Friday, February 20, 2009
Latvian Mitten Book by Aija Jansone
The new book on Latvian traditional knitting which I had ordered has arrived and what a feast it is, too!
Aija Jansone, Researcher at the Institute of the History of Latvia, has conducted extensive research in the area of Latvian ethnographic textiles and has an impressive list of publications to her name. In this volume, she chronicles the history and use of Latvian mittens and socks. It is written in both Latvian and English.
By using the example of a recent dowry collection of forty mittens in Varkava, Latvia, she describes the tradition and typical composition of these pieces of knitted mini-masterpieces. The entire collection is photographed and recorded in this book.
Beautiful examples of contemporary knitting, based on the historical tradition.
Jansone's book is not a book of knitting patterns. There are no graphs to follow. It is rather a historical record of an entire collection, produced in the traditional way, as a dowry of gifts to be distributed by the bride on her wedding.
There are also photos of some gloves.
And socks as well.
This book will be of interest to anyone intrigued by the rich history of knitting in other cultures. In this case, in Latvia.
If you want to actually knit any of these mittens, you'll need Lizbeth Upitis's book, Latvian Mittens, in which she spells out exactly how a Latvian mitten is constructed. Then you can take a magnifying glass to the images in this book and try to create a graph from their colourful stitches.
Or you can just savour each brightly-coloured page. As a source of visual inspiration, these pages offer many delicacies.
You can order this book from BalticShop.com. It took less than two weeks for my copy to arrive.
