A Treasure Trove

UPDATE 24 DECEMBER:  The entire mitten archive is now available on the NATO website here .  Be advised, though, the file is immense--almost 2 gigabytes.  So make sure you have space on your hard drive.  The file is packed in an .rar file.  If you need a program to unpack the file, go here and download the first file, WinRAR 3.62 for PCs, or the fifth file, RAR 3.60 for Mac OS X.  It's just a trial version, but it does the trick.

Me, I'm just pure dizzy with mittens.

In October Mamacate alerted us to the fact that there was some serious mittening going on in connection with the 2006 NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, a tiny Baltic nation. 

The press release stated, 

"To give a warmly welcome to the guests of the meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government in Riga, the organizers are planning to present a pair of unique, handmade Latvian ethnographic mittens to the members of NATO delegations and media representatives.

Around 300 knitters, even men, from all regions of Latvia are busy knitting 4500 pairs of mittens. Each of them will be made with unique traditional Latvian ornaments, originating from four Latvia’s geographical regions - Vidzeme, Latgale, Kurzeme and Zemgale, some of them even being as old as ten centuries.

The knitters admit that the idea of NATO summit organizers has promoted revival of knitting traditions or as they call it “Renaissance of ethnographic ornaments”.  Being symbolic to Latvia’s history they will show the guests the richness of Latvia’s culture and diversity of its ethnographic ornaments. Organizers also hope that the memories of our guests from Riga will be encrypted in the mittens."

Can you imagine?  Using mittens not only as a celebration of Latvia's artistic ethnic traditions, but also as a tool of diplomacy.

4,500 pairs of mittens.  9,000 individual mittens!!

Envision this--if you fill a page of typing paper with periods . . . . . , leaving one inch margins all around, you will fit only about 3,500 periods on the page.  It would take two and a half pages of periods to add up to 9,000.  Now imagine that every one of those periods is a hand knit piece of art, a Latvian mitten.

 
Since I first read Mamacate's post about this, I have had this photo on my desktop.  Has there ever been such a collection of mittens in human history?  I believe there cannot have been.  This assemblage of textile art must be unique.   

 

Although the mittens were knit for a noble purpose, it is sad that almost as soon as the mittens were assembled they were dispersed to the four corners of the world.  I can only hope that some of the recipients appreciated the importance of the gifts they received.

 

 

I was pleased to find that the Riga Summit organizers memorialized the collection of mittens with individual photographs of many of them--not all by any mean, but several hundred, perhaps a thousand--in seven galleries, arranged by region and whether the mittens are for men or women.  Go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

 

Go see.  Spend some time. Click on the thumbnails to get good closeups of the individual mittens. Each one is a treasure in its own right and worth study.  Taken together, they are a treasure trove such as the world has never seen before and will likely never see again.

 

In the fleeting way of the Web, these photos may be gone tomorrow and the archive gone.  These images are too precious to be lost; they deserve to be preserved.  I have saved all the images to my computer.  I hope others will do the same.  I have also written to the Riga Summit press office to ask about the availability of the mitten photos.

Share the webpages and the photos with your knitting and spinning friends.  I would like to see the story of these mittens spread across Blogland and beyond.  All fiber workers should see these images.

Thank you, Latvia.  Thank you Latvian knitters.

 

(As always, click on the images for enlargements.)

Comments

[moncler netherland]

Beautiful!!! You truly have an eye for colour.

[padma]

Is there any update on having written to the folks about this? I would also like to see a book on the mittens, patterns, and info! thanks.

[Melody]

I would like to purchase mittens for sale. Does anyone know of a distributor or a contact in Latvia?

[Maija]

If you have the contacts, please urge them to publish all these pictures and information in book form. I'm sure it would sell!

[Maija]

If you know the contacts, please urge them to publish all this in a book. I'm sure it would sell!

[Diane E.]

Wow! Thanks!

[Ruta D]

my mother, being an immigrant from latvia, has knit many pairs of mittins, but she has made them just a fraction of the size for ornaments to wear on clothes, purse, christmas trees, etc.
the regular size mittins are very warm, and wonderful!

[Kathryn]

I very much want to successfully download the Latvian mitten file. But each time I click on the link above, my browser starts downloading gibberish into a web page window, rather than downloading an executable file. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[John Kadilis]

As a Latvian-American I was thrilled to see your writeup and positive comments from all over about Latvian mittens. They are also quite sturdy and will last for years. You can probably buy a pair by klicking on Latvians online.

[Jan]

This message makes me very happy!!! It is so good to see traditons kept alive for the coming generations and i wish i could have seen it in real. If a book will be published I will deffintely buy it.
Warm wishes from Jan from Holland who is a knitting addict

[mary.l.]

what a great find! i sent an email to the site editor, suggesting a book with the photos & a discussion on each region, from which the patterns were produced. maybe with some encouragement, they'll put something together, when the web photos come down.

[angelarae]

Wow! How amazing! The Latvian people are truely rich in character. I think I will learn to knit a pair of these mittens in honor of the great generosity of this people. Thanks so much for sharing this important contribution! Love your blog:)

Ang

[Kristin Nicholas]

Tooooo wonderful for words! Thanks to you and all those knitters and the web for spreading the art and history.

[moiraeknittoo]

Wow! Thank you for the links! I wish they'd put up women's mittens from that first region, but the rest of the pics are so fabulous I almsot don't miss them. I really appreciate your pointing these out. Amazing!

[cyndy]

Thanks for the links Marcy!
I had been following the press release stories, but missed the individual photographs....so thanks!

[Jan]

What a treasure trove of visual info! Thanks for putting this out there for us.

[Vicki]

Amazing. Thanks for the post and all the links!

[Laurie]

Stunning display. I'm very happy that you are helping to preserve their existence. Thank you.

[Pamela]

What amazing mittens. You're right, they're all treasures, each and every one.

[Bert(ie)]

Incredible! I'll need some time to study all the photographs. Thanks for this inspiring log.

[Beth S.]

Wow. Guess I won't be getting any work done today...

[Manise]

Wonderful post! The photos awesome and patterns on each mitten very inspiring. It would be lovely if someone printed up a book of them all including history etc.. Thanks for adding some color to such a gray, rainy day.

[Carole]

The mittens are amazing. I hope the recipients know how lucky they are!

[Rita]

Wow. They are beautiful. I would buy a book with the photo collection in a minute, if only someone would print it. What a wealth of creativity.

[Sara]

Fabrous! Thanks.

But also? We'd like a closer up of the woven band used as a belt on the woman's dress. We who are weavers, that is. Please?

[julia fc]

thank you Marcie! That's an amazing database.

[Cindy D]

I,too, celebrated these mittens on my blog...http://cindyknits.blogspot.com/2006/10/latvian-mittens.html

We definitely need to keep the information and photos!

[Cassie]

There is such an incredible wealth of inspiration in these mittens - I'm not sure I could ever get tired of them. Thank you so much for finding them and putting up the link(s)!

[Catherine]

Wowza! Nothing says good will like keeping your guests warm in a cold climate.