Poetry Mittens to Knit
When the language of handmade isn’t enough, spell out the words as you knit!
Loading the latest stories…
Category
When the language of handmade isn’t enough, spell out the words as you knit!
SUBLearn about knitted liturgical gloves for elite churchmen in medieval and early modern Europe. And, PieceWork subscribers, find the pattern to make your very own pair!
Our Lost and Found issue seeks to find connection in fragments of ancient textiles that remain to this day.
Two counterpane squares from Weldon's Practical Needlework were the beginning of a year-long knitting journey.
The history of knitting has been shrouded in mystery, half-truths, and outright lies! Is this because there is so little material, either textiles or documentation, to enable that history to be fully written?
Author James Brown in History of Sanquhar (1891) describes Sanquhar gloves and stockings in the early nineteenth century as “being woven on wires in a peculiar manner,” which presumably means knitted on fine needles.
Beth Brown-Reinsel’s twined-knitted gloves, featured in the March/April 2018 issue of PieceWork, make a great first project. Below, Beth explains how the yarn used in twined knitting is different from most commercial yarns.
Download PDFs of the charts and illustrations from the projects featured in the 2019 issues of PieceWork.
These offering mitts, also known as “mitts with tongues,” “church mitts,” or “stubby mitts,” were a traditional hand covering in rural Norway. They are a variation of the fingerless gloves or mitts that are popular today.
You make your entrance—gown flowing around your feet as you float down the grand staircase leading to the ballroom. You’re wearing a pair of elegant tatted fingerless gloves as your hands glide delicately along the banister.
This mitten pattern is based on a pair of Sami mittens I saw in Lulea, Sweden, at the Norrbottens Museum.
In the play Dancing at Lughnasa, five sisters struggle to survive during the 1930s in rural Ireland. Knitted gloves play a key role in the plot of the story by providing much needed income for the women.