What a Wonderful Weekend!

This weekend has been absolutely fabulous. It's been jam packed with ethnic pride, good food, knitting, and fabulous company!

Friday night started with a celebration of my Norwegian heritage at the local Sons of Norway Lodge. The food was wonderful.....fruit soup, salmon spread, meatballs, etc......and of course, tons of scrumptious desserts! The evening's entertainment was provided by a very talented Scandinavian fiddling group representing three countries of origin - Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The music was absolutely fabulous.


In the picture above, the fiddle on the right is called a Hardanger Fiddle and is from the Hardanger region of Norway. It has 8 strings....4 that are played and 4 that resonate in a somewhat echoing sound. The music and stories that the music represents is traditional and has been passed down through the generations....and music is still being written for it today. These fiddles are all handcrafted and are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are just gorgeous and the sound is wonderful!


This picture isn't as clear as the posed picture, but it shows the group in action. I loved how animated and happy the musicians were as they played, but it made it very challenging to get a good picture!


The group received a Grammy nomination this year for their "Hambo in the Snow" album of traditional music. It's the FIRST time a Scandinavian group has been nominated for traditional music! I can definitely understand why they were nominated - they were fabulous!

I had been invited to attend the meeting by Melanie whom I met last weekend at the Potomac Celtic Festival when she stopped by the tent where we were teaching drop spindle spinning. I'm so glad she invited me - I had a fabulous time! And, Joy-of-Joys, I'm joining the lodge....and Melanie will be my sponsor! I love it when things just kinda fall into place!

Saturday was spent in a delightful afternoon of good food, good company and knitting fun at my friend Catherine's house. It started with chatting and catching up on current knitting projects (and planned projects), showing and sharing our new books and patterns, etc. I brought "The Knitted Gardens" by Jan Messent. It just arrived with this morning's mail, so it was a very timely delivery. I cannot believe the detail in her creations! They are absolutely stunning! Lisa brought some books to share as well - "The Natural Knitter" and "No Sheep for You". I'm thinking that I really need to get the "No sheep for You" book - it has a lot of very useful information and details on the "non wool" fibers and yarns available for knitting in addition to some very nice patterns.

The "show and tell" session was followed by a very yummy Indian Feast for lunch. Catherine is a fabulous hostess. She provided an wonderful variety of tasty Indian food - including her own incredible home made lime pickles. The spicy flavor was wonderful - my mouth is watering again just thinking about it! I liked it better than any of the commercially prepared pickles and chutneys. Oh...I almost forgot - she also had some home made duck proscuitto. That was absolutely wonderful as well! (I'm getting the recipe for both.....mmmmmmm!!!!!)

Of course, the lunch feast was followed by even more knitty chat we well as some actual knitting. There were 4 of us, so it was very comfortable and cozy. We did a lot of laughing and shared a lot of knitting tidbits. Catherine is an absolute fountain of interesting knitting information. I always leave her house feeling very enriched! I always come away with a new knitting fact or two. One interesting fact I learned today was that true Fair Isle uses only 5 colors. That was shocking to me as I always thought that Fair Isle just meant knitting with multiple colors. The traditional colors weren't exactly what I'd thought they were - they're blue, red, black, yellow, and white! The Shetland Museums Service has a wonderful description of the colors used and the history of Fair Isle knitting.

Oh...in addition to her new Japanese knitting book full of fabulous charted patterns, Cathereine had a new drop spindle that I got to try. She has one of the coveted "Moosies" by Jonathan Bosworth! It's gorgeous and has a wonderful weight. I tried spinning some Cormo as well as some silk on the Moosie - it spun like a dream! The "Moosies" are made from naturally shed moose horns - is that cool or what? (I have now been added to the "Moosie" waiting list - I'll have to wait until after April 2008 to get one, but it will be well worth it! I think the anticipation is half the fun!)