Jenny Alderbrant - Winter Knits from Scandinavia: 24 Patterns for Hats, Mittens and Socks

WINTER KNITS

FROM SCANDINAVIA

24 PATTERNS FOR HATS, MITTENS, AND SOCKS

JENNY ALDERBRANT
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLOTTE GAWELL

First published in the United States of America in 2018 by

Trafalgar Square Books

North Pomfret, Vermont 05053

Originally published in Swedish as Sticka varma vantar, sockor & mssor.

Copyright 2017 Jenny Alderbrant and Semic Publishing

English translation 2018 Trafalgar Square Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, by any means, without written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer quoting brief excerpts for a review in a magazine or newspaper or on a website.

ISBN: 978-1-57076-910-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958133

Text and Charts:Jenny Alderbrant

Photography:Charlotte Gawell

Design:Monica Sundberg

Editor:Eva Bergman

Reproduction:Italgraf Media

Translation into English:Carol Huebscher Rhoades

Cover design:RM Didier

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I would like to give a huge thank you to Annelie Lindqvist at Semic, who provided the opportunity for me to author this book, with many thanks as well to everyone else at the publishing house.

A giant thanks also to Charlotte Gawell for the fine photos. You are unbelievably hardworking and can get anyone to look good and comfortable in any situationeven when anyone is a pair of socks!

I also want to thank my test knitters: Erika Bad, Pia Abramsson, Christina Svedberg, Anita Bergkvist, Inger Bergman, Else Marie Homme, Cecilia Sandgren, Emma Lundahl, Lisbeth Alakangas, and my mother Ulla Skramest and sister Kamilla Alderbrant, who helped by knitting all the samples shown in the book. You are all fantastic, and I am so happy that you were aroundand willing to serve as sounding boards whenever new ideas popped up.

My thanks also go to some of the sweet models! They include Irma Westenberger with the horses Sveinn and Hleggur, and also Erika Bad (again) and her daughters Astrid and Kerstin.

My warmest thanks go to my family, who stood by me when I was the most distracted with my pattern creating and spread yarn and knitting all around me.

Puzzles and handcrafts have always been a big part of my upbringing. My mother knitted a lot when I was a child, and I probably learned how by watching her. But I consider Christmas 2012 the real starting point for my knitting as an adult. I had taken yarn home to Mama to knit a sweater for my French bulldog, Penny, who was rather sensitive to the cold. Nothing came of that projectbut I was inspired to knit socks after I saw all the fine colorful pairs my mother had knitted.

No sooner said than done! I learned the basics from my mother that holiday and started knitting. Without really having a clue about the process, I managed to finish a pair of stranded multi-color knit socks. After I discovered that stranded knitting worked best by knitting or sometimes purling in the correct sequence following the pattern, it wasnt much of a stretch to design my own patterns. First out was a pair of mittens with a French bulldog on them. Pattern creation has now become my greatest passion! I love the challenge of trying to fit a detailed design proportionately on a chart.