I set up the question “Do you have any interesting story about knitting to share with me?” as the ending part of every interview. Here are nine short stories which I collected from my respondents.
V1: Kadri (49), distance student/accountant
My story is somehow a historical story. In Estonia, there was a mass deportation, you know.
(a very short pause here — it seems that she wanted to confirm that I truly have a clue on the history of deportation.) You know, in 1949 . And our family too got deported to 82 Siberia. And, luckily, we had a good sense to bring alone sewing machine and two big woollen blankets. During the worst Siberian winter, our grandmother and her mother relied on the blanket and used to knit their own socks and mittens. We also traded some of those knitted products for food items like potatoes and flour in order to survive the harsh Russian winter.
V2: Kaja (22), student/waitress
I was knitting when I sailed to Finland. I knitted my Muhu socks and many Finnish women came to see… “Oh it’s so pretty!”…
(Interviewer: You were off to Finland and knit Muhu socks? It is interesting because you were somehow outside of the country but still doing traditional motif?)
…yes, and I have a mind that Finnish people are also interested in Estonian crafts. And crafts, also, their own too. Especially old ladies who came in attention.
V3: Katrin (24), student/craft camp organiser
Perhaps it’s not related to Estonian knitting that much, but what came into my mind is that…hmm…I studied in Norway for two years and there I started, we have something like
The second round of mass deportation from the Baltic States, which happened in March 1949.
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“extra academic commitments”, so, I started craft activity, and in there I made cover for a tree or, I don’t know, like a…scarf?
(Interviewer: Scarf…for tree?)
…yes. The tree was maybe about fifty centimetres? In diameter. And then I collected all the leftover yarns and different yarns, then I knitted it into a simple scarf. And then I put
together on a tree. It was so nice because we have the dormitory, and we have classrooms quite nearby. And the tree was in the middle of the walk to the classrooms. And then, people stood there more frequently and hug the tree, take pictures of the tree…
B1: Tarmo (39), IT technician B2: Terje (32), nanny
Terje: Yeah, my grandma used to…like the sock she made, and then it worn out and get holes…(laugh)…in the bottom…and then she just use really rough things to patch them up…
Tarmo: (laugh) Oh yes yes, to patch them.
Terje: Haha yes, like to patch up it for ten times…and I was like “no no no who is going to wear this?” (laugh) just like go over there, over there, over there…
Tarmo: (he was laughing really hard) Exactly…oh, it happens, but maybe like twenty five years ago. So, yeah.
Terje: Good times.
B3: Triinu (35), administrator
I am…hmm…below average (regarding the knitting skills). When it comes to, you know, be able to do stuff. In Estonia, you know. But compare with people of my age group, in Estonia, then I am not a skilled knitter by any means. Because I was always, you know, just a hobby…I don’t have a skill that lots of other people have, so…I don’t have any, um…I just found one that probably interesting, I remember, I was fourteen, and in that year in school we have to knit a jumper. I found in a…well, it wasn’t an Estonian pattern but, I found in a magazine, um, like a really colourful one. Really colourful jumper. Then I ended
up making that for my school work. And another girl in my class she made the same one, but use different colours. And she made it. And we wore those jumpers…I consider it very fashionable, actually, it was the time at the beginning of 90s when you wouldn’t have lots of clothes in shops for sale. So that’s something like original and nice. Yeah, I ended up wearing that really colourful jumper…it wasn’t Estonian pattern but it was made by myself, really colourful jumper…for three years I think. And I occasionally wear it with the same girl in my class. Like same jumper on the same day. Just like hers was in slightly different colours and different things but it is…the same, same model, same pattern.
B4: Tuule (36), social worker
I was an exchange student in Germany, so I did my last student year there. I had a boyfriend of Indian background. And…so he always found that Berlin is quite cold. So I thought, you know, I had the wish to make something, so I made him a vest…and he really wore it with pride, he was going around and saying, you know, “my girlfriend made it”…I found firstly embarrassed but…you know, firstly I thought it was really embarrassing because, you know, that…um…to show it off. But after a while I thought this is actually really sweet!
Hmm, so it is strange that how…it is sort of change for me. But, yeah, it was interesting that this Indian young man found it, you know, “wow something handmade” when you used to think that in India that handicraft is so common…but probably not knitting (laugh). He found knitting something special, really. That was some interesting moment.
H1: Maarja (37), freelance artist/designer
When I studied to knit Haapsalu scarf, I made the small ones first. And my grandmother was like “okay, do the small ones”…I did those, like, for couple of years. And then I was like “no I want to do the big ones”. But I didn’t like the patterns they have already. So, I mix them. Like my grandmother does the big scarfs, and I just mix up something…so right now what I knit, I have in my head, I don’t have to look at the paper, I just know what I have to do. The only thing I do is those kind of scarfs, at the moment. It’s like mixed. Like starts around and like…something…I don’t know the pattern names but I know that nobody is doing this pattern at the moment.
My mother knits as well. I remember she told me that when she was younger…um, one of the, you know, the boring stuff to do for Haapsalu scarf is that you put the, you know, lace, on the scarf. You know, you have to like…this like…um, boring and, I don’t know, nobody likes it. And when she was younger, my grandmother always told her that she has to do that.
For her scarfs, you know. She was started with laces, not the whole scarf. But only laces and later you go on. But…I remember when I was in high school, I think, and I needed money. And my grandmother was like “okay, you can start, you know, to knit something”.
But first they were not like lacy, you know, they were lacy but they were thicker. Thicker yarn. Like what you use to knit with socks, you know, those big one. The big ones like triangle, with one star, like really easy stuff. And step by step, my grandma added this thing and that thing, and later I got the full pattern in my head. And then she was like…”oh now you have to frame it now, you have to wash it now”, like, sneakily I got to do everything…
(Interviewer: Everything?)
Yeah, quite a lot. That was like quite sneaky you know. (laugh) (Interviewer: I wonder if only female family members knit, or…)
Well, my son wants to knit because he wants to make money, but, yeah, he didn’t do it yet.
But he is thinking about it. But, my grandfather, you know, my grandmother’s husband, he was like not knitting, but like…helping.
H2: Margit (53), knitting teacher
Last two or three years there has been the knitting of the Haapsalu shawl. When varied are too heavy, then slimed (stitches) are falling off from the needles. Then, one need to collect them back again. When it happens, it is nice to feel support from other women here (in Haapsalu Lace Centre) that you are not alone when it happens. Also, they are here and it could happen to them too. This is very positive experience and feeling.
* collected in Estonian, translated 83
I acknowledge Dr Ilona Tragel’s help on dictation and translation work of this piece.
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