of candles on her head (those were the only electric candles – the rest were real). Saffron buns (known as lussekatter in Norway) were served. In the age of electricity and artificial light, an experience like that feels like a rare luxury. It was beautiful. (It was also not conducive to phone photos, but you can get a glimpse of what it looked like on my Instagram.)

It also made it feel like this day is an apt choice to share a few of the photos I’ve collected in the past week. It’s been three weeks since the sun disappeared below the mountains in the south – three weeks of no sunrise or sunset. Three weeks of mørketida. But that does not mean it’s always dark. The light that we do have in this season can be so beautiful. It isn’t always – we’ve got a week of rain ahead of us, which will mean dark skies and no snow to brighten up the ground, either. But the past several days have been pretty magic. And as the photo at the top of this post shows, even the grey days can be beautiful in the little bit of daylight that comes.

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I got to take a nice long walk on Saturday during the daylight, and it was such a treat. It was my favorite kind of cotton candy pastel sky. The rest of these photos are from that walk. The world looked like a painting.

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For me, there is so much beauty to be found in the dark season here. Even on the darkest rainy days, I am so grateful to be living here and experiencing this. I hope these photos bring a little light to your day today, too.

first snow and FOs

DiannaLeave a comment

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Things have gotten very busy lately, but I wanted to pop in to say hello and share a few things.

First up: Pomcast, the podcast of knitting & crochet Pom Pom Quarterly, has a new episode up featuring an interview with me! I a live interview with Lydia at the Oslo Strikkefestival, though the audio unfortunately didn’t make it, so Sophie caught up with me via Skype after the fact (we largely covered the same questions, so don’t feel too sad if you missed out on the original interview, and don’t expect it to be wildly different if you happened to be there!). Still, it was fun to do an interview in a room full of lovely people knitting while we chatted and I enjoyed the novelty of wearing a “Britney Spears microphone,” as Lydia called it.

Secondly: while we’re on the topic of the Oslo Strikkefestival, I have a couple of FOs to share that I knit up using yarn I bought at the marketplace! I finished my Lupine shawl, which I wrote about in my last post, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

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The pattern is by Cory Ellen Boberg of Indie Knits and the yarn is the gorgeous gradient I picked up from Squirrel’s Yarns, which was one of my impulse purchases at the festival (the Pécan Fing base in the color Hématite). If you like gradient yarns, I can’t recommend Lisa’s gradients enough. The transitions are impossibly smooth and the finished shawl is so pretty to me in its simplicity.

The other FO is also knit up in one of my marketplace purchases: it’s a Simple Hat by Hannah Fettig in the spælsau yarn I purchased from Værbitt. This was the first time I’ve knit with a 100% spælsau yarn, so I wanted to knit something simple that would get a lot of wear and let me really get a feel for the yarn knitted up in a fabric. I also didn’t want the pattern to compete with the subtle variation in the colorway.

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I have to say, I love the finished hat. This yarn’s a little bit rustic and it feels slightly wiry in the hand – it’s very strong – but it’s also surprisingly soft considering that, and when washed and blocked it developed a bit of a lovely halo that adds to that soft feel. This hat has gotten a lot of wear already and I think it’ll continue to do so.

Lastly: we’ve all been impatiently waiting for the snow in Tromsø, as last week we passed the previous record for the date of the first snowfall of the season (that means in recorded memory, it has never been as late as this year: yikes). But finally, on Saturday evening, the snow started falling. It kept coming down through Sunday, when I got to take a walk down to my favorite park. It’s nice to revisit the photos, because Tuesday turned suddenly warm again, bringing rain, and the snow started to melt almost immediately. Between the rain clouds and the fact that we bid farewell to the sun last week (it won’t rise again until January), it’s been very, very dark this week. Hopefully before too long it’ll cool down again and the snow will come back, but for now, enjoy these photos from Sunday’s walk.

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on darkness and light

DiannaLeave a comment

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I’m going to get a little philosophical today, but I hope you’ll bear with me.

As the days have grown shorter in Tromsø I’ve realized I’m taking fewer photos. I like shooting in natural light best, so as the availability of natural light becomes smaller and smaller, it’s not surprising I reach for my camera less often. But that is only one reason. October moving into November always seems to be one of my busiest times – and the time of year that I am most susceptible to seasonal depression, due to the rapidly changing light and a number of other factors (I wrote about this a few weeks ago on my Instagram, and thank you so much to everyone who responded – I can’t say how much I appreciate both your kind words and your open conversation). My seasonal depression is fall-specific, and doesn’t usually last throughout the winter. So believe it or not, I feel myself coming out of that depressive low now, just as we’re nearing the beginning of mørketida (literally, the dark time, the season in the north when the sun stays below the horizon). In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, there are many people turning to the thought that “the sun will still rise tomorrow” – and here I am, in a place where in a week’s time, the sun literally will not rise on Tromsø. Does that sound dark to you? For me, it’s not as dark as it sounds. I’ve been thinking about the best way to try to explain this.

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One of the most common questions I get at this time of year is people wondering what it’s like to live somewhere where the sun sets so early in the fall, and then eventually, it doesn’t rise or set at all. It’s difficult to imagine if you’ve never experienced it, so here are a few key facts:

  • In Tromsø, where I live, the sun doesn’t rise above the mountains in the south between November 21 and January 21.
  • This doesn’t mean it’s only night and total darkness, however, for the sun spends a few hours in the middle of the day just below the horizon. To imagine what clear days are like, picture several hours of the most beautiful sunset/twilight combination you can imagine. That’s your daylight.
  • Once the snow comes, the effect of the darkness is lessened a great deal. The period leading up to Christmas can be the toughest, as the snow tends to come and go (and this year we have yet to have a proper snow), but after Christmas it usually sticks around and accumulates, and January and February are absolutely beautiful. A proper winter wonderland.

So what is it like to live with? I know Norwegians and foreigners who embrace it and I know Norwegians and foreigners who struggle with it, too. I fall into the former camp – and people are always surprised when I tell them I prefer the polar night to the midnight sun. Everyone is different and there are many factors that influence how we cope with and feel about the dark season. I have always been a night person, often feeling my most creative and productive in the wee hours. That’s probably part of it. But I think mindset is another part.

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As I mentioned in my last post on the yarn I brought home from the Oslo Strikkefestival, I wanted to make a Lupine shawl with the lovely greyscale gradient from Squirrel’s Yarns. I cast on last week after the election news, and the repetitive bands of lace and garter stitch have been my constant companions in an incredibly emotionally trying time. And this gradient yarn, with its slow, smooth transitions, is exactly as beautiful as I hoped it would be. But that’s not what I want to talk about, though – I want to go in a more metaphorical direction.

I could’ve started at either end of the ball when I cast on for this shawl, but I like a center pull ball, and I decided to start from the center – the lightest end of the gradient. The fact that this means I’ve spent the last week literally knitting in the direction of the darkness is not lost on me. It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. I could continue that line of thought – the further I knit, the longer the rows get, and the slower my progress feels, etc. I could see it as a slog. (Fortunately, I don’t.) And here’s the thing – this is where perspective comes in. There’s a Fast Company article that made the rounds last year called “The Norwegian Secret to Enjoying a Long Winter,” and spoiler alert: it’s all about your mindset.

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From where I sit as I knit the shawl, this is my vantage point. I am situated at the dark end, watching the gradient fade back into the light. While I may literally be looking at where I came from, this vantage point allows me to remember that the darkness can – and does – give way to the light again. Our whole world functions in cycles. The planet rotates and orbits the sun, the winter we are heading into will give way to spring and summer, and the daylight will come back. The darkness is an important part of that cycle – and in the case of my shawl, the darker the yarn color gets, the easier it is to see the sparkle of the silver stellina spun into the yarn. Much like we cannot see the stars or the northern lights when the sky is overwhelmed by the light of the sun.

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I read a book a few years ago – while in Norway for the new year, aptly enough – that really changed my relationship with nighttime and darkness. It’s by Paul Bogard and it’s called The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light. It was a game changer for me, and a book I would recommend to anyone and everyone. I’d never thought about the importance of darkness in the balance of life this way before, since as humans we tend to fear the darkness, which can represent danger and the unknown. But this book helped me start to embrace the dark and it changed the way I think about certain types of light. I don’t think I would enjoy mørketida as much without having read it.

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I also want to say that while there are many situations where I think the cycle of light and dark is important, I would not extend that so far as to say that the darkness of the current political situation is a necessary part of any such cycle – I think there is a cycle of dark and light there, but the degree of darkness we have reached goes far beyond any natural cycle. Racism, misogyny, bigotry, and hate should have no place in our society, let alone in the White House (or any of the governments in which xenophobic nationalist movements are gaining ground). But in the midst of this darkness there are bright points of light emerging, and I would encourage you to seek those out. And as I sit and knit my shawl, I will remember that the darkness can – and does – give way to the light again. And in the coming days I’ll be thinking very hard about concrete ways that I can step up and be a part of that movement.

slow fashion october: introduction

Dianna1 Comment

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When Karen launched Slow Fashion October last year, I really wanted to participate. I wasn’t able to take part in any very active way, though, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I was knee-deep in the first semester of my master’s program, trying to keep up with readings and homeworks tromand paper-writing after several years away from any type of schoolwork. For another, I had only moved to Tromsø two months before, so I was only just beginning to adjust to my new climate, which has had (and continues to have) a great effect on my wardrobe. This year, I’m in a much better place to join in on Slow Fashion October with some active reflection. I’ve spent over a year in my new climate and I have a much better idea of how it’s transformed my relationship with clothing. It’s also been a year and a half since I decided to step away from running Paper Tiger as my full-time day job and start the transition back to this being a part-time gig. It feels like a good moment for reflection.

For those unfamiliar, Slow Fashion October was started by Karen Templer of Fringe Association last year as an opportunity for conversation – about what “slow fashion” is and means to us, about the ways in which we approach it, and reasons why a slow fashion wardrobe is a choice many of want to make. In Karen’s words, “the conversation is not just about handmade — it’s about all the ways (and reasons!) we can approach a slow-fashion wardrobe.” This includes finding ways to make do and mend, buying second hand, and thinking about how to keep clothing out of the landfill. I have many, many thoughts on fast fashion and the state of the fashion industry, but for today I’ll focus on how my own context affects my approach to clothing.

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I’ve spent much of the last year thinking critically about my wardrobe and how my move to Norway is affecting my choices, as well as ways to make do with what I have. Even though I donated about half of my yarn stash before the move, my stash is still…. sizeable, to say the least. It no longer overwhelms me, but I would like to knit from it before buying new yarn, and it always feels good to find the holy grail: the right project that fits into my long-term wardrobe plans using yarn I already have. So I’ve slowly (very slowly) started to catalog my stash using Ravelry’s stash feature. While it’s an ongoing process, I’ve already seen the benefits – starting to catalog worsted weight yarns on Ravelry led directly to my Fringe & Friends KAL sweater (pictured at top, and nearly finished!), knit entirely from yarns in my stash. I don’t think that stripe sequence would have popped into my head if I hadn’t been handling the yarns and noting the quantities for my Ravelry stash page.

So, how has my new climate affected my wardrobe? Those of you who follow this blog know that I live in Norway, but many of you probably don’t realize exactly how far north Tromsø is. This felt like a good opportunity to provide some conext:

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Tromsø sits at 69ºN, well above the Arctic Circle (and the entirety of Iceland, which only just barely crosses the circle), and nearly due north of Stockholm (since Norway wraps around the northern coast of the Scandinavian peninsula, it shares a border not just with Sweden, but also with Finland and Russia). I’m up there. Tromsø is about as far away from Norway’s capital, Oslo, as upstate New York is from Savannah, Georgia. Thanks to the Gulf Stream winters are actually quite mild for this latitude, but there’s still about four months of the year when we’ve continuously got snow on the ground. Summers are also mild – 20ºC/70ºF is a hot day – and they can be on the wet side. It’s often pretty windy here. My wardrobe has been moving in a more androdgynous direction for a few years, and living in Tromsø has definitely continued that trend, along with a healthy dose of practicality. When I think about things I want to make for myself now, I’m always taking the weather into account. This is obviously a wool-friendly climate, and truth be told, the biggest gap in my handmade wardrobe now is socks. I wear my few pairs of handknit socks with boots on a very regular basis for most of the year.

Breaking my shoulder in March had an effect on my sartorial choices as well. Spending two months in a sling with instructions not to move my arm in certain directions meant getting in and out of clothing became a special challenge. Button-down shirts and loose boxy tops that were easy to pull on and off with one arm became my go-tos, and to be honest, things didn’t really change that much after my shoulder started improving and I could move my arm again. Clothing that layers well and fits under a coat or jacket is also important. That means most of the time I find myself at a happy medium between fitted clothing and super oversized pieces.

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Continuing this line of thought, I started off Slow Fashion October by frogging a sweater. In the midst of reassessing my wardrobe, I’ve realized there things I just don’t wear anymore. With the exception of the short summer, I rarely wear skirts or dresses here, so my pre-move plan to knit more things I could wear with high-waisted skirts now seems pretty low on the priority list. When I do reach for a sweater to wear with skirts or dresses, it’s my Chuck. Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile may remember the sweater pictured in that previous blog link – my Splitta Genser, with the lovely foldover back and dark grey garter stitch. It’s a nice sweater. I genuinely thought it would help fill a hole in my handknit wardrobe. But – here’s the crucial bit – I never, ever wear it. Truth be told, it came out too small (it’s been rather aggressively blocked in those FO photos). Also, dolman sleeves? Not for me, it turns out – they don’t work so well when you try and tuck them into a jacket. So over the weekend, I sat down and carefully unpicked the grafted seams and then frogged the whole thing. I love wearing grey and I have more of this yarn; I can easily turn it into something I’ll actually wear on a regular basis. I’d rather have it as yarn waiting in my stash than as a sweater that I never wear (clothing storage space is at a premium for us in our closet-less Norwegian apartment).

When it comes to buying ready-to-wear clothing, I’m a little at a loss these days. I find it very hard to avoid fast fashion in Norway and I’ve ended up buying clothing online from the US instead because I know I can buy from companies who are doing their best to make ethical business decisions and promote transparency in the fashion industry. If any Europeans (especially in Scandinavia) have suggestions for clothing companies that are sourcing their fabrics ethically and manufacturing domestically, I’d love to hear about it. Basically, I’m looking for a Norwegian version of my favorite shop in Seattle, Velouria. It feels like it must exist, but if it does, I don’t know about it yet. I guess the silver lining is that I don’t really need anything new – I do have plenty of clothes already.

There’s so much more I could say about my thoughts on slow fashion, but I’ll save some for future posts. I’ve already been doing a lot of thinking and reading in these first few days of October. Karen linked to a really important piece of writing called No One Wants Your Old Clothes – it’s an eye-opening piece that feels like an excellent prerequisite to this year’s conversation. I also just last week started reading Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert, which is already an excellent book just two chapters in and I’ll have a lot more to say about that in a later post as well. Will you all be taking part in this year’s Slow Fashion October?