Saturday, September 19, 2009

Latvian Mitten Workshop


Last weekend was the three day Latvian mitten workshop. The museum brought out Sandy DeMaster and Mary Germain from Wisconsin. I met Sandy in 2005 when I took a week long Scandinavian knitting workshop from Carol Rhoades at Sievers School of Fiber Arts. Anyway, they spoke at the Seattle Knitters Guild the Wednesday before, fabulous presentation I might add, to which they brought many, many, mitten samples for us to drool over.
This was one of the most fun workshops I have been to and so very inspirational. There were four Latvian women in the class so it was very interesting to hear them exchange stories with Sandy and Mary about the country, food, symbolism, textiles, movies, etc.. There is so much I could write about, it would take days ! Some of the older Latvian women brought in Latvian goodies everyday and as usual the museum was trying to kill us off with Danish pastries and such !

Saturday and Sunday we worked on a lined mitten sample.

















Sandy said these were knit for her by their Latvian mentor Irma. They have "barn protector" symbols on it. Since she raises Finnsheep Irma thought it would be a good thing to have. I want to knit a small pair to put in my barn !




Love the pattern and colors of this pair.


















These mittens have the unusual cuffs featured in Mary's booklet "A Distorted View of Cuffs" Check out all the booklets they have to offer on Mary's profile.






Drinking this "Slim Chance" beer probably foretold the chances of getting my sample done !


Such tiny, tiny little mittens which I hear will be for sale at the Latvian Christmas Bazaar on November 7th-8th at the Latvian Cultural Center in Seattle. Can't wait !

Interesting Latvian beliefs about mittens

Mittens and socks should be knitted in summer, then they will be warm, soft and strong. /A. Zvejniece, Lubāna./

One should not wash new mittens when there is an old moon,
they will lose their color and let through the wind. /K. Zilbers, Meņģele./

One should not wipe their nose in a mitten. Whoever does that never gets rich. /J. Andriņš, Taurkalns./

One should not give their hand to another with a mitten on, otherwise they will give away their luck/A. Tidriķe, Pabažu jūrmala./

Link to Latvian mitten charts
Cimdu Raksti

3 comments:

Olive Tree said...

Hi, it's a great blog.
I could tell how much efforts you've taken on it.
Keep doing!

Unknown said...

Awesome mittens! Thanks for taking the pics. Sorry I missed the class but thanks for documenting your experience.

Hugs, Karen

Mary Germain said...

Karin, thanks for your blog about our Latvian mitten and cuff classes. Sandy & I appreciate your efforts in bringing us to Seattle to teach. If anyone is interested in our books, Sandy's website is no longer available, but I can be contacted at http://www.linkedin.com/in/marygermain