The colourwork motifs on this mitten are based on a Faroese “nattrøye” (nightgown/sweater) recently discovered in London. It was originally part of a shipment heading from the Faroe Islands to Denmark in 1807 just as the Napoleonic wars began. The ship was captured by the British navy and taken to the UK as war booty. Sadly, the would-be recipient of the sweater, P. Ladsen of Copenhagen, never received it.

The sender, Niels C. Winther, included a letter that reads in part, “My wife sends her regards, thank you for the pudding rice. She sends your fiance this sweater and hopes that it is not displeasing to her.”

I hope that these mittens will not be displeasing to you, either. They call for the following quantities of sport weight yarn:

main colour - 110 m / 120 yards
contrast colour 1 - 50 m / 55 yards
contrast colour 2 - 25 m / 27 yards

The sample mittens were knitted in Rauma Finullgarn, 175 m/50 g. Finull is a woollen-spun rustic Norwegian yarn that knits up much more robustly and thickly than a worsted-spun Merino yarn of the same yardage and weight.

The last photograph shows a close-up of the bottom edge on the original sweater, where you can see the motifs that are used in the mittens.