Our next meeting will be held virtually via Zoom, Wednesday, February 3, at 7:00 pm.
Our guest for the evening is Laura Ricketts. Her presentation will be “Discover the Wonderful World of Sami Knitting”. Laura is a knit and crochet instructor from Indiana, specializing in the knitwear of the Sami peoples. After participating in a Nordic Knitting conference, she began researching the contributions the Sami have made to the knitting community. She has toured the Sami lands, visited museums and groups, studied and written about many beautiful examples of Sami knitting. As a former history teacher, Laura enjoys opening this world to others and has spoken and taught classes at folk schools, Finnfest, American Swedish Museum, Nordic Museum’s Nordic Knitting Conference, Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, and knit shops. You can see more of her work and upcoming classes at www.LauraRickettsDesigns.com and she is LauraRicketts on Ravelry.
The Sámi are Scandinavia’s only UN-recognized indigenous people and have a culture rich with fiber traditions. In Laura’s “Discover the Wonderful World of Sámi Knitting” presentation, you will be introduced to traditional Sámi knitting, which was almost exclusively used to produce hand garments. We will view many images of mittens from her trips to northern Scandinavia and learn about the four characteristics which set Sámi mittens apart: cuffs, thumbs, decreases and braids (with and without tassels). In our techniques portion of the time together, we will create sample swatches of two different slyngbordens (Norwegian) or kierrekerroses (Finnish) “braids,” more commonly known as Latvian braid in the States.
If you’d like to learn these techniques, you’ll need worsted weight, wool yarn in two contrasting colors (you may want to have a third color handy, as well) with needles of a coordinating size. You will also want your regular knitting helps — scissors, tapestry needle, etc. Your sample may be knit either flat or in the round. Please cast on at least 20 stitches and have about an inch of ribbing on your needles ready to go.
Laura Ricketts is a lead instructor at the North House Folk School. The school has a Fiber week every February. With Covid, it is not only all online, but it also has taken over the whole month. There are lots of “lunch lectures” and informative presentations people can sign up for, many of them free. The big speaker is Annemor Sundbø, who will be talking February 11 at noon Central time. There are also some great classes being offered, as well. Laura is going to be teaching a Skolt Sami mitten class entitled Birch Leaves. For those who are interested, here’s the link for the month.https://northhouse.org/events/fiber-week
Our membership is $25 a year. Guests are welcome to attend the program for a $10 charge.
Please click here for more information or to receive the Zoom link.