dkk knits

So, my sister has been traveling around Europe for the past two months. Surprsingly, I'm not that jealous. Really. Truly. Except maybe a little, teeny bit whenever she emails me about all the cool knitting she is seeing on fashionable ladies in Iceland, or Berlin, or Copenhagen. She sends me little snippets of design ideas - gauzy or deconstructed tunics, necklace necklines, chunky knits. She says the women in Copenhagen make knitting look chic. Intrigued, I spent a little time perusing the internet for some made in denmark knits, and wow, there is some crazy stuff out there. Why I haven't been drooling over international knitting for years is beyond me. Design sense +  lithe, skinny european figures = some very adventurous knitwear.

Check out this dress from Trine Elmkvist, a graduate of the The Danish Design School.

   
I don't think this is what my sister had in mind, she was probably drooling over something machine-made and ridiculously impossible to knit like this:

I'll take the fun, handknit garter patchwork dress any day. And by take, I mean knit. I'm not quite confident enough to pull off wearing something like that. Which is maybe the downfall of a lot of the couture knitting I viewed. This chunky knit hat?

 

Seriously insane. You won't be seeing a pattern for one of these headache-inducing puppies on this blog anytime soon. I did, however, find one piece of handknitted yumminess that manages to be both chic, cozy, fun to knit and beautifully wearable.

This sweater makes me swoon. It's from a handknit line by Gudrun & Gudrun. You can't tell from the picture, but the knitting is just loose and gauzy enough be really sensual and drapey. It's knit from organic Faroese wool. Apparently it's their best seller, and Helena Christensen wears hers all the time. 
And it's only 2,100 DKK. Which is, hmmm..... $372.41.

They don't skimp on prices in Denmark, let me tell you. In fact, that was the other half of my sister's recent report from Copenhagen - some serious whining about how expensive it is. Yup. Definitely not that jealous.