Selbuvott (also known as selbu mittens) is a knitted woolen

mitten A mitten is a type of glove that covers the hand but does not have separate finger openings or sheaths. Generally, mittens still separate the thumb from the other four fingers. They have different colours and designs. Mittens provide greater th ...

, based on a pattern from

Selbu Selbu is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Mebonden. Other villages in Selbu include Flora, Fossan, Hyttbakken, Innbygda, Selbustrand, Trøa, Tømra, and Vikvarvet. The ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. Like all mittens, the purpose of selbuvott is to keep hands warm during winter, with one large space for fingers and a separate smaller section for the thumb. The pattern is a

Selburose In Norwegian knitting, a ''selburose'' () is a knitted rose pattern in the shape of a regular octagram. It is traditionally used for winter clothing such as the Selbu mitten (''selbuvott'') and sweaters (''lusekofte, lopapeysa'' and ''mariusgen ...

, which is a traditional rose from the Selbu area, shaped like an octagram. Marit Guldsetbrua Emstad (born 1841) first knitted the pattern into a pair of mittens in 1857, and sold it through Husfliden in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

in 1897. Selbuvott is possibly the most-worn knitted pattern in Norway.

Marriage Tradition

Although traditionally only worked with two colors, patterns for these mittens could often be very intricate. Because of this, Selbuvott was used as a form of a

dowry A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment b ...

for young girls since selbuvott required an intense amount of time, care, and skilled practice in order to perfect the technique and get the desired look. A girl would start knitting these mittens from a very young age so that she could present them to her future husband and wedding guests.

Marriage Tradition

See also

References

Further reading