Hi there! Check out my long-awaited road trip to the North of Norway - Lofoten, Senja, Svartisen, and other stunning places. And of course, I had to take my knitting with me and show it to you.
The trip in short
- Route: from Oslo all the way up to Senja, above the polar circle, and back. Almost 4,000 km (over 2,000 miles) in total. We have never traveled that far with our van.
- When: the end of July and the beginning of August.
- The crew: me, my husband behind the scenes, and our brand-new camper van that we wanted to test in a real-life scenario.
- The plan: explore the North, hike a lot, and knit a lot.
Chapters
- Introduction (0:00)
- Ferry trip from Kilboghamn to Jektvik and the Svartisen hike (3:36)
- Knitting chat on a windy beach on Senja: The Traveler hoodie (6:36)
- Husfjellet hike on Senja (15:35)
- Hesten hike on Senja (16:11)
- Rambergstranda in Lofoten (17:03)
- Hamnøy viewpoint in Lofoten (17:55)
- Knitting chat: Ooey Gooey sweater (18:18)
- Værøy trip (19:45)
- Behind the scenes (21:04)
Patterns and other things that I've mentioned in this video:
- The Traveler hoodie by Andrea Mowry, knit in Dansk Pelsuld 8/2 from Hjelholts Uldspinderi.
- Ooey Gooey sweater by Andrea Mowry, knit mostly in Finull from Rauma Garn. This is the 2025 Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival sweater that Andrea made.
- Gretes Håndarbeid, the yarn store in Leknes, Lofoten.
Knitting on the road
The Traveler hoodie, version 2
I think I chose well what to work on while traveling: I'm traveling and knitting The Traveler. This is already my second one. I talked about the first one, my most worn knitted garment, in Episode 6.
My modification: I don't start at the bottom. In the pattern you knit the hoodie from the bottom to the top. I do the same trick as with my first version:
- Using the Provisional cast on method, cast on in the underarm area and knit the yoke up to the top.
- Pick up stitches and knit both sleeves, and then the hood.
- In the end, pick up the stitches where I started and knit down to the bottom.
I have two reasons for that:
- This sweater grows a lot after blocking. The designer tells you where to stop so it blocks out to the right length, but it is still a little bit unpredictable. Knitting the body last, from the top to the bottom, gives me more control over the length.
- I might run out of yarn. I have 4 skeins of 100 g with 400 m each, which makes 1,600 m, and the pattern asks for around 1,700 m. Designers usually include 10-15% extra, so I hope that I'm within this margin. If not, the hoodie will be just a little bit more cropped.
About the yarn: the pattern recommends sport weight, and my Danish yarn is fingering weight. I bought it on a trip to Denmark a couple of months before. I swatched, and I got the same gauge as the pattern asks for, so I suppose I'm good.
Sweater surgery on the beach
I cast on the number of stitches that the pattern has at the very bottom, knit about 2 cm in the round, divided for the front and the back, and finished the front yoke. Then I started the back and figured out that in one place the sweater was twisted. Maybe I was paying more attention to the views than to my knitting.
So one morning I had about one and a half hours of a very fun activity. I cut the strand of yarn in the underarm area and unraveled the part where I started. Now I have two separate pieces, the front and the back. Once the back yoke is done, I will connect them again and knit several rounds to keep them attached.
I got a little bit more fun than I was supposed to have!
Ooey Gooey sweater and an emergency yarn stop
My other project of this trip was the Ooey Gooey sweater, a new pattern by Andrea Mowry with colourwork on the yoke. You can play a lot with the colours here. Mine is mainly bright pink. The colourwork is pinkish-whitish with specks of blue, yellow and orange, and I added white for the ribbing.
Of course, as it usually happens, at some point I ran out of yarn. So we made a yarn stop at Gretes Håndarbeid in Leknes. It is a small town, but I was amazed how big the store is and what a selection of yarn they have. As a souvenir for myself I got some Lofoten yarn. I haven't decided what I will make with it yet.
Places we visited
Crossing the polar circle on a ferry
It was so surprising to me: you drive on a main road in Norway, it suddenly ends, and you need to take a ferry. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes even more, and then the road continues. What else would you do while waiting for a ferry, other than knitting? After two days on the road we crossed the polar circle, and we did it on the ferry from Kilboghamn to Jektvik.
Svartisen glacier
A fun fact: this glacier reaches the lowest point of any glacier in Europe, so you can start walking almost at sea level and actually touch it. And we did!
The rock on the way up was under the glacier once, so it is very polished. We were lucky with dry weather, but I can imagine it gets pretty slippery in the rain. Take trekking poles with you if you have them. Next to the glacier the wind is very chilly, because, you know, it's ice. But after some hundreds of meters of elevation it feels very pleasant.
Senja
We decided to spend the major part of our vacation here. The views are pretty similar to Lofoten, but it is less popular. It turned out to be quite famous among tourists already, but not too bad: there are no queues on the mountains.
The weather was a surprise. Above the polar circle, and one of the days it was over 30 °C! A little bit too warm for my taste.
We did two hikes:
- Husfjellet. At some point it got very windy, and at the top we decided not to go further, because it was dangerous. Safety first! I don't think any photo is worth taking if you can be blown away.
- Hesten. Probably the most popular hike on Senja, so be prepared for some crowds. The trail is pretty steep. Don't forget your trekking poles, you will definitely need them on the way back.
Lofoten
I was a bit stressed that it would be too crowded, but no, it was fine. Maybe our secret was coming at the beginning of August: people in Norway normally take their vacation in July.
People don't exaggerate when they say it is an amazing place. The water is so blue and bright. I would never have guessed that you can find it so far in the North.
- Rambergstranda, a beach where some people were actually swimming. I wasn't so brave.
- Hamnøy viewpoint, the iconic place in Lofoten. I bet you saw these red houses before.
Then it got windy and rainy. But Lofoten has its charm when it is a bit moody too.
Værøy
A small island in the southern part of Lofoten, worth visiting for a couple of days for sure. You hike for 40 minutes, maybe an hour, and you get to the top of a hill with a 360° view and a beautiful sea colour. I was hoping to see whales from the ferry, but I wasn't lucky. Maybe next time.
From there we took a ferry to the mainland and drove back to Oslo.
If you like travel knitting, check out my trip to Iceland, where I tried to knit a whole sweater on the go.
