Too Many Hobbies, Not Enough Time: Riga

I'm in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Handknitting is part of the cultural heritage here, particularly mittens and socks, so I've been enjoying coming across handknitted items for sale in souvenir stores, knitting shops and street stalls in the very photogenic Old Town.

Just before I came, I finished off my first Latvian mitten body (not the thumb) so I've brought that for show & tell on my knitting tour next week. It also gives me a baseline for what I'm looking at on sale.

'Tines' knitwear boutique in Riga had a nice display of handknitted mittens, most of them priced at only 35 euros. After the struggle I had with my mitten, that seems like peanuts although I could see that the quality of the knitting wasn't very precise. I guess they are knit fast for sale. There was the same design I have knit (from a book called Mittens of Latvia) and I felt slightly vindicated to see that the knitter had also had problems with their tension knitting the four-colour design. They had a limited range of wool for sale. Not far away, a shop called Pienene was also selling handmade items including more mittens branded with the Tines label, only they were marked up to 56 euros there.

Sena Klets specialises in traditional costumes and crafts and had a wide selection of mittens and socks, and other knitted items such as gloves, wrist warmers, boot toppers etc. The mittens here were knit to a much better standard and were priced from around 49 euros up to around 60 euros depending on complexity. I've got big hands and had to try quite a few on before choosing the pair that I purchased in a pretty lavender design.

They also have a lot of mittens on display on the walls, which I think may be antique, or, the knitted samples for the book Mittens of Latvia. Again my mitten design was included only much more precisely knitted than mine. There are also displays of traditional folk costumes and wool for sale so the shop is well worth a visit. The wool is excellent value, only 4.40 euros per 100g.

Hobbywool is another shop, which turned out to be the source of the Knit like a Latvian books and the Hobbywool kits to knit mittens. I had one of their kits years ago and ended up throwing it out after several false starts due to the very skimpy instructions and what appeared to be an inadequate amount of yarn. It was aimed at someone who already kniws how to knit a Latvian mitten. While fighting with the kit, I also bought the Knit like a Latvian book and found it not very informative either - particularly on crucial aspects such as how to knit with 3 or 4 colours in one row. So I didn't buy anything at Hobbywool but they do also sell knitting yarn.