Viking Magazine - September 2010 - 12

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hung from a silver-painted ceiling, and
candelabra atop shelves that are a jumble
of luxurious yarns made from hand-dyed
silk or the fur of the arctic musk ox.
Berg has hosted runway fashion shows
of customers' knits. He's brought in
wine, catered meals, spoken word artists,
and even a klezmer band to entertain
knitters who come in for a few hours of
relaxation at his store.
" I'm about inspiration, " Berg says,
" and letting people-as classic as they
may be, as traditional as they may be-
come and experience a little bit of the
magic, because you'll go home enthused
about those traditional, classic projects
that you are working on as well. " It's a
creative spirit that enables knitters, he
believes. " If you have that true passion
for this, you don't need to follow all the
predesigned rules. "
As it turned out, there was no cause
for the Ingebretsen's knitters to worry:
The group was in their element among
the spools of rabbit-fur trim. After all,
Norwegian knitting has always combined
the practical with the flamboyant,
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and mixed tradition with improvised
self-expression. In fact, Shirley Hansen,
82, a pillar of the Ingebretsen's group
and a prolific knitter of Norwegian
sweaters, found a kindred spirit at Berg's
shop that day.
Berg introduced Hansen to one of
his staff members, who had graduated
from her alma mater, St. Olaf College.
And that's how Hansen, St. Olaf
class of '49, started knitting with Tim
Schmidt, class of '09.
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Hansen joined this tradition of adaptation
and improvisation on her first trip
to Norway. It was 1965 and she was
accompanying her husband, a Lutheran
pastor who was going to Norway to
study the treatment of alcoholism there.
Hansen had learned to knit from her
grandmother as a young girl, and had
swapped handknits for rosemaling
with her girlfriends. In the years after
school, she was eager to try her hand at
her first Norwegian sweater, but there
weren't any classes around in those
days, she says. So in Norway, " I just
hid out in the yarn shops, watching [the
knitters] and asking them questions,
and I kind of picked it up. " What she
learned were techniques, but also some
underlying principles.
" You know people think Norwegian
sweaters are difficult? They're not difficult
at all, " Hansen says. It's a matter
of counting stitches, but because it looks
complex, " you get a lot of credit for
what you do. "
She saw, too, that often Norwegian
knitters weren't really following a written
pattern, they were just mixing motifs
as it pleased them: " All of the patterns
are graphed, but you can move parts
around or skip them if you don't like
them or whatever. " Alternately, she says,
you can make up any kind of pattern
you like: " Just draw it and put the graph
paper over it. You're unlimited. "
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Tim Schmidt was already a fearless
improviser-and an experienced knitter,
though after a lifetime of growing
up in the Norwegian-roots community
of Northfield, Minn. and four years at
a college that was founded by Norwegians,
he still found himself without a
Norwegian sweater. A studio art major,

Viking Magazine - September 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Viking Magazine - September 2010