The Lopapeysa Sweater

January 2, 2023
Designer Carr (Geek Knits) and photojournalist Cassidy (This Is What a Librarian Looks Like) blend travelogue and knitting know-how in this reverent love letter to the lopapeysa, or Icelandic wool sweater. Carr provides knitting patterns while Cassidy chronicles his travels around Iceland, giving a sense of its culture through trivia (nearly all of the country’s electricity comes from geothermal and hydroelectric sources) and profiles of average people, including a heavy metal band that wears lopapeysa sweaters in their music videos and a schoolteacher who knits in her spare time. Cassidy’s striking photographs capture the extremes of the country’s landscape, with idyllic images of glaciers juxtaposed with shots of active volcanoes. Carr shows how to knit lopapeysa sweaters (which are knitted with lopi, a kind of wool native to Iceland) and other Iceland-inspired garb, recommending readers start out with a magenta capelet to get trained on stranded colorwork and the bulky yarn used for lopapeysa. Other projects include a tan and blue lopapeysa “everywhere sweater” and a playful tan and red design that features small puffins marching around the sweater’s circumference. The cultural background enlightens, and though the patterns are largely for experienced knitters, Carr’s thorough instructions make the projects less intimidating than they may first appear. Knitters will find inspiration in these fresh takes on traditional Icelandic designs.