Look at those beautiful mittens! Aren’t they nice? I have to admit, it is tempting to say that I have knit them at night by candlelight … But that’s not true.

Someone else made them and – whatever the story might be – somehow they ended up on a flea market in Berlin. Even worse: they were in a nasty cardboard box on the ground with a sign: “all for 5 Euro.”

Knowing how much work it must have been to knit them, how much caring or love or both it took … the selling price and bad condition they were in was hard to bear. Hence, I adopted them.

Now they are clean, waiting for their first assignment. And if this morning’s weather forecast is correct, it won’t take much longer.

Would you happen to know a similar pattern in mittens? What might be their origin? Latvian?