Iceland has been on my mind since Cirilia Rose has been instagraming from Iceland along with her buddy Steven West. You have to check out their photostreams – so entertaining!!! This picture of fish skin shoes had me remembering the time Gudrun and I spent at the Textile Museum up in Blönduós. It turns out that the traditional knitting of Iceland, or rather the antique knitting of Iceland, isn’t the ubiquitous Lopapeysa yoked sweaters, but garter stitch insoles for fish skin shoes. I’d heard about these from Helene Magnusson’s fantastic knitting books, especially Icelandic Color Knitting: Using Rose Patterns.
While wandering the galleries, I was so enthralled with the insoles that the kind women at the museum offered to show me some of the collection not on display.
It is about time I shared them with you!
Here’s how they are stored.
Ok that’s all for now, soon I’ll show you the shoes and some more examples.
