Heart-to-Heart / Vinarþel Cake and Coffee Stencil by Bility

This is a gorgeous stencil for dusting cakes and coffee from Bility (www.bility.is).

Heart-to-Heart / Vinarþel Cake and Coffee Stencil

Bility is an Icelandic company whose metal candleholders, bookmarks, and other housewares reference beautiful Icelandic nature and imagination.  The Heart-to-Heart / Vinarþel Cake and Coffee Stencil brings together the art of knitting with food and friends.

Latvian Mittens

This is my favorite pair of mittens. I’ve had them for 15 years, and they have been my constant companion. I’ve repaired them several times, and they are once again in need of fixing.

I bought them on a trip to Helsinki, Finland, in the spring of 1994. At the time, I was an exchange student at the University of Bergen (Universitetet i Bergen) studying Folklore.

During spring break in March, a fellow American and I decided to go to St. Petersburg. We took the train to Oslo, then Stockholm, took a boat to Turku, and on to Helsinki on another train. Our journey was long, but worth it. After a stay in Helsinki, we travelled on to St. Petersburg by train, stopping once to change tracks (as the tracks are different widths on either side of the Finland/Russia border).

While in Helsinki, we visited a small shop that sold hand-knit gloves, hats, scarves, and the like. Unfortunately, I no longer remember the name, but I remember the shop being near the Lutheran Cathedral. I found my mittens there, and at the time, I did not know that the motifs on the mittens were Latvian.

After retuning from my studies in Norway, and while in graduate school at Indiana University, I purchased the book Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis in 1997. I had become quite an avid knitter by that time, and I kept myself busy through Indiana’s winters knitting big and small projects. While looking through Ms. Upitis’ book, I found a pair of mittens depicted which are almost identical to the ones I purchased in Helsinki: Kurzeme, Liepajas (see picture below). It looks like the knitter who made my mittens omitted a portion of the pattern and used a different cast-on.

In 1997, I also began knitting another pair of mittens in Ms. Upitis’ book: Kurzeme, Susjas (see pictures at the bottom).

As my wonderful mittens have become thread-bare in several places, I have also thought about knitting another pair of them from the instructions in Latvian Mittens. There is a graph for my mittens (109) on page 82. The mittens I bought were knit with cotton or a cotton blend. The colors are vibrant and they have not really pilled at all. I’m thinking to use KnitPicks’ Palette fingering yarn, as they have so many colors, and the yarn is 100% wool and fairly soft. Ms. Upitis recommends using wool yarn. This will be an experiment, but one I look forward to. I’ll post the progress and results as I undertake the project.

Cheers!

Folklore and Knitting

I learned to knit while I was an exchange student at the University of Bergen (Universitetet i Bergen). Little did I know that knitting, like Folklore, would become a pursuit close to my heart.

I came from the University of California, Berkeley, where I was an Anthropology major and has studied with many wonderful professors, namely Alan Dundes and Jim Deetz. In Bergen, I had the fortune of studying with Bente Alver and Torunn Selberg.

After returning from the University of Bergen and finishing my studies at Cal, I went on to graduate school at the Folklore Institute at Indiana University. I owe a professional and personal debt of gratitude to my professors there and in the Nordic countries - Henry Glassie, Beverly Stoltje, Warren Roberts, Dick Bauman, Barbro Klein, Perti Antonen, and Stein Roar Mathisen - for inspiring me toward that which I love.

It was at Indiana University that I solidified my love of the study of traditional handicraft and textile arts. I focused my attention once again on Scandinavia, completing a dissertation that featured the work and words of Sami handicraft artists: Sami Artistry, Identity, and Indigenism in Museums and Markets. I owe that same debt of gratitude to the artists I met in Sapmi - Lars Pirak, Helge Sunna, Lisbeth Kielatis, Sara Walkeapaa, Thomas Magnusson. Their commitment to artistry and personal truth has continued to move and inspire me.

It was definitely through my studies, and also through the moments I spent not studying, that I found my passion in knitting. Knitting is itself a form of folklore. But for me it has become so much more.