Maria Erika Olofsdotter Aittamaa (22 February 1866 – 15 December 1952) was a Swedish

artisan An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...

of Tornedalian descent, famed as the inventor of the '' Lovikkavante'' mitten. Aittamaa was born to a poor family with many children. A part of the Finnic

Meänkieli (literally 'our language') is a group of distinct Finnish dialects or a Finnic language spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden along the valley of the Torne River. Its status as an independent language is disputed, but in Sweden it is recogn ...

-speaking population of the Norrbotten County in northern Sweden, she lived in Lovikka with her husband and children and started to sell mittens to make money. In 1892 she invented the Lovikkavante, a special kind of mittens. Demand for Erika's mittens became so great that she taught others how to make them. During the 1930s a local teacher found that she could patent the design. The process however cost money and although the teacher found people who would fund the cost, Aittamaa refused to take charity.

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