there lived the most patient woman in the world. She never yelled at her children, she never sat tapping her foot while she waited for her chronically late husband. She never, ever dyed fleece pink when she wanted red because she couldn’t wait for the dye bath to be exhausted. She answered stupid questions without ever mocking people once, and legend has it that she taught her cat to stop scratching the bannister through a careful and delicate process that took years and years. She was indeed the worlds most patient woman.
We know very little of this woman. I can’t tell you how many children she had, or if she was tiny or big. I can’t even tell you if she taught 3rd grade (which is, of course the natural occupation for the worlds most patient woman, well that or astrophysics. Both very tedious.) We will never know what her secret was or if she lived in a hut or a condo. There is only two things that I can tell you with absolute certainty about the worlds most patient woman.
She was a knitter, and she was, without a shadow of a doubt….LATVIAN.
Look at these mittens.
There are no words. You don’t know. Until you’ve knitted that little braid thingie …you will never know what it is like. It is so quiet, it is so extraordinarily finicky that your teeth itch. Time stops while you knit braids. The universe ceases to expand and shrinks down to the distance between you and your needles. You do not look up. You do not speak. You do not take your eyes from the braid, lest you loose track of the pattern and put a yarn under where a yarn should have gone over. Your world becomes only the braid. It would be kind of Zen if it wasn’t for the teeth itching. I tried and tried (you will note that there are two of the braid things) to find some kind of rhythm, some kind of simple system that would make the knitting of the braids fly. There is nothing.
Fine. I take that back. There may be something. I have been knitting Latvian mittens for less than a day. What do I know. Nothing, that’s what. What we need here is for someone who has been knitting Latvian mittens for longer than a day to drop me a stinking line about the braids. (I have a suspicion that there is nothing. I have a creeping feeling that the Latvians are simply the most patient knitters in the world. I theorize that the help I am going to get, even if Lizbeth Upitis herself phones me and tells me all about the braid will be something like:
Relax. Make tea. Enjoy the braid.
I just hate that. Acceptance, ease, patient learning of a new process. For crying out loud I want to know now! I don’t want to be part of a learning curve, I just want to knit the braids and I want to knit them with the speed and ease of a 83 year old Latvian mitten knitting genius.
Did you know that this book says that mitten knitting was so central to a Latvian girls life and wedding that she would have needed to knit between one and two hundred pairs to fulfill her obligations? When did she eat? When did she sleep? Was someone assigned to feed her? Did she have no other purpose? For the love of sheep…the braids! The time! The insanity! I’ve done two braids, each mitten has four. That’s eight in a pair, so these Latvian brides would have knit 800-1600 braids before her wedding day. (Ok, ya got me. Maybe they made some without braids.) You know what kills me? They still got married. I’m telling you, I’ve knit half of the braids to knit one mitten and if somebody told me that I had to knit 800 more there is very little chance that I would see any advantage to marriage. No freaking way.
(Note to self: must do yoga more, must rave over knitting like a crazy woman less.)
All of this said, even though these mittens are clearly going to become a “thing” in my life, even though I am very tired today because I “just one more row”ed myself into staying up way late last night, even though I am raving about braids and Latvians and the whole mitten insanity…I am liking them. Oh, yes.
About thrums….
Questions? I got answers.
Q: How much fleece/roving am I going to need.
A: This much would be tons for an average pair of adult mittens.
I have included my omnipresent coffee cup for scale. I can’t tell you how much this is for sure, but It’s less than 60g. (For the Americans, that’s like maybe 2 ounces. By the way…did you know that there are only three countries in the world that have not officially adopted metric? The USA, Liberia and Burma. Actually, that’s not strictly true. Liberia and Burma use metric somewhat, just not officially. Freak you out? I thought so.)
Q: Will acrylic or an acrylic/wool blend be ok?
A: I don’t think so. Morally, I’m opposed because of tradition, and authenticity demands wool. On a more practical level than just appalling Newfoundlanders everywhere, wool has real advantages over synthetic here. Wool is warm even when wet. (Big mitten advantage) Wool yarn will stick to the wool thrums holding them in place. (Big thrummed mitten advantage). Wool will eventually felt slightly on the outside of the mitten thus making the mitten more wind and waterproof, thus contributing to superior hand warming, which is the purpose of mittens after all. Finally, wool is nice. If anybody needs cheap wool that would cost the same (or less) than an acrylic/wool blend, I recommend Briggs and Little. Which make really nice mitts (that’s what my last pair were) and can be bought on-line a bunch of places.
In the end, it is of course, your mittens and your decision. You might want to remember about the mocking though.
Yarn Harlot
Are you knitting mittens or socks? They are very beautiful and the braids look like they were knit by a wizened Latvian knitter. There’s hope for you yet.
I get ya on the marriage thing…. I’d give up on the husband and get a dog. No mittens needed.
These are gorgeous! 2 braids, 4 braids, who’ll know the difference?
I acknowledge that you stayed up late, that the braids have sent you in a tizzy, but what exactly are you knitting – socks or mittens? (Caption above first photo – Look at these SOCKS….further tirade all about MITTS) Just checking. They are beauties, by the way, these sock/mitts. May I suggest a little less coffee, as well.
Is this testamonial to patient Latvians a sock or a mitten? Here I quote the Harlot:
>>>>>Look at these socks.
But the rest of the post AND the mitten book that arrived yesterday seem to suggest mitten. What we have got so far, of course, coule be either. However, it seems possible that the braids have so absorbed Steph’s attention that the actual nature of the item that requires them is irrelevant. And indeed, I have to say that the beauty of the braid makes such concerns trivial in the extreme. It looks fabulous.
Mock away. I will not thrum; I will not mitten. And my daughter is in California now so that the only person who could request such a thing and have a reasonable expectation of changing my mind has no need and no desire for thrummed mittens.
In your devotion to The Project, you may have missed the one line in the entire book where Upitis allows herself humor, however inadvertant — where she says “This may be the most tedious method for producing a plied yarn ever devised.”
(Given that a lot of those mittens were gifts for the in-laws, I like the folk song she quotes where the girl praises her mother for finding her an orphan to marry.)
So, yeah, the braids are tedious. But they’re so…so…SLICK!
(Wait till you try the looped fringe)
Yes,but such gorgeous braid.Truly beautiful.
Ok..y’all got me. It was a typo, and I’ve fixed it. Elizabeth is right. More sleep, less coffee.
A little off topic… I just wanted to say that I just got my copy of Knit Lit (Too) and I loved your story. I loved it so much that I was laughing. Out loud. In public. At dinner, no less. (yes, I sometimes read at dinner, but only when knitting would be less appropriate – or messy)
And how apropos that we are on the subject of thrummed mittens now. I love it when stuff just sort of all links together. Makes you think there’s some sort of design to all of this randomness, eh?
Socks?? Boy was I glad to get to Steph’s comment where she mentioned she fixed it. I thought I had sidestepped into a bizarre side universe where I’m reading something different than everyone else. (Granted… I may be there anyways. Who knows. )
Wow. I think there should be a whole canon of Latvian saints. I doubt I’d make it through one mitten and then only with a lot of cursing.
What does it say about me that your above tirade, err, cautionary tale, has taken me from “Latvian mittens? That’s nice, harlot dear,” to “I MUST KNIT LATVIAN MITTENS!”?
Never mind. I’m not sure I want the answer.
‘Round about the mid-60s when I was in grade school, we learned all about the metric system. It was drummed and hammered into our heads for quite a few years so that we’d be prepared for the day — coming soon! — when the US would adopt it as official and be like the rest of the whole wide world. I’m really not sure why we stalled or what we’re waiting for.
I want to make Latvian mittens now too! And don’t kill me for saying this, but I don’t find making those braids so painful. (I’ve done them many times for Zilbourg hats, and some of my own.) I’m trying to figure out why they don’t bother me. I guess I just get into a rhythm. Also I have been told that I have the patience of a saint on multiple occasions. But I don’t think I’d want to make 800 of them….
Hee. I may have to send in an entry to Yoga Journal for their “make up an asana” cartoon: Knit Like a Patient Latvian Saint Asana. Inhale. Slowly release the breath as you pick up the needles. Inhaling, begin braiding. Knit with the breath; if you find yourself feeling out of breath, pause and re-center yourself, then resume. Observe the movement of the yarn across the needles, the crossing of the yarns around each other. Breathe. Continue until mitten is complete, enlightenment is reached, or the yarn runs out. Keep breathing…
Yeah, reading the Importance of Mittens in Latvian Dower Customs was simply mindboggling. Mittens during the wooing process (I’ll admit to envisioning Latvian males saying things like ‘Hey, baby. Nice mittens!’ but then, I went to a convent school and my mind’s never quite made it out of the gutter as a result). Not to mention the weird ‘bribing men with wool’ subtext…
Mittens for all relatives (and shawls and socks and whatnot in addition, for Important New In-Laws), mittens for the guy who drove her dower chest to her new place, mittens distributed around her new home at all the important locations…no wonder the girls started knitting at about 6 yr. old. Otherwise, who’d have the time!
First, I know what happened to that once upon a time patient lady. Some mother of 6 shot her and buried her in the garden under an apple tree.
I was glad to read “rams” comment about how those mittens were for the in-laws. I couldn’t figure out what the hell a husband would want with 100 pairs of mittens much less 200. If my husband lost that many pairs of mitts, he’d be under that apple tree.
Love the braids. Can’t see me ever making them. guess if I was Latvian I would never have married. Did women in godless unions have to make them????
Barb
Well, they’re very pretty.
Here’s my question about thrumming….. Can you thrum any old mitten pattern? or do the mittens have to be knit a bit bigger to accommodate the bulk? I have the Folk Mitten book as well, and looked through it last night. They call it “tufting”, and they have a pattern for it, but my mom is all about cables. So if I could thrum/tuft the Aran Island Mitten pattern, she’d be all the happier.
How about substituting beer for tea… That looks mighty tooth grinding to me, too. Harloteers will follow your saga in suspense- will she be stubborn or will she relegate it to the forever in progress pile?
On the upside, it looks fabulous.
I do braids often because for me it is faster than ribbing to start off a colorwork sock or mitten.
When I do several braids in a row, I make sure that the second braid is going in the opposite direction of the braid in the previous row so that the yarns that have twisted on the first row will untwist on the second. You just have to take a deep breath and promise yourself that the twisted mess of yarns will untwist again soon.
Folk Knitting in Estonia has several different braids, including a spectacular one with 3 colors. The two-color yarnover braid on page 50, which looks the simplest, is actually the most evil of all the braids. Not only do you have to re-adjust things every time you start a new dpn, but you also have to adjust the tension each time you knit a stitch. Every stitch! So I’m not sure I’ve helped but at least now you know there is an even more unpleasant braid out there that the ones you’re working on from Latvian mittens.
Ahem… About that metric thing. Spent a week this summer at the Kawasha Lakes (northeast of Toronto) and the temperature was in the 20s. Kept trying to remember what that meant (sweater? shorts?). Got Jackie E-S’s pattern for toe-up socks, with a formula guaranteed to let you know when to start the gusset, and I have to measure my feet with a tape measure that has mm. MM? M&Ms? Not sure I can find a tape measure with mm in central PA. I do have one that measures in inches and cms. Lemme guess, I do something rational like multiply the cms x 100. How DID we stall on that conversion?
So if everyone’s making hundreds of these damned mittens, then everyone’s got have received hundreds of these damned mittens. Why knit more? Can’t we just call our Latvian connection & have her ship a container of ’em over? Pull ’em out & pass ’em off as your own. They’d be braided already. Hmm.
As many above have suggested, the reward for coping with the braids is in their beauty. Isn’t there some little part of you that’s thinking as you knit, “There are j u s t s o c o o l”?
(There’s a little part of *me* that’s thinking, “Holy cow, something that slows the Harlot’s knitting down to almost-mortal speed.” And there’s also a little part of me that’s thinking, “The braids on the first mitten aren’t that big a deal. It’s getting the braids on mitten #2 to be the SAME FREAKIN’ SIZE that causes true distress.”)
I empathize on the mitts. I’m knitting what I consider the modern equivalent of domestic sadomasochism, a Doctor Who scarf.
As for the metric/standard dohickeythingie, I was saturated with that metric education during my elementary school years (early ’70s) for a friggin’ revolution that never came about… but am I bitter? Do I secretly want to replace labels in the grocery store that only have metric measurements on them because I use to be able to do the standard-to-metric conversions in my sleep?
Nope. No bitterness here. I realize it could be worse. I could be seized with the desire to knit Latvian mitten designs from Hell.
i can’t offer any help or advice about the braids, but oh! my! they look…amazing.
i am floored. totally…floored.
So you probably don’t want to hear that one of the very first things I did with 2 colors of yarn was a pair of socks with 6 braids each, huh? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Once you accept the twisty yarn will go away in the next row, braids are great.
Based on the photo of the roving, and if I get sucked into this thrummed mitten thing (mmm, thrummed socks! with braids!), that 10 pound fleece in the closet should be enough, right? (And don’t make me do that metric conversion!) (And yes, I did mean socks!)
rams to roggey – (Your site won’t let me speak to you) Since I see you’re getting through your scarf watching Blackadder, you’ll appreciate my joy when, downloading the skull-scarf from And She Knits, Too (Merrick, ma mie, and Mudge, darlin’, remember Curmudgeon’s slogan. My kid wants it), I saw that her acutal address is “cunningplan”
OK, OK, I’m now OFFICIALLY a Harolteer. Not only am I coming towards the end of the my first Very Harlot ponch, I have gone and sent the link to people.
Including not-knitting-but-loving-fine-writing people.
::waves:: Hi! I’m Shunra. I’ve just become a groupie of yours…
As if we needed another reason not to get married. . .this is a good one.
The US has started using metric a little, I think, it just hasn’t quite caught on all over yet. We vacation in Pennsylvania every year, and just in the last 3 or 4 years have noticed some things come in one litre bottles now. Not that they would spell it “litre”, I guess.
roggey to rams: since this knitting scarf project is based on a satanic piece of clothing in a Brit sci-fi, I find it appropriate that a Brit-com is my sanity saver as I enter the final 24″ of the project.
Tell me, should I be this PO’d that 1.25 miles (or 2.01168 Kilometers for the rest of the world) of yarn ends up only being 10 inches wide and 10.5 ft long knitted up?
he he he – cunning plan =) Balderick cracks me up, bless his turnip-lusting heart.
Freakin’ braids…
The braids are amazing-they are worth all the teeth itching, just for bragging rights alone. Can’t wait to get Thrumming along…
Now, the thing about the US and metric is, that THERE ARE MERTICS ON EVERY THING. You buy a Coke, it’s got ounces and ml’s listed. You buy a notepad, it’s got inches and cm’s listed. You can’t swing a cat without hitting something metric. We were all set to convert in the early 80’s but then Ronald Reagan was elected and the whole plan just fizzled out. I think maybe the Alzheimer’s confused him a little. (It’s true. Look it up.)
So why is it that we Americans can’t seem to figure out metrics?! No, really, I’m asking. It’s driving me crazy. Write a pattern and include both metric and US measurements. To do it right means I have to design the freakin’ thing twice. Sometimes I cheat and just turn the tape measure over. Did you know the tape measures have inches on one side and centimeters on the other? Can’t swing a cat…
You think *braids* make your teeth itch?
Well, I do understand about the braids’ making your teeth itch. (which reminds me of a wonderful French-ism: one way to describe having a hangover is to say: j’ai mal aux cheveux. My hair hurts. Isn’t that just fine?)
But they are so fetching, so cunning.
Take a look at the Koigu pattern Oak Leaves Tunic.
It’s a fairisle pullover in two solid Koigu colors and two variegated.
It begins with rows of three-color braids.
Breathtaking.
What’s wrong with something that’s fiddly but
beautiful anyway?
(Merrick to rams and roggey: I’m a Baldrick fan bigtime. Especially the Prince Regent episodes. Especially the Christmas one. Is Hugh Laurie not the stupidest-looking man ever?)
Oh, Stephanie, are you aware that your comments sponsor will not let loyal commenters use the “questionable” (I ask you) word—
“L-V-LY”?????
Add an “o” and an “e”. It still won’t let me use that word of “questionable content”.
This has happened to me twice now.
Cool. Are you knitting those on 2mm dpns? Good grief! But they’re pretty enough for me to want to try making a pair. (Got the same comment error about questionable content for l_v_ly Maybe as a Christmas present for a very special friend. To show off (the whole bragging rights thing!) and just to say I can! I am NOT afraid. I have already accepted my fate to make thrums!
There is a reason I’m a voyeur on this site–never, ever, will I have the patience to make it through the Latvian mittens! (Of course, I’ve only been knitting for a year.) So, I will just sigh, oh and ah, and bow my head before my monitor in a gesture of respect and awe.
Regarding the metric thing–I haven’t the foggiest. We have purchased pop/soda/carbonated beverages in 1L and 2L bottles since my early childhood, most things manufactured to be sold in the US and elsewhere have metric and imperial units (yes, I know there are some units of measure in the US that are not strictly imperial), and yet we can’t seem to make the leap. I’m sure it’s an evil Republican plot.
I have to agree with Rob on temperature though. When I lived overseas I got used to linear and weight measurements pretty quickly, but I never quite got the hang of temperature–I had to keep a conversion chart taped to my refrigerator so I’d know what to wear when it was 19 and where to put the oven dial for those cookies I’d bake at 350 if in the states!
hmm, makes me wonder how many latvian girls got knocked up on purpose ( and thus had to get married) just to get out of the mitten obligation?
Although I am not a Grammar Avenger, your statement “If anybody needs cheap wool that would cost the same (or less) than an acrylic/wool blend, I recommend Briggs & Little”, really curled my toes (which are in un-thrummed socks at the moment).
Briggs & Little woool is “inexpensive”, not cheap.
Your blog has caused another problem too: I want, want, want a knitted object with the Latavian braids. But then my mind stumbles over the idea of knitting mittens in order to get the braids. I detest knitting mittens.
My aversion is a long story having to do with the first (and only) pair of mittens I knit. One mitten did not come out the same size as the other one. (There were a different number of stitches counted on each mitten *after* they both were finished. An anti-mitten gremlin must have been at work because they both started off with the same number.)
So I’ve been sticking to sock knitting since then (which has much less chopping and changing to the pattern) — at least until I saw your beautiful braids.
I know why the Latvians made mittens like that. It’s to stop pre-marital hanky pank. Think of it as a form of mitten-oriented birth control.
I mean, c’mon, what would you have done if Joe had tried to talk you into abandoning the braid last night? What if you knew you had to do EIGHT HUNDRED of them?
All I know is, I am currently thanking all that’s holy that I am not a mitten-knitting latvian. Those braids would consume my life, leaving no time for hanky-pank, and that would be a great crime.
Off to bed,
Bippy
Why do I foresee these Latvian mittens having a grand old time like the Dublin socks used to? Any good concerts coming up that they might enjoy?
Having just discovered my spelling error in my previous comment, can I redeem myself by offering Bippy a URL to prove that not only was multiudinous mitten knitting used as a form of birth control, it was also used as “a token of appreciation” – greasing the palm of – anyone and everyone involved in births, weddings, engagements and funerals. That is, clergy, medical people, pallbearers, etc.
And sometimes mittens were left “just in case” someone else showed up. So they wouldn’t feel “left out”?
Check out: http://home.sprintmail.com/~misstinuviel/mittens.html
to see why the hundreds of mittens were necessary.
Socks…mittens…it matters not…I want to be a Harlot, too, if that is how they knit…in the words of my 5 year-old son…awesome…
Very very strange. I can knit these braided edgings MUCH faster than K2P2 ribbing, they just fly by. Hmm. Do you hold one color in each hand? And they really do look great, I’d do them even if they took an extraordinary long time.
My mother took a night school class in the late 60’s (anything to get out of the house, I think) called “Inching our way into the metric system”.
Even today, in Norway at least, inches are still used in wood dimensions. As in “I need a 95 cm long piece of 2 x 4”
Hi, Love the braid ! Knit baby knit ! Can’t wait to see the results ! Which book do you like the best ? I just have to get one !
Kim O
Those braids are gorgeous! As are the rest of the mittens. Kudos to you for plowing through – they’ll be wonderful when they’re done, and you won’t have to knit another 100 pairs. (Whew.)
So. Yeah. What Kathy M. said. Just the other day I tried to describe the LCBO seasonal bag as “l*v*ly just” and your comments sponser accused me of “questionable content”. Harummmmph.
I love the mittens – the braids arer gorgeous. Now I have to find the book and make some too. I have only made one pair of mittens in my life and they were for CIC (to fit a small child). I’m glad you are going a KAL on thrums. I have wool and roving – and I need a warm pair for snow removal.
WOOT. Want One Of Those!!
I used to date a Latvian guy, and you know, he was very patient. Maybe it’s in the genes! Actually, come to think of it, it was probably less “patience” and more “affected teenage disinterest” combined with “too much weed”… but let’s just remember it as “patience”. Yeah.
I’m feeling woozy after going to the site that Janey posted. And this odd sensation of “well, really, those are just gorgeous, I wonder if I could…” I promptly snapped out of it.
{roggey to Merrick & rams: my favorite BA series is number two, where he deals with mad Queen Bess. Damn him and his ruffled & tighted self! grrr, baby! And like the rest of the cast, Hugh rocks =) }
which Briggs & Little yarn did you use for the Latvian mittens?
which weeight of Briggs & Little yarn did you use for the Latvian mittens? Yours are gorgeous!
when knitting pattern asks for european 3.5-4 needles, what size does that equal in USA sizing?