Estonian Lace - Mittens with Nancy Bush

On Saturday and Sunday September 26 and 27, the PPKG sponsored workshops by Nancy Bush.  Saturday was an Introduction to Estonian Lace.  Nancy Bush walked us through knitting a sampler with a Lily of the Valley pattern.  Cheryl, our over-achiever, completed, blocked and brought her sampler to the next day's class on mittens, which is the yellow pattern below.  Sunday we learned a braided cast-on and stranded color knitting of a cuff.  Traditional colors are white, black and red.  Estonian culture has a tradition that the red strand of color (symbolizing the life blood) surrounding an opening of a garment (sleeve, hem or collar) protects the person from evil.  My thoughts immediately turned to the story of the Exodus and how the shed blood of a lamb applied to the door posts protected the Israelites from the Destroyer.  Then on to Rahab and the red cord hung outside her window preserved her from harm during the invasion of Jericho and last on to Jesus Christ who's blood applied to my account preserves me from death and the Destroyer.  Traditions have an element of truth and this one certainly harkens back to centuries past.

Nancy did an awesome job communicating her knowledge of the Estonian life, culture and traditions including the unique forms of lace and color work.  The two days were a wonderful cross-cultural education in history and art.