The Marius sweather

The most popular sweather in Norway for the last 60 years, has been the “Marius-genser”. Made in the national colours red, white and blue, and among others worn by King Harald when he was a crown prince and Gro Harlem Brundtland when she was our Prime Minister, it is my opinion that this sweather has become a national icon. Women all over the country have been knitting this sweather with it’s name after the war hero and slalom skier Marius Eriksen. The Marius sweather is the most sold and knitted handknit pattern in the world. Today it is nearly as popular as it was when I was in highschool: I remember one day counting that 22 out of 28 pupils were wearing the same sweather.

Here you can see my son with his fathers old sweather.

The pattern in the Marius sweather is taken from the much older sweather made in Setesdal in the south of Norway. The main border with the x-pattern is called “kross og kringle”. You can read more about the sweather here >>

Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison, known as Arne and Carlos, switched the “kross og kringle” pattern with spaceinvaders. You can see the sweather on the front page of their new book, this years bestseller in Norway: “Julekuler” from Cappelen Damm.

I’ve also been playing with this icon.  There are a number of data programs to aid the construction of more complicated designs. I prefer the Cross-Stitch-Professional-Platium. Here you can see my spaceinvaders:

My 20 year old son liked this one very much, so I desidet to make a Pacman too:

You can put in almost anything. If you want to be a little more up to date, you can for instance use the  Coco Chanel-logo:

Moods of Norway have been very popular around the world, especially here in Norway. And their symbol and logo; the pink tractor, can be seen on colourful spectacular suits as well as on ordinary clothes.

Moods of Norway. Photo: Ole Musken.

I’ve been playing with the tractor as well:

Inspired by the horny moose I’ve shown you before, I also had to make a pattern from the Norwegian woods:

9 Comments to “The Marius sweather”

  1. strikkelise 29 November 2010 at 18:30 #

    How cool! I love PacMan and the tractors.

    Reply
  2. Kozemor 29 November 2010 at 19:58 #

    What alot of fun!!!!!!
    Must ask if i can download these charts?
    Really cool!

    Reply
  3. sjante 29 November 2010 at 22:16 #

    Så kule:D VIser jo at man kan strikke vilket som helst mønster, bare man gidder lage de:D

    Reply
  4. Sanna 30 November 2010 at 19:33 #

    Wow!! Så utrolig kult! Likte spesielt den med elg og den med traktor. Så flink du er!

    Reply
  5. krazip 1 December 2010 at 12:13 #

    genser=sweater:)

    Reply
  6. Pillen 7 January 2011 at 21:47 #

    Incredible! I finally found a moose my husband wants. I have tried to persuade him into a Marius sweater but he refuses – he wants moose :)

    Thank you for your hard work!

    Reply
  7. Margot 15 January 2011 at 22:20 #

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I made this for my son, size big!

    http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5203/5357524853_6fdc5ba8be_z.jpg

    Next time I will knit a few dark stitches at each side, to prevent the pacmans to be destroyed by the sleeves.

    Reply
  8. zimbapus 11 March 2011 at 14:21 #

    Jeg skulle gjerne “lånt” elgene dine til en genser. Må jeg kjøpe en bok? eller kan jeg få tak i mønseret på annet vis?

    Reply

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