Iceland Trip - Knitting goods

As I mentioned in my previous post, I bought some Icelandic sweaters. As a knitter, I tend not to buy other people's knitting ("hey, I could knit this myself!") but one makes exceptions when it comes to cottage industries and items of historical/cultural value such as the qiviut/silk hat I bought from the Oomingmak coop in Anchorage or these sweaters.

Alafoss is a big Lopi yarn outlet located outside of Reykjavik, I wasn't able to get there during my trip but they have a small store in the city where I spotted this vest. I think it was knitted with Lett Lopi and would look good with a black long-sleeved shirt.

Most of the cardigans at the Handknitting association were knitted with Alafoss Lopi or several strands of Plötulopi so they were a little too heavy for me. So I bought a lighter-weight cardigan by Farmers Market.

I saw many cardigans during the trip but this one stole my heart at the Keflavik airport as we were leaving: it has a hood with color details, it's not too heavy, it has snap-on buttons covered by a button band, and there's some blue in it!

On the yarn front, I got some Loðband to make a shawl out of Lucinda Guy's Northern Knits, several skeins of Lett Lopi to make fairisle mittens, and six plates of Plötulopi to make Freyja (free pattern on the Knitting Iceland's website).

All the books/DVD in this picture (except the Lopi pattern book) can be bought at the Handknitting association as well as Eymundsson bookstores.

- The two people behind Knitting Iceland, the online knitting magazine and knitting tour company, are Helene Magnusson and Ragnheiður Eiríksdóttir (Ragga). I found the English version of Helene's book in Iceland as "Icelandic Color Knitting". In the US, the book's title is "Iceland knitting: Using Rose Patterns" and was reviewed in KR here. You can buy Ragga's DVD on how to knit your own Icelandic sweater on the Knitting Iceland etsy store.

- I bought my copy of Iceland Knits before my trip directly from the authors. A second book already came out in Icelandic, I'm hoping that the English translation will be available in the near future.

- The book on the top right is all about knitting mittens. Although it is in Icelandic, I think that I can use a basic mitten pattern and use the charts provided in the book.