I think I got that word right. As far as I can figure, it means "finished". Technically I'm only half-finished, since it's half of a pair, but this first one was a very successful experiment. I only fulled it by hand for a bit, then threw it in the dryer for about 20 minutes, so it still has pretty decent stitch definition. I need to try to figure out whether it's small enough or if more fulling is needed, but I figure I've got 11 months to decide.
I meant to write a bit about this yarn yesterday. As I've mentioned before, it's Strikkegarn from the Rauma yarn company in Norway. When I started working with it, I was a little surprised to find that it has that same "velcro" quality as Shetland wool. It doesn't say what breed the wool comes from, but I would think that spælsau is a good guess, especially since as far as I can tell, most sheep in Norway are at least the descendants of spælsau crosses. It's not a fine wool by any means - rather scritchy on the back of the neck but tolerable on the hands - but that velcrosity makes it full beautifully. And this little experiment has shown me that substituting the 3-ply Strikkegarn for the 2-ply yarns this pattern book calls for is going to work very well for fulled mittens.
A Little Geek Confession
While I was finishing this mitten up (and while I'm typing this, actually), I found me an online Norwegian radio station to listen to. Now, I don't speak Norwegian - yet. I've wanted to learn the language for a long time, for a variety of reasons, but it's not that easy to learn outside a structured program, particularly without a chance to practice. I thought it would be good for knitting a Norwegian mitten, though, to put myself in a Scandinavian state of mind. I've found that I can usually pick out enough words to figure out what they're talking about, just not enough to understand exactly what they're saying.
It also appears that Norwegians love 80's music. I don't think I've ever heard a newscast fade into "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" before. No a-ha, though, for some reason. It's a shame, 'cause that Morten Harket has still got cheekbones for days.
