Tag: book on knitting

Komi knitting III: treasure trove of textile designs

The redwork textile patterns of the Finno-Ugric people is a great source for designing knitwear patterns. This is the third post about the Komi knitting and its history.

Besides being skilled knitters, the Komi women were also imaginative weavers. The patterns on their towels, table cloths, belts and shirts are of the same diagonal geometric shapes as seen in their knitted objects, but the compositions are more sophisticated.

First: the postscript to Komi Knitting II

I had the most interesting exchange on Facebook with Johanna P. from Finland.

She posted several pictures with sweaters. I’m taking a liberty to republish the photos with Johanna’s descriptions. The items are excellent illustrations of the Finno-Ugric textile tradition, but they are not the products of the traditional Komi knitting.

The resident of the Archangelsk area, early 20th century.
Archangelsk was a major Russian port and had close ties with both – Europe and the land of Komi. The population of Archangelsk was a wild mix of the Russian outcasts and explorers and the native Finno-Ugric tribes.
The sweater collected from the White Sea shore (Archangelsk area, to the north of the Komi) in 1911.
National Museum of Finland
The design based on Finno-Ugric textile patterns. Circa 1986.

… now back to topic – the Komi textiles

I found several diagrams in the ethnographic book. The patterns are copied from the original textiles and belts of the Perm region of the Komi Republic.

The patterns from towels, shirts and belts made by the Komi women of Perm Region in the 19th and early 20th century
Combination of several designs for the vest

The diagonal patterns of the Komi are very predictable and easy to combine into large-scale intricate borders and all-over patterns. Charlene Schurch’s book Mostly Mittens: Traditional Knitting Patterns from Russia’s Komi People (see my previous post) explains the principle of the Komi patterns.
For my vest featured above, I combined a couple of border patterns from for the socks and the pattern with a stylized female figure called Bereginya (Mother Protector) found on 19th-century towel pattern from Perm region of the Komi Respublic.

Komi knitting II: a brief introduction

Colorful knitting of the Komi is little known beyond Russia, very much unlike Fair Isle knitting. But it is spectacular. It allows endless creative variations. This is the second post about the Komi knitting and its history.

The Komi

Brief overview of the colorful knitting of the Komi people of the Russian North. I will write about the Komi textile art and the history of the Komi people in later posts.

Sample of Komi socks donated to the museums

The Komi are one of the numerous Russia’s ethnic minorities. Their language belongs to the Finno-Ugric group. The better-known languages in this group are Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian. There are total 24 Finno-Ugric languages, mostly spoken in the Northern regions of Europe and Asia.
About 300,000 Komi people are currently living within Russian borders, in The Komi Republic. Theirs is the land of forests, severely cold winters and short, bright summers, when a surprise frost in July is not a rarity.

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100 years ago the most of the Komi people lived in small villages. The modern Komi prefer the life other than the poverty and hardship of the countryside.

Komi colorwork knitting

From the collections of the regional Komi museums.
Those items are more for special occasions.

The Komi women traditionally knitted only knee-high socks and mittens. Infrequently – gloves. By word “traditionally” I mean at the turn of the 20th century.

The patterns were always diagonal and geometric. Symmetric and asymmetric. Stars and flowers were rarely used.

In spite of its visual intricacy, the patterns are easy to knit without constantly consulting a chart.
2 rows of color changes every 1,3,5 stitches. Every third row – color changes every 3 stitches. Like a Mandelbrot set, a Komi pattern can expand into something complex over 24 rows or more, or to form something simple over a border of 5 or 7 rows.

Very little was published about the art of Komi knitting in the USSR or in Russia.
The most authoritative work is a doctoral thesis by ethnographer Galina Klimova, based on her research in the Komi villages in the 1968-1978.

Klimova’s thesis was published as a book The Ornamental Knitting of The Komi People in Russian. It is a mind-numbing reading, but the sins of dry language, historic omissions and all other sins that Ms. Klimova committed on this Earth must be forgiven to her for her careful and detailed illustrations. She saved the vanishing heritage of the people for the 21st century: today the traditional knitting is popular again and the modern Komi women are learning it by the illustrations in her book.

Below are several color plates from Ms. Klimova’s book. The mittens are obvious. The rectangular shapes are top parts of the socks.

The traditional Komi mittens and socks. Color plates from The Ornamental Knitting of the Komi People by Galina Klimova (1978).

Luckily for the English-speaking audience, Charlene Schurch wrote Mostly Mittens: Traditional Knitting Patterns from Russia’s Komi People (1998).
The designs and the choice of wool in the book closely follow the Komi tradition.
The designer’s only liberty was the inclusion of her lovely hat designs. (Remember, the Komi women knitted only mittens and socks.)

Below are the plates with traditional sock patterns. In my next post I will give a brief overview of the Komi weaving. It uses the same diagonal patterns, but of more intricate design.

The traditional Komi mittens and socks. Color plates from The Ornamental Knitting of the Komi People by Galina Klimova (1978).