Looking for a New Way to See Iceland? Bring Your Knitting Needles.

I spent my second day in Iceland in a hotel on the outskirts of Reykjavik, trying resolutely to knit.Gathered around a coffee table with me were Ragga Sjofu Jóhannsdóttir, my instructor, and my friend Lindis Sloan, both experienced knitters who fluidly worked the yarn with barely a glance at their hands.And then there was me, gripping the needles as I struggled to maintain the proper tension that would allow me to transform two skeins of local wool into something resembling a headband.

My progress was excruciatingly slow, but a couple of hours in, a red ring of textile with pink diamonds was beginning to emerge.Then Ragga noticed a mistake I had made in a previous row.Taking the needles, she began ripping out my hard-earned stitches.

“If you can’t unravel,” she said with a jolly laugh, “you can’t knit.”It was a counterintuitive way of spending a vacation in Iceland.Most people travel to the island nation for steamy soaks in the milky waters of the Blue Lagoon or nighttime treks to see the northern lights.

But in a country with a deeply ingrained craft tradition, a climate conducive to sweaters, and about 10 times more sheep than people, knitting tourism is on the rise.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....