I'm torn between knitting, the urge to write, and, at the same time, an absolute need to do nothing at all. It's been this way for over a year now. There was a stretch when just the thought of having to get up and go to work would send me into...

There was a time when I was waiting for a yarn delivery the way a child waits for Christmas. And writing this article felt a bit like trying to untangle a pile of threads in the dark. Somewhere during that period, I realized just how much space knitting had actually taken over in my life. It wasn’t just a hobby – it was an anchor, a harbor, a quiet place… something that helped me keep my feet on the ground while everything around and inside me was absolute chaos. In the moments when I was at my worst -and surprisingly to me, they lasted quite a long time –…

A few years ago, we were on a trip to Norway, it was around Christmas time and for the first time I saw people wearing these gorgeous sweaters and hand knitted mittens with different patterns, loose, and it felt like everyone was wearing them – in the city, along the pathways, in the mountains. I remember that back then, it didn’t even crossed my mind that I could knit something like that, it seemed like actual rocket science to me. I told myself, ok, I will have to learn how to knit and I made the big mistake that probably many people in my position make – I started…

In Norway, there is an organization that helps people find very old houses and breathe new life into them; they can even help with some of the renovation costs. But I am not going to tell you about them, but about the fact that there is a very big chance that if you open the walls of some two hundred year old house, you will find an old woolen sweater or parts of woolen clothes between its logs. Here, especially in the coastal areas, the weather is damp, the climate is harsh, and the houses are wooden. In the old wooden houses (lafteverk), they used whatever nature gave for…