May is a busy month for us but it is also the time of the year when we usually travel somewhere nice for a week, to get away from it all. This year, we chose to combine a business visit to the Rowan Mill in Yorkshire with a holiday tour of some of our favourite gardens in the UK as well as a visit to Chelsea Flower Show.
At Rowan, we were able to discuss the new collection we will be designing for autumn / winter 2020-21 and we also put the finishing touches in our design magazine for Rowan “New Nordic Men” which will be released on August 1st. We also got to participate in the selection of covers for the upcoming magazines as well as the smaller publications.
Arne is busy thinking and selecting his favourite covers. You’ll have to wait until August to see which ones made the cut.
After a great and creative day at Rowan, we returned to London to meet up with some friends and went on visits to many of our favourite gardens and estates, such as Sissinghurst (Kent), Charleston House (Sussex) and Hidcote Manor (Gloucesteshire). Then we continued on to London and Chelsea Flower Show, which was absolutely packed with people. The sunny weather made it really hot and unbearable, but still, we did enjoy it and managed to get lots of inspiration for both our garden and future design work. We also came home with lots and lots of seeds! Here are a few photos from our trip:
Carlos enjoys the stunning cottage garden at Sissinghurst, in Kent.
Arne dressed in camouflage at Chelsea Flower Show.
Beautiful display at Chelsea Flower Show!
Flowers and floral displays all over London. Here from Sketch, where we went for afternoon tea.
Another photo from Sketch with some floral displays which we are certain were inspired by Chelsea Flower Show.
Even Rowan at Liberty had flowers on display in honour of Chelsea Flower Show: Our cushions!!
Another part of the Rowan store at Liberty had a display of designs from the latest magazine. Our monochrome top, Bernice is displayed in the front of this photo.
In front of Charleston House, the Bloomsbury group’s home in Sussex. This is such an inspiring place – both the house and gardens!
So, all in all, we had an inspiring and fun week’s vacation in the U.K, spent in the company of some lovely friends! We can’t wait to go back to the UK for more inspiration and luckily we won’t have to wait for long, as we are taking a group of people to the UK for a garden tour in August, where we will visit some amazing places in the Cotswolds, including The Prince of Wales’ garden at Highgrove! If you want to join us, we do have a couple of spots available. Click here for more info
Now, let’s talk about this week’s episode!
We really do read comments and do our very best to answer as many as we can on our YouTube channel and also here on our blog. It’s such a great way to interact with you! We also get lots of ideas for new episodes by reading comments, as many people do ask us to teach them a particular thing. So, by popular request, we finally have recorded our short course in Norwegian knitting language, so that you may learn the basics. Once you’ve learnt some basic Norwegian terminology, you will be able to takle those beautiful vintage patterns in Norwegian that you may have laying around in your house!
You can check out the video here:
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And here is a recap of the most important words in a Norwegian pattern.
Stitches, sts = M, Masker
Cast-on, CO = Legg opp
Knit Two, K2 = 2r, to rett.
Purl Two, P2 = 2vr, to vrang. Vrang also means “cranky” – which is what Carlos gets when he isn’t fed at the right time, as his blood sugar drops if he doesn’t eat at regular times.
Bind-off, BO or Cast-off, CO = Fell av
And of course, after the video was edited and ready for publication, we realised that we totally forgot to teach you the most obvious words like “knitting” in Norwegian which is “strikking”. The verb “to knit” is “å strikke” and “strikk” means “knit” or “knitwear”. However, “strikk” can also mean “elastic band” or “rubber band” in Norwegian, and this may very well be the translation you may get if you use Google Translate… Once, we wrote a post on instagram in Norwegian, which should have been translated into English like this: “Knit a snug sweater for yourself” (strikk deg en deilig genser). But Google Translate came up with the following translation into English: “Rubber band yourself a delicious sweater”. This was so hilarious and it also proves our theory that both Google Translate and Autocorrect don’t know the first thing about knitting and are completely insane!!
Next week, we embark on the Norwegian Coastal express for the “Knitting under the Midnight Sun” cruise and look forward to writing up a trip report here in the blog!
At the garden in Monk’s house, Virginia Wolf’s home in Sussex.
Calendar of events (click on links for more info)
NEWS!! Dream Knitting Cruise from Sydney to New Zealand. Yes!!! We are delighted to announce that we are returning to Australia and visiting New Zealand in 2020. Join us for this amazing 12 day, 11 night Knitting Cruise that departs from Sydney on March 27th, 2020 and visits all the amazing sights in New Zealand! More information is available here and here.
NEWS!! The TAOS retreat with Vogue Knitting has just opened up for registration! It will take place from October 24-27, 2019 and you can sign up here. This retreat is almost full, there are only a few spots left and the early bird offer ends on August 18th.
August 15th – 19th, 2019: Tour some of Britain’s most stunning gardens together with us. In addition to visiting some seriously beautiful gardens in the Cotswolds, we have tickets to Prince Charles’ Garden at his private residence, Highgrove. These tickets are almost impossible to come by, so this is a unique chance! There are still a few spots available. We are SO excited about this trip!! More information is available here.
March 3rd – 9th, 2020: “Knitting under the Northern Lights”. Cruise along the stunning Norwegian coast together with us. We just opened this cruise for registration and half of the spots are already gone. We expect it to sell out very soon. More information is available here.
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So enjoyed the different terms of American knitting terms and Norwegian terms. Thank you.
You are very welcome!
Google’s translation really made me laugh. Thanks for that:))
Need to know how to read increase and decrease in Norwegian. Thanks. I’m trying a pattern for ski socks with a shape calf in a motif🙃
Thank you, love this weeks you tube post.
Tusen takk from North Dakota.
Arne, your camouflage shirt is the most wonderful shirt and I absolutely love it. You have impeccable taste! (You too, Carlos.) :<)
Thank you for a start on the knitting terms class in Norwegian. My three sisters and I are so looking forward to the Knitting Under The Northern Lights cruise next March.
Hi Arne & Carlos. Love getting my email telling me what you boys have been up to especially the photos. I am going to be very Virgo now and ask you why the unkept look, no shaving & messy hair. Liked the well kept look much better! You both look as if you have just got up.
I like their look…can’t imagine Arne with a brush cut! Love Carlos’s hair, especially the color.
As always the episode was wonderful. Thank you!
I always enjoy your podcasts. This one was especially fun to learn a few Norwegian terms and hear them in the two dialects. Thank you. (Time to legg opp a new project)
Thank you, that was great! I will share with my mother!
Thank you so much. I really enjoy your video’s. This one was really great as I haven’t really tried Norwegian knitting because of the language. I’m going to look up a pattern right now and check it out.
So fun to hear you guys. Enjoyed the lesson. Look forward to the next one.
Love your Blog, as a matter of fact, I love all that you two do. I hope you had a chance to rest. I know you were working hard and probably put in extremely long days. Don’t get over tired please. We would miss you if you were to get sick.🧶🧶🇨🇦
Hello from western Canada! I get very Vrang myself when not fed, so that is a word I won’t forget! Enjoyed the lesson!
Hi enjoy you both love your talk about flowers in the garden keep up the great work in doing your podcast.
Oh my goodness that translation is hilarious ! Thank you for the pictures, I’ve always thought the Chelsea flower market would be wonderful.
Thank you for the translation of knitting terms. My husband and I were fortunate enough to be part of the knitting cruise this past fall. While waiting at the airport in Kirkenes I bought the magazine Familien. It has the pattern for Paul McCartney’s Fair Isle Genser. I love Fair Isle knitting so thought this magazine would make a great souvenir. I have had fun figuring out the pattern on my own but will go into it with greater confidence now.
We thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the cruise! The scenery was gorgeous and spending time with a group of delightful knitters was special. Touring the yarn factory was fascinating. Having you two as part of it was just the frosting on the cake!
What a great episode! I loved learning the Norwegian words for knitting terms! You bring so much joy to my day! Thank you for sharing your lives and knowledge with us all!
Hi Arne and Carlos!
So excited to hear some of the details of your Australia visit!! We are really looking forward to your visit here. Hope you will make it to Melbourne again as we missed you last time and my little daughter is a big fan! Will keep a sharp eye on your future emails 🙂
Thanks!
Your you tube channel helped me get through the hottest summer in regional NSW, Australia. I was transported to your snowy realm, such a relief.
I’m not a knitter, but have been inspired by you both, to start embroidering again, and to have a pathetic stab at knitting.
Thank you!
Arne and CARLOS…your conversations are wonderful. Could you perhaps tell us how you both learned how to knit, etc. I have visions of being children learning from Grandma by candlelight!
Thank you for these lessons. I do have a couple of Norwegian knitting books, of course in Norwegian. I also want to learn more Norwegian and do Duolingo on the Internet. Norwegian is My ancestral language.
Hello from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.
I happened on to your site when I returned to knitting about 2 years ago; love it ! When I found your Selbu Mitten pattern, I fell in love with it, but, alasI couldn’t read the pattern,
And searched the web to learn. I knitted 5 pairs, and decided to find your pattern again. I made one pair and decided to make the smaller pair. I am very happy with the results so far. However; I did not down load the pattern and now I have 2 mittens without thumbs and no pattern. I couldn’t even find it in your shop to buy. C an you help me out?
Loved the tour of your spring garden loved the variety of plants that you have and we have also. We have about 75 Rhody’s, where we live in the Pacific northwest we also have to choose hardy plant’s.