Twined Knitting and What to Buy

This module reconstructs North House Folk School’s two-day Tvåändsstickning: Mittens in Swedish “Twined” Knitting with Lily Bell. Students begin a pair of striped mittens in Z-spun yarn from Wålstedts in Sweden: the first day the cast-on and technique, the second the thumb gusset ¹. North House has also taught a one-day version that covers preparing the yarn, a decorative two-colored cast-on, and twined knit and purl ². The class plan isn’t published; this follows the sources cited, and the mitten in lesson 3 is worked out here from a published gauge.

What twined knitting is

You knit with two ends of yarn, usually both ends of one ball, one from the inside and one from the outside. Both are held in the right hand, and you use them for alternate stitches, twisting them around each other between every stitch ³. The right side looks like ordinary stockinette; the wrong side is ridged where the strands twisted. The fabric is denser, warmer, and harder-wearing than one-strand knitting ³, with very little stretch, behaving more like woven cloth ⁴.

Patterns come from relief stitches made by carrying one strand in front: purls, crook stitches, crook rounds, and chain paths ³. Lesson 2 covers them.

The Falun glove

In 1974 an archaeological dig in Falun turned up a knitted glove that proved to be twined. From where it lay, near Borns hyttegård, it was thought to have been lost before 1680; radiocarbon dating in 2017 put it more than a century earlier, probably about 1550 ³. It’s 24 by 11 cm and knitted at about 5.5 stitches per centimeter ⁵.

The find set off a survey in the 1980s and 90s. A large share of the knitting in Dalarnas museum turned out to be twined although it was catalogued only as “knitted,” probably because twining was simply the usual way. When one-strand knitting arrived, it was the one that got special names ³. In Dalarna twining was just stickning, knitting; one-end knitting was enkelstickning ⁴. Birgitta Dandanell and Ulla Danielsson’s 1984 book fixed the name tvåändsstickning ³. It’s now on Sweden’s national list of living heritage ³.

Where it was knitted

Twined knitting belongs to the forest country of Värmland, Dalarna, Härjedalen, Jämtland, and Hälsingland, and to eastern Norway ⁵. More than 95 percent of the knitted objects from Dalarna in the Nordic Museum and Dalarna’s local museums are twined ⁵. It made stockings, mittens, caps, and the knitted sleeves of livtröjor, jackets with woven bodies ³, and work mittens and stockings for men in the logging forests ². In Norway and Värmland, mittens and socks were worn wrong side out, ridges showing ⁶. Best mittens could be bright: a pair for the Floda parish costume in Dalarnas museum is twined in white Z-plied wool and patterned in purl and knit stitches in red, blue, and green ⁷.

Older pieces are mostly two-ply Z-plied wool; linen and cotton were used too, mainly for best mittens ³. Wool was often blended with winter rabbit fur for whiteness and warmth ⁴. Everyday pairs were plain, like a gray pair in Swedish wool with purl-stitch cuffs and a cord to keep them together ⁸.

The yarn

Most yarn is spun Z and plied S. Twined knitting typically calls for yarn plied Z (spun S) ⁹. The yarn of the 1974 Falun find was spun S and plied Z ⁴.

The reason is twist. Twining twists the two strands around each other all the time, so the yarn gains twist on one side of your hand and loses it on the other. With Z-plied yarn, the strands untwist a little near the work, which keeps the fabric soft, and the overtwist collects toward the ball. With S-plied yarn the strands kink up near the work much sooner, and the fabric is bulkier ^{4 9}. Since the yarn untwists in knitting, it needs reasonably long, strong fibers ⁴. Most traditional twined yarns are 2-ply fingering weight ⁹.

What to buy

• Ullcentrum Öland sells 2-ply Z-plied Swedish wool for twined knitting, 300 m per 100 g, about 140 SEK for natural colors and 175 SEK for dyed ones ¹⁰. The shop can show prices in dollars; ask about shipping.
• Wålstedts Ullspinneri in Dala-Floda, whose yarn the class uses, spins Z-plied yarn for twined knitting; order by contacting them ¹¹.
• A Swedish twined mitten pattern uses under 90 g of yarn for a pair, in Wålstedts’ 250 m or Ullcentrum’s 300 m per 100 g ¹².
• No Z-plied yarn? Spinners can spin their own ⁹. Or use an ordinary S-plied 2-ply and twine the opposite way, as Spin Off’s practice cuff does ¹³.
• Needles: a set of five double-pointed needles, 2.5 mm ¹. Use needles about 0.5 mm smaller than the yarn’s usual size; metal is preferred ⁵.

Try it

Wind a center-pull ball and pull out both ends. Hold them together, let the ball dangle, and twist the two strands around each other a dozen times the same way. Watch the cord build up above your hand, then let the ball spin and undo it. That spinning ball is how you’ll manage twist the whole way through a mitten ¹³.