These are some of my winter knitting projects... I was bored and charted out a simple cable pattern and started knitting like a wild man. These three hats are from some Lopi yarn I bought on a shearing trip last year. It is awesome yarn imported from Iceland. Every once in a while you'll see a small piece of moss of grass and it's like the 'terroir' of Iceland for me. Like real authenticity, and as a shepherd, cowboy, farmer and artist, this really appeals to me. So I hope that you'll enjoy it too.
The coarser outercoat of Icelandic sheep provides a really great functionality in weather-proofing these hats too. It can be a little itchy because the diameter of the cut ends of the fibers can prickle a bit, but it doesn't bother me at all. As those coarser fibers create a halo in the finished knitwear, it helps to shed rain and snow while the soft down insulates and keeps you warm. The wool from old Scandinavian breeds, and old strains of some other breeds and landraces that have been improved for industrial production like Shetlands have been hotsell, had this double-coated characteristic that made the rugged textiles and even the sail cloth for the Westward expansion of the Vikings. Modern re-creations of sailcloth from improved strains like Gotlands have failed, actually causing boats to capsize, but wool like from the Gute, the direct, unimproved ancestor of Gotlands would shed rain and be strong enough for trans-Atlantic sailing. Wool from these breeds excites me every time I handle it. I'd love to shear and handle wool from all these Northern Short Tailed breeds some day. Maybe shear my way across Northern Europe and collect fleeces as I go. If I could handle as many thousands of those fleeces as I have Shetland fleeces over the years, I'd be so happy that I'd probably just turn into a cheeseburger- that is true ascendance in my opinion. A big, medium rare cheeseburger and pint of a dark malty beer. Now I'm hungry...
At any rate, I loved knitting this wool and I hope you'll enjoy wearing the hats as much as I enjoyed making them! Dios te bendiga!
Product code: Hand-knit hotsell Cabled Icelandic Lopi Beanie