Anne Bardsgard - Selbu Mittens: Discover the Rich History of a Norwegian Knitting Tradition with Over 500 Charts and 35 Classic Patterns

This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

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Selbu Handcraft Association (Selbu Husflidscentral) changed its name to Selbu Husflidsentral in the 1900s and is today called Selbu Husflid AS. In the text, both of the earlier names are used.

The word mnstre (pattern) refers to ornamentation and surface patterns. The style and shape of the hand garments are referred to either as proportions or mitten pattern instructions.

For ease in looking up information about associations and museums, Norwegian names are used throughout unless the English translation is also easily searchable. For example, the Selbu Bygdemuseum [Selbu District Museum] has a Norwegian-only website. Husflid translates as the Norwegian Home Arts and Crafts Organization, but is almost universally referred to as simply Husflid, so we have used the original term.

Titles of sources appear in Norwegian, with a translation within brackets for notes and footnotes in the text. In the Resources section at the back of the book, titles are listed in the original language unless an English edition has been published.

The primary motifs in Selbu knitting are stars and roses, both called sjennros in Norwegian. The choice of which term to use in translation was determined by the shape of the motif under discussion.

My godmother was named Inga Rolseth (1909-98), but was better-known as Inga Bakklien. She was skilled at making good food as well as nice, warm bedclothes, and at chopping wood, raising hens, and doing handwork (hainnarbe). Every year meant new stranded colorwork mittens for Christmas, usually modern mittens in blue and white, and then black and white mittens when I was older. Every year, Inga delivered her mittens to the Mitten Headquarters.* When she died, her last inventory showed that, in February and March 1996, she had delivered 14 pairs of womens mittens, 15 pairs of mens mittens, and one pair of childrens mittens. When the price for the yarn was deducted, shed earned a net sum of 951 crownsfor work she had, at a minimum, spent 14 days on. Thats how she made her income; together with a minimal pension and the money she made from the chickens, it was enough to give my godmother a good and secure life.

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* Selbu Husflidsentral.

After each entanglement, the pattern was difficult to see, the stitches were bound off, and Inga finished knitting. A work life ended.

Godmother Inga and her cat Rose. The word for patterned (mnstrete) is