Thoughts on the Two-End-Knitted Mittens

These have been sitting around for a while, ready to post about, but one thing and another -- you know.  To recap, these are Nancy Bush's pattern for two-ended or tvåändstickning mittens, based on the traditional style of mittens from Mora parish in the Dalarna area of Sweden -- these are in Bush's "house yarn," a Z-ply that comes in natural and grey shades (and by the way has a lovely sheepy smell!).  For the contrast color, I dyed a short length with one packet of black cherry Kool-Aid.

The learning curve was a bit steep for me, taking what seemed like ages to knit the first mitten, but the second was done in about a week, even after a long hiatus due to the summer heat and my not even wanting to think about wool, much less knit!

I was very pleased to find that the pattern fits my hands without any adjustment whatsoever, as usually "one size" is too small for me.  These mittens might even have a bit of extra room for shrinkage with wear -- which I fully expect them to do, with this kind of wool.

I had a 24g ball of wool left at the end!

I have to say, I really enjoy this technique, and of course its historical connections, but that twisting is a pain.  I do not understand why, when this Z-ply wool is touted as being the best for two-end knitting (it "allows for the threads to twist and not 'corkscrew' around each other"), it was worming and corkscrewing constantly for me.  I suppose I can't really complain that it took me less than one week to knit a mitten in a complex technique from start to finish, but goodness, I have a great respect now for those Dalarna knitters who made sleeves and whole garments in two-end knitting, especially at a much finer gauge!

Previously, I had found the Knit Buddies tutorial most helpful for the three-color cast-on, but for some reason when it came to cast on for the first of these mittens, I just couldn't seem to make it work, and so I used Anna H's video instead, in which you stand the single needle vertically (wedged between your knees, perhaps) and use both hands to wrap the wools around, I mean without using the needle tip to pick up strands as in most cast-on methods -- but this appeared to produce the same result.  After knitting a bit, though, it was clear that something was different as it didn't lie as flat as my sampler and wristwarmers had done.  I suspect now that my tension was much looser with the upright-needle method, so that although the wool strands are lying in the same manner as the horizontal-needle method, because there is simply more wool involved in the first one, it flares.  Unfortunately, this didn't occur to me until after I was well into the second mitten and wondering why the second one was lying flatter!  Oh well.

The thumb is a new-to-me construction, and very comfortable --

I puzzled for a long time over the cord at the wrist -- there is no mention of a cord in Nancy Bush's pattern, and indeed the ends are all woven in on her pair, although the photo on Ravelry shows a member-submitted pair with the ends in a simple braid.  But the historical examples at DigitaltMuseum, for example, almost all have the cord, so of course I wanted to do it that way -- and it just looks cool!  But the two colors clearly spiral, like a twisted cord, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to twist the ends into a cord that looked like those historical mittens.  I finally just decided to give up and do a four-strand braid and, Googling this to jog my memory about which way to arrange the strands, a number of the hits that came up with a search for "four strand braid" were for "four strand round braid" -- and yes, I now suspect that this might be what the historical mittens used, as my results, after only a few minutes' investigation and experimentation, produced a spiral-effect round cord.

I ended up using the instructions from T.J. Potter, though I must say the video from Tying It All Together was intriguing -- I just couldn't get my brain to quite follow that one when I was holding the colors in a different order.  (Amusingly, since the ends on the second mitten were hanging differently, I started the second one with the left-to-right movement first, instead of the other way round, and the result spirals in a different direction from the right-to-left-first braid!).  The trickiest part was remembering to twist the strands under, as I'm so used to the usual three-strand braid (on my hair, for example) and putting the strands over.

All in all, I'm delighted with the process and the results, and can hardly wait for some cold weather!

(The newspaper is a recent issue of Nordstjernan, "The Swedish Newspaper in America".)

Year or Period: 19th century
Materials: 1 skein Mora Z-ply wool by Wooly West in natural white, with a short length dyed red with Kool-Aid by me; 2.5mm needles
Hours to complete: I misplaced my notes, so I don't know now how long the first mitten took, but the second was about a week of not-particularly-obsessive knitting
How historically accurate is it? Being a Nancy Bush pattern, I assume that that is quite accurate! the Kool-Aid not so much ...
Sources/Documentation: This particular pattern is available in the January/February 2007 issue of "Piecework" and again in the Winter 2010 "Knitting Traditions" magazine.  (Note that the pattern in "Piecework" and on Ravelry is called "Northland Mittens", but in "Knitting Traditions" it is simply titled "Mittens with the Two-End Knitting Technique".)

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

Don't they look good?! You must have a high degree of patience.

[Mary Lou Egan]

Lovely. I used the Beth Brown Reinsel pattern and directions, which I found very clear. I should finish my second mitten, since it is 29F outside!