The knitters pose on the harsh snow-covered landscape of Iceland. (Photo by Lynn Cooke)

Walk into any meeting of the Nashoba Valley Knitters’ Guild, and you might think you’ve hit the best party in town. One night a month more than 20 knitters gather together to do what they love best: stitch and talk, stitch and learn, stitch and show. Pick 10 of those women and put them on a plane for a weekend trip to Iceland, and you have knitters’ nirvana: a three-day extravaganza of socializing, knitting, and the chance to acquire some of the best yarn in the world.

As NVKG member Linda Kiuru can attest, no knitter can resist the chance to add to her stash, particularly with the much-admired Lopi yarn manufactured in the city of Mosfellsbaer. But even beyond the shopping, Kiuru thought guild members would enjoy the sights of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital city, and the surrounding countryside. After she tossed out the idea on a whim, nine other guild members—including NVKG President Barbara Meyer, and Lynn Cooke, both of Harvard—signed up to take the five-hour flight from Boston and invited Bromfield middle school art teacher Sharon Chandler to come along.

While Kiuru had been to Reykjavik on a previous visit several years before, the sights were new to the other women on the tour. Iceland is profoundly different from anything they had ever seen before, all agreed. From the “moonscape” look of the countryside to the dazzling purity of the environment, all of them enjoyed every moment of the trip, they said.

“It’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever been,” said guild member Jean Carrington.

Visiting the Lopi factory was one of the highlights of the trip, as anticipated. The yarn is far less expensive in Iceland than in the U.S., and many of the women brought along an extra suitcase to accommodate all they wanted to bring home. Although Meyer, Cooke, and Cooke’s mother-in-law Janet Cooke wore their own handmade Icelandic-design sweaters, the other guild members were in awe of the hundreds of beautiful designs stacked in shelves six feet high. Janet Cooke’s sweater was so expertly made, her daughter-in-law said, that a salesperson mistook it for Lopi stock and tried to charge her for it at the register.

Swimming in the many natural hot springs is possible even during Iceland’s winter. (Photo by Lynn Cooke)

After lightening their wallets at the yarn factory, the women jumped back on the bus for a tour of the countryside. Among the memorable sights were the many geothermal heating plants that heat Icelandic homes and businesses, as well as glimpses of the rugged Icelandic ponies grazing on the tundra. Reykjavik is becoming popular with Europeans, guild member Fran Meyers explained, and Iceland is currently re-inventing itself as a tourist destination as the fishing industry wanes. Many people now come for the therapeutic powers of the natural geothermal seawater, which the group had a chance to experience at the famous Blue Lagoon spa.

A teacher’s tour of Iceland

While the other guild members went off to tour the Lopi factory Friday morning, Chandler went in another direction. Having set up an informal cultural exchange with a school in Reykjavik, she arrived for a meeting with the school’s headmaster, holding a colorful needle-felted banner made by the middle school students at Bromfield. Every one of the images represents something related to Harvard, Chandler pointed out, or something important to the student. The students and faculty were thrilled with the gift, she said, and enjoyed the opportunity to show her their own fiber projects. The quality of their work was exceptionally high, she explained, because both boys and girls have been taught to work with wool from a very young age.

Chandler herself has always been fascinated by anything to do with fiber arts and has taught knitting, weaving, and needle felting at Bromfield for years. An artist in her own right, she also maintains a studio in Lowell, which incubates ideas for new creative work. A recent interest in making colorful, one-of-a-kind sweaters out of vintage wool led to an invitation to give a talk on her techniques to the NVKG last winter—and an invitation to come along to Iceland followed a short time later. She looked at the opportunity as a chance to connect with another school and learn about its art program, she said, as well as to further explore advanced techniques for working with wool.

“It’s a whole other level of artistry with wool and felting,” she said.

The idea of the cultural exchange was so successful, Chandler added, that a number of staff from the school would like to come to Harvard this fall. And she herself is so intrigued with the country that she is tentatively planning a return to Reykjavik a year from now for further exploration and a more in-depth visit with the school.

The whole experience was wonderful, Chandler said, from beginning to end. While she met many of the women for the first time after gathering at the airport gate, camaraderie came naturally to the group, and the end of the trip came all too soon.

“We bonded for life,” she said.