Fuzzy Logic: Stella Ögmundsdóttir Is Turning Secondhand Yarn Into Statement Pieces

A good woollen sweater never goes out of fashion. As anyone shivering through a chilly — or, more often than not, downright freezing — summer night in Iceland knows, it’s handy all year round. For decades, that sweater meant the classic lopapeysa: maybe one your grandma knitted way back for your dad and, never washed, still smelling of campfire from a summer in Atlavík circa ’92, until it eventually found its way to you. But a new generation of local designers is reimagining this age-old knitting tradition in modern, playful ways. One of them is Stella Ögmundsdóttir, a Reykjavík-based textile artist and the one-woman force behind Fözz Studio.

Fözz, coming from “fuzzy,” started almost accidentally in 2021. “I was working at a bar downtown, and when it was quiet, I was always knitting,” Stella recalls. “People were always asking me what I was knitting. So I just started an Instagram account and began sharing what I was making, and then people started asking to buy. I just started making more things,” she says pragmatically.

“I’m Ögmundsdóttir, hence the ö — I added an Icelandic touch,” Stella smiles.

The project took off from there. Stella has never done paid ads or external promotions. “I just started posting every day, and that used to work,” she shrugs. Although Instagram’s algorithms have changed, Fözz doesn’t seem to be slowing down, with most of Stella’s orders coming from abroad — from the USA all the way to Japan. “It’s always busy,” she says. “Usually in the summer I’m knitting winter things, and in the winter, summer things, so everything’s ready at the right time.”

Never not knitting

Like many Icelanders, Stella comes from a family with a grandma who’s a big knitter; the kind who could whip up a sweater in a day — no exaggeration. But growing up, she wasn’t interested in picking up the needles herself. While she later learned to crochet, she always thought she’d never have the patience for knitting. It wasn’t until she moved to Oslo, with nothing much to do, that she finally gave it a shot. “My aunt lived there and was like, ‘you should try knitting.’ She taught me some basic things, then I bought knitting needles and some yarn, and she said, ‘you can’t use this yarn and these needles.’ I was just like, ‘why not?’,” she smiles. “I didn’t know the rules.”

“I grab my knitting whenever I can — if I’m watching TV, during my morning coffee… I usually have my knitting.”

Little did she know that her life and work would soon be interconnected with the craft. After graduating from the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts in textiles last year, Stella started working with Bryndís Bolladóttir, felting art pieces used for sound insulation three days a week. She spends the rest of her time knitting for Fözz — sweaters, dresses, handbags, tops, and sometimes stage costumes for bands like CYBER. She also makes all sorts of wall art, like when she knitted her favourite items off the menu in Vinstukan. “I grab my knitting whenever I can — if I’m watching TV, during my morning coffee… I usually have my knitting. It’s relaxing,” she smiles.

As we talk, Stella is wearing one of her own pieces — a pink, airy throw-on layered over a black top. She’s actually brought a full bag of knits to our coffee shop meeting, drawing curious side-eyes from latte-sipping tourists, as if they’ve just spotted a black-market yarn deal going down.

One of the distinct features of Fözz is that Stella only uses secondhand yarn, keeping utilisation and recycling in mind for every project. Once, she repurposed an old blanket into a sweater; another time, she made a dress from scraps of yarn that she spun into new yarn — basically, from trash into a fully wearable, stylish product. Sometimes, if she runs out of a particular colour, she’ll simply switch to another and keep going. But it didn’t start out this way. “It started just with me knitting, and I couldn’t really afford to always buy yarn, so one day, I found some at the thrift store,” Stella says. “Now, I buy all of my yarn in thrift stores — mostly at the Red Cross in Mjódd. They have a textile section with a lot of yarn, and the prices are really fair.”

She adds, “I also really like not having to choose the yarn by myself. I can just take whatever is available and make something fun out of it.”

Knit it yourself

Fözz isn’t just about ready-made items — Stella also offers patterns for those brave enough to take on a knitting project of their own. “I made a pact with myself in January to start writing down all the patterns for what I’m making,” she says with a smile. Until now, Stella’s designs have existed only in her head. But even if she wanted to make the exact same piece twice, she wouldn’t be able to — simply because she usually doesn’t have enough yarn.

Right now, there are three patterns for sale: a cropped t-shirt she calls the “baby tee,” a bodiless mesh pullover dubbed the “meshy shrug,” and a colourful chunky sweater called “The Weekender” (Helgarpeysan in Icelandic) — a piece she impressively finished in just one weekend.

“I made the Weekender sweater with my friends from Textíl Barinn, a company that sells secondhand textiles,” she explains. “They picked a box of yarn for me, and I made the sweater from whatever they chose.”

The result is intentionally messy and playful, with loose threads and yarn ends hanging out, giving it that unfinished-but-cool look. The sweater uses more than a dozen colours of yarn — Textíl Barinn picked about 12, and Stella added a few more she had lying around at home.

Much like the spontaneous final look of the Weekender sweater, Stella’s creative process is guided by chance and curiosity. She often finds inspiration in the colours of her yarn or in silhouettes she sees around. “Right now, I’m really into 1950s-style clothing,” she says, showing me an example of a grey boatneck top she recently finished. “I’m trying to make a summer top drop soon.” But when — and exactly how — that will turn out really depends on what yarn she happens to find at the thrift store. “I never know what I’m gonna make when I start making. It just happens,” she shrugs with a smile.

Check out Stella’s knitted creations on Instagram at @fozzstudio or on her website, fozzstudio.com