Fall 2019 • Spin Off 25
to determine the geographical origin of many twined-
knitted objects.
Styles varied for men’s and women’s everyday and
church-day textiles. Even marital status impacted the
specifics of style. Socks, gloves, mitts, and wristlets were
common in addition to sleeves sewn onto woven wool
jackets for both male and female wearers. The most
common fiber used for twined knitting appears to have
been wool, often blended with winter rabbit’s fur for
whiteness and warmth, but cotton and flax yarns were
also used.A Forgotten Mitten
In 1974, a mitten was found at an archaeological
excavation in the Swedish county of Dalarna. At first
glance, the mitten looked knitted, but when turned
inside out, it looked quite different from what we
consider regular knitting today: distinctive horizontal
ridges of twisted yarn covered the inside of the mitten.
Analysis of the mitten revealed that it had been knitted
with two separate yarns that were twisted between each
stitch on the wrong side of the fabric. The yarn was
spun S and plied Z.
The technique we now know as twined knitting, or
tvåändsstickning in Swedish, had nearly been forgotten.
When the mitten was rediscovered in Dalarna,
researchers consulted elderly ladies from the area who
remembered the technique.
Research into the mitten’s past has continued. Anna-
Karin Jobs Arnberg, curator at the museum of Dalarna,
tells me that researchers first believed the mitten was
from the nineteenth century. Later, the find was dated
to the 1680s by analyzing soil layers. This updated
timeframe makes the mitten one of the earliest findings
of the twining technique and of knitting in general in
Sweden. In 2017, the mitten was analyzed again, this
time with the carbon-14 dating method, and produced
an even earlier date. It turned out that the mitten had
been knitted between the mid-sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries.Twined Textiles
Twined knitting has a rich history in this area of
Sweden and also on the other side of the border in
Norway, where it was used for sturdy work mittens with
the twined ridges on the outer sides of the mittens.
Patterns, styles, and techniques varied between the
villages in the county of Dalarna and, as with other
crafting techniques, these hallmarks made it possibleKnitting: One End or Two?
When the twined-knitting technique with its unique use of two yarn sources was used in Dalarna, it
was simply called stickning (knitting). When what we call knitting today was later introduced to the
area, it was called enkelstickning, one-end knitting. It was not until the one-ended, faster version took
over in popularity that the names were changed: stickning for one end, tvåändsstickning for two ends.
In English, it may be referred to as two-end knitting or twined knitting. The technique is called tveband
in Norwegian.Above top: The right side of twined knitting looks just like
regular knitting. Above: The wrong side has horizontal
ridges where the two yarn ends have been twined.
Opposite page: Fileuse sweater design by Valérie Miller.