This December I had two main projects. The first: watch and video the ice forming on Lake Superior. See above. The second: knit mittens. See below.
Mitten Giveaway
I’m introducing something fun to the newsletter this winter! Every month now through March I’ll be giving away a pair of handknit (by me!) Selbu-style mittens to a newsletter reader.
All you have to do to enter is 1) be a free or paid Hello Stranger subscriber (free and paid subscribers are weighted equally for the giveaway, no need to join the paid tier for this!) and 2) just leave a comment on the newsletter saying you would like to be entered this month. I’ll draw winners at the end of the week and contact the winner via the email tied to their newsletter subscription and/or Susbtack DM for shipping details.
*giveaway not affiliated with Substack, and I’m covering the cost of shipping to North America only! To enter, just leave a comment below stating you’d like to enter, and be sure you’re signed up for the newsletter.
A little background on this project: why knitting, why mittens, why gifted?
My grandma first taught me to knit when I was in elementary school and it’s been a part of my life since then. First, I made scarves with accidentally holes in them. In high school I learned to cable knit and started making headbands for my cross country running team. I fell off a little bit in college, but it wasn’t long before smartphones and Netflix really became a part of our lives and I started to really hate how I would watch TV and scroll. I picked up knitting again to replace the phone.
A few years ago as I was starting off freelancing and working odd jobs to fill the gaps, I also started selling knitwear I’d made, particularly the Selbu-style Norwegian mittens. Traditionally Selbu mittens were sold by Norwegian knitters as a way to help make ends meet and support their families .
True to the spirit of the original Selbu mittens, selling mittens made it possible for me and Andy to spend a little more on groceries, and even helped give us a bit of a cushion when we needed to leave the West Coast and move back to the Midwest. Don’t get me wrong we were still broke, but we always were able to cover what we needed thanks in no small part to selling mittens.
The thing about selling handknits is that it is really hard to put a price on something that takes that amount of time. The average pair of mitten takes me, from start to finish, 8-10 hours. The wool I use typically costs around $15 per pair, though I’ve been lucky enough to have been gifted quite a bit of yarn (Thanks Su!). These particular pairs are all reinforced with a mohair and silk blend, which more than doubles the material cost (well worth it in my opinion for the added warmth and softness). By the time it’s all said and done, even if I estimate my cost of labor at $10 an hour, you still end up with a pair of mittens well over $100 which isn’t what most people want to pay, and none of this includes time spent on shipping, creating listings, photographing, or the basic backend tasks that go into actually selling something.
When I was just trying to figure out how to scrape together enough money to cover all my basic expenses, it made sense to spend every night making mittens and sell them for whatever I could get for them — I’m glad I did it that way because I think I learned a lot about the value of work, and the value of hard work.
Ultimately, my favorite part of knitting is how it is steeped in gift culture. I think it is really poignant that something that takes so much time, creativity, and attention to detail and is so challenging to put a price on is so often given freely, as a gift, and that’s the feeling I’m hoping to get back to with monthly mitten giveaways this winter.
Because whether you’ve supported my work through buying mittens in the past, or as a paying subscriber or by being here and reading along, I wouldn’t be able to do this without you here, and I’d like to find a way to pay a little of that back.
To enter the monthly mitten giveaway make sure you’re signed up for the email list, and leave a comment below that you would like to be entered to win a pair of handknit mittens for yourself! I’ll email you with available finished wool mittens (this batch is reinforced with mohair for extra warmth and softness!) to choose from. Thanks for being here!
