"Mora Vantar"

The description of this lovely pair of twined-knitted mittens says that they were given to the museum by a Dr. Hazelius in 1873, who "got them many years ago from a Mora girl" -- a Morakulla, which is the same word used to describe many of the young women in Anders Zorn's paintings, as well as this one by Emelie von Walterstorff --

Ever since my first steps in two-end knitting, I've been dreaming about the Mora wool from Nancy Bush at The Wooly West, and so with my Christmas money I splurged on two skeins. This is Swedish Z-ply wool -- apparently especially suited to two-end knitting because of the way the twist lies -- so I'm looking forward to making Nancy's pattern from the Winter 2010 issue of "Knitting Traditions", with enough left over for the Ormsta wristwarmers!

Plain mittens in sheep's wool (fårull), from the village of Vinäs in Mora parish.  This well-used pair was acquired by the museum in 1891.  (I wonder what the hook-and-eye are for ...?)

The museum gives surprisingly little information about this pair in beautiful condition, except that they were acquired in 1879 as part of an ethnographic collection.  These are halvvantar, half-mittens.

This elegant pair of Mora vantar were given to the museum in 1877 by the committee for Sweden's participation in the World Exposition -- it doesn't specify which one, but I'm assuming the one in Philadelphia the year before.

Clearly two-end-knitted, but wildly different from the others.  According to a post by Lars ("Baritono") of Lappone, this kind of mitten was probably knitted to sell as souvenirs.  (I think that not only because the Dalarna region, having kept their traditional costumes as everyday wear longer than most Swedish regions, was especially picturesque, but also because of Carl Larsson, Dalarna was particularly popular with tourists.)

These images of Mora vantar -- mittens from Mora parish in Dalarna -- are all from DigitaltMuseum.se.

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

I like your new yarn.

Those mittens have lasted a long time, which I find rather amazing. I heard recently, however, that some knitted fabric has been recovered from Henry Vlll's ship the Mary Rose - which really made me think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose