A knitter in Iceland

Last month, my husband and I visited Iceland for ten days to celebrate our anniversary. During that time I kept up with Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, and it was so nice to hear from those of you who enjoyed the updates! Since it turns out that there’s yarn just about everywhere you look in Iceland, I thought I’d share a roundup of all the wooly highlights (and a bit of scenery) from our trip. Lucky for all of us, my husband gets a kick out of watching me go all geek on yarn! That, and he’s getting handmade Icelandic sweater out of the deal. ;)

Let’s start with how amazing Iceland is. This might be common knowledge, but Iceland is a gorgeous country! I’ll just leave a couple of these right here…

Heidi in Stuðalheiði! 

Icelanders really know how to breakfast. Mmm, so much cheese, bread, tea and veggies! Kinda makes a girl want to get up early and start the day with a full meal on the regular…

We stayed on a sheep & horse farm for a couple of days, and I shot a bunch of video. Life has been really busy since we’ve been back, so as I work on the video, here’s a sneak peak of the beautiful horses we met on the farm to tide you over!

A video posted by Heidi Gustad (@handsoccupied) on Mar 11, 2016 at 2:49pm PST

Saved the best for last! Yarn! The crazy thing about Iceland is just how amazingly prevalent yarn is. You can find handspun yarn in boutiques, office supply stores, and even the grocery store! Tune in later this week for a closer look at my Icelandic yarn haul. :D

The Handknitting Association of Iceland store in Reykjavik
Gallerí Alþyðulist
Yarn at the A4 in Egilsstaðir
The yarn section at a grocery store (Netto) near Höfn.
PS: Don’t those look just like Knit Picks’ needles?
PPS: My favorite yarn label design of the trip is below, & it’s a Norwegian yarn called Smart.

Say it with me: lopapeysa. Lopapeysa is the name for the traditional Icelandic sweater. I’ll post more about what lopapeysas are when I finish the sweaters I’m making from some of the Icelandic yarn I bought there. For now, you can feast your eyes on some of the roughly one kergillion lopapeysas (pretty much all handmade, mind you) that were for sale everywhere around Iceland, from Reykjavik to Seydisfjordur.

The time I got a knitting tattoo. Yarn is such a big deal in Iceland that there’s a road sign symbol (pictured above) dedicated to where you can find handmade Icelandic crafts, most commonly knitwear. As soon as I realized that the sign we kept seeing on road signs did, in fact, indicate this (my initial thought was that it had to be too good to be true), I fell in love. I found an amazing tattoo artist in Reykjavik who used a special tattoo technique that involves hand poking the tattoo, which made it extra special and unique. I’m obsessed with how it turned out!

A video posted by Heidi Gustad (@handsoccupied) on Mar 16, 2016 at 7:26am PDT