Jette’s Mittens

January 25, 2010 by joyknits 3 Comments

The new issue of Piecework came recently and I was delighted to see Barbara Plakans’ article about Jetta Uzane* (1924-2007) and her beautiful Latvian mittens. Much of the information in the article plus additional photos can be found at LatviasFriend.

At the 2000 Oft-Timer’s session at Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp, Lizbeth Upitis announced that she was going to take a group to Latvia in June, 2001—several of us just looked at each other and said “Let’s go!”

We had a wonderful trip, with access to mitten and stocking collections in a number of museums because of the contacts Lizbeth had made during research for her book, and also getting to meet with knitters (with the help of Lizbeth and a guide/interpreter).

One of our trips away from Riga, where we stayed much of the time, was to meet Jetta at her home. A collection of her mittens had been displayed in the US, and Lizbeth returned them to her while we were there.

Jette Uzane, 1924-2007.

Jette’s Window (mitten series)

Jette & Lizbeth Upitis: Jette’s mittens come home.

At Jetta’s home.

All photos ©2001, E. J. Slayton.

*Rough approximation of the pronunciation is Yet-ta OO-zane; e as in let, short a.