More Books ... About Nordic and Latvian Mittens

Oh yes, I'm still interested in those Nordic Mittens.  Life in a Northern Town makes it a requirement for survival!     I am still hibernating at home for a snowy and wet winter weekend, studying Nordic Mittens with a couple of books from my local public library:

This book, Norwegian Mittens & Gloves by Annemor Sundbo, has a fascinating STORY to it.  Sometime in the 1980s, the author purchased a woolen rags factory where old woolens go to be recycled, either turned into new yarn, or shredded and carded into fluff for furniture and stuffing.  The factory had bags and bags of sweaters with beautiful patterns and designs.  She couldn't bring herself to throw them into the hopper to be destroyed / recycled, so she started setting certain sweaters aside -- the ones that seemed to tell a story, or showed animals ...  She is credited with documenting and saving the history of Nordic knitting patterns.  It's an interesting book to read simply because the story is so compelling.    She also began to study the pattern motifs, the constant links to nature with the animals and hunting, but also the myths and stories of the land, too.   There is one pattern paying homage to Odin's 2 ravens.  It does contain patterns for 25 classic designs.

I also picked up this book, Mittens from Around Norway   by Nina Granlund Saether.        This author does mention / credit the author of the first book above.  And they show multiple historical specimens of knitted Norwegian mittens, then giving the patterns for the modern-day remakes.  I'm still not quite understanding what to do with those thumbs, but I love many of these mittens and could totally see myself making some of them -- translated to a round knitting loom, of course, which shouldn't be hard to do, since most of them are knitted in the round.  I bookmarked so many pages in this book, that I think I'm going to have to purchase a copy.  ;-)

I am also waiting for an ILLed book on Latvian Mittens.  ;-)

Dyeing Wool Mittens Wine Red

Red Woolen Mittens

I got a new pair of wool mittens for the winter at Fleet Farm.  I know I know-- I haven't been to any craft shows where I could buy the sweater mittens, and I'm tired of patching my old ones.  These wool mittens from Fleet are certainly serviceable, and will be warm with a thrummy lining (probably just a sock).  But I wasn't crazy about the neutral color, so ...  using what I know about using Procion dye on wool, I dyed them my favorite red wine color.

Woolen Mittens as purchased in a neutral color.

I let them soak overnight in a bucket of water with a drop of Dawn dish soap.  The Dawn helps in case there's any finish on the wool that might affect the take-up of the dye.  I knew the lining would not dye because it's acrylic.

In the morning, I mixed up a batch of dye concentrate:

1 tsp dye powder
1 cup warm water
Pour into a bottle with a tight-fitting lid and shake-shake-shake until dye is dissolved.

In the dye pot:
1-1/2 T salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
Enough water to submerge the mittens.
Heat to a low simmer.

Peering into the dye pot with wine red dye.

Add the dye concentrate. Add the pre-soaked, but wrung out wool mittens.
Let them simmer for about 1 hour.  It's amazing to see the dye bath exhaust like it does with the wool dye and food coloring.  I never see that with Procion on cotton.

Normally, you'd add soda ash to the mix with Procion dye, but this is damaging to protein fibers like silk and wool.  Instead, we add vinegar and heat to make the dye set.  I've had very good luck with this method, as explained on Dharma's website.

Let them cool, then rinse them out.  Let them dry, and be warm all winter!

Additional notes:
It took more than a week of letting these soak out excess dye.  I think that was due to the acrylic content of the liners.  In the end, I put them back on the stove and simmered them another 2 hours with water and a little vinegar in hopes of stabilizing the remaining dye.

These mittens also had a clumsy oversize shape, so I employed the ladders stitch to take them in a bit and round the tops off.  Now they look more normal!

 

Toasty and warm for winter dog walks! 

Mending

 My favorite pair of alpaca mittens -- warm and black.  They have tremendous sentimental value for me, as they remind me of my old (now gone) Newfie, Maggie.    Unfortunately, they are wearing out.

 Mending is not my favorite pass-time.  But there are times when it has to be done.  My 2 favorite pair of winter woolen mittens both had holes in them that made them less than efficient at keeping up the winter cold.  I've mended them before, just pulling together the open edges with thread, but that was leaving less and less fabric on the thumbs -- ie no room left for my thumb!

 Not pretty, but they will hold together for a few more months.

The palms and the thumbs always seem to wear through ...

 

Once I sat down to do it, it wasn't so bad.  Just think of the darning as a form of "spot weaving" and it doesn't really take as long as you think it will.

Mending has the taint of drudge work to it.  Thankless way to spend time, when you could just toss them, and buy new.  Well -- not with these mittens.  I buy a new pair of woollen mittens every year, but it;s not every year that they actually fit well, or are warm, or that I really wind up loving them.  I love these 2 pair of mittens enough to spend the time to mend them.

In truth, there is a tremendous amount of creativity that goes into repairing things like this.  I contemplated several ways to approach the repairs.  Even purchased some leather to use as patches, but then couldn't figure out how to hand-sew through the leather.  I also considered taking them apart and replacing the pieces that were wearing through -- but I didn't want to take the time to de-construct and re-build 2 pairs of mittens that way.   In the end, I settled on the most basic approach -- darning with wool yarn,weaving new fabric with the old.

 Good as new -- sort of.  This will get me through the winter.

Sketchbook Challenge : Red Mittens

I have to admit, I'm one of those people who loves Winter.
Here are my cozy warm red mittens, which I won't put away until May in Wisconsin.

Pencil, watercolor, Neocolor II, black pen, white crayon (resist).

My New Mittens

At Quilt Camp this past weekend, one of my projects was to make a pair of toasty, warm mittens from an felted, shrunken too-small sweater.


These mittens look like they belong in a Jan Brett book! I love them!


Here's the sweater-jacket after I cannibalized the sleeves for my new mittens. I could still get a few more out of this jacket.