MITTENS

I have been making them since 2014, the one-of-a-kind mittens to warm the hands of friends. Designs inspired by the wearer. Each pair a story of its own. An eclectic collection. So much life lived.

My very first pairs: Ashley’s fish and Vivi’s reindeer, completed during master’s thesis fieldwork in Burkina Faso in 2014. Contradictory, to be knitting wool mittens in the intense Sahel heat – but also, the clear structure of the technique such a hands-on way to wind down after long intense days of data collection in the rural landscape.

I started my Instagram account, back in 2015, to post photos of mittens I had made for friends. At the time, mittens is what I did. Quite soon after starting the account, though, I branched out: into jumpers, dresses, crochet, embroidery, weaving. But I do always return to mittens. I enjoy making them, as projects they are easy to carry with me and colorwork just works well for me on sock needles. But I also like what they can represent. Something small, but with space for individualized designs. And: As humans, we use our hands for so many essential things. They are two of our most sensitive body parts. Dressing someone’s hands, protecting them, is an intimate act.

When starting the account, it needed an intro. Without really having thought it through, I wrote “I will save the world one mitten at a time”, because, I thought it was funny, thinking I can always change it later. But I kept it. From starting out as a joke, it has grown with me. A handmade thing, created for somebody else, has value. It is a relationship. It is not trying to optimize, it does not care about growth. It is about spending time on something we enjoy, doing it well, and having that time turn into something that (hopefully) makes another person’s life a little bit better.

For me, the mittens have come to represent small acts of care, creativity and beauty that defy modern logics. One, among several, practices that can be used to resist and transform society. Seen like that, my mittens can save the world. A tiny little bit. In a simple, everyday sense. One caring act at a time.

And so, a while back, I embroidered that hastily written intro text and put it on my wall. To remind myself of the importance of the small things, done with intention and care. My mitten statement.

So, maybe in 2022, I got it into my head that I wanted to make a collage with all the mittens. I bought a really large frame, experimented with the size needed for the mitten photographs to create the effect I wanted, cross-stitched my mitten statement to extend across the bottom, and then realized: with the size of the frame and the mitten images, I needed 10 more pairs to fill the space.

I put the collage on hold and spent the next three years making new pairs (in parallel with all the other projects I’ve been working on).

In July 2025, finally, it was done. Mounted on my kitchen/work-space wall in Bergen, in beautiful conversation with: the framed pieces of linen fabric, grown, spun, woven and originally sown into a robe by my Finnish grandma; the fashion school sketches drawn by my Swedish grandma; the watercolor by Jackie, painted to commemorate our hike to the top of Sandviksfjellet when she stayed with me in Bergen in May 2024; and the tripple-reflection photograph I took of Hanna, Kirke and myself during our decadent weekend trip to Biarritz in 2018. A wall of memories, talking with each other.

I’ve written about this before: my inspiration does not happen in isolation. I don’t have ideas on my own. I know that’s how some people’s minds work, but not mine. My ideas need a recipient – sometimes, we have a dialogue in my head, with my imagined versions of a person reacting to my reflections. Or, when it’s more straightforward: the real life version says something that sparks my imagination.

Spending time in June 2025 finishing the mitten collage, editing, printing, I was reminded of all those processes of creating. The friends I made them for. Some are still very present in my life. Others, I’ve lost touch with. But all of them, I carry with me – like threads in the weave that is becoming my life.

So thank you for inspiring me, Ashley, Vivi and all you others. I hope life is taking you to good places where you continue to inspire, and be inspired by, the people around you, in community.

Writings about specific mittens:

The Nordhordland sheep mittens
Lisen’s leaves & pine tree mittens
Julien’s & Karolina’s wedding mittens
David’s & Jennifer’s wedding mittens
Albert’s Manchester fish mittens
Dagmar’s monstera mittens
Cecilia’s Harry Potter mittens