Barnevott...

...is Norwegian for "child's mitten." Last night my hands were feeling better, but I was tired and didn't feel like going downstairs to get the sweater. So I decided to pull out my recent purchases from Nordic Fiber Arts and cast on for my first selbuvott (Selbu mitten). I did a bit last night and worked on it today and got this far before my hands needed rest:



This is the palm side:



You can see the v-shaped Norwegian thumb gusset here. While this construction isn't quite as anatomical in some respects as a gusset that has the thumb coming out from the side (like these I made myself last year), it still provides more room for movement than the simple peasant thumb it's adapted from. Of course, mittens are intended more for warmth than dexterity, so I'm not sure that it's a terribly critical issue in most cases. Maybe I'll play around with it though when I get around to doing my own variations.

For these mittens, I'm using Raumagarn Strikkegarn, which is a 3-ply sport to DK weight yarn (I'm getting 6.5 st/in on 3mm needles). The pattern actually calls for 2-ply fingering weight Gammelserie yarn on 2mm needles, but I'm planning on fulling these to make them thicker, and my hope is that the increase in size is sufficient to account for the shrinkage. Right now they're big enough for a small woman's hand (I can get them onto my big hand, but they're super snug), and the hope is that they'll fit my niece, who will be 6 when she gets them next Christmas.

For folks who might be interested, while doing a bit of searching for links on selbuvotter I came across this site for a book on the subject that's supposed to come out this spring.