The Arne and Carlos Report

Through the miracle of Zoom technology we and several others who signed up were able to hear and see Arne and Carlos from their home in Norway over the weekend! I think it's safe to say that we are all rather grumpy about virtual meetings but it really is decent way to interact in pandemic times.

Arne & Carlos are incredibly popular in Norway (we've heard them described as The Martha Stewart of Norway). They're also pretty beloved in North America. They were as delightful on the Zoom screen as they were in real life several years ago during the time they spent time in Billings at Julia's Wild Purls yarn shop. (Memory lane indulgences please . . . there were a couple of terrific workshops from A & C, a fantastic field trip down to Mountain Meadows Wool Mill so A & C could get a taste of our wide open spaces, and as staff members, we had an especially lovely meal with Arne and Carlos at Julia's home!) We learned a lot from them and sought out Finnulgarn at the first market when we were setting up the shop!

They gave us all some history of their career in Fashion Design and we saw some lovely examples from a retrospective collection solo exhibit that traveled around. They showed a great patchwork sweater made from parts of old sweaters that many people wanted to be produced for consumers. They had to come up with a pattern . . . a designer's job is to "find creative solutions to problems". Arne & Carlos like to deconstruct traditional folk art carvings and paintings and play with pattern placement.

Then they dove into their fall collection with Rowan. We learned that their favorite yarn is Alpaca Classic because of its depth of color and lightweight volume/texture. (And We like it too!!! according to that blog we wrote in 2018) They've become fond of "layered placement" (or "painting with yarn") by combining a marled technique together with intarsia and stranded colorwork.

Arne & Carlos celebrate the ten year anniversary of their 55 Christmas Balls book and we learned they are commemorating it with the release of new ball patterns on November 22. They'll be increasing their Sit and Knit chats to daily in December! We've decided to celebrate the balls by putting together kits for our Finnul, a Norwegian yarn that is perfect (and recommended by A & C) for traditional stranded colorwork. You'll be able to make many with the three colors.

You can find Arne & Carlos on their You Tube Channel. They have numerous technique videos and have added general chats during pandemic while we all try to stay connected. If you don't already know them, we think you'll find them as delightful and knowledgeable as we do!