Many Christmas-themed knitting patterns, including my ‘Wesley Bobs’ tree ornaments pattern, feature an eight-pointed stranded colourwork star. The motif is widely associated with Norway, especially with the style of Norwegian mittens called Selbuvotter. The first pair of Selbuvotter was knitted in 1857 by Marit Guldsetbrua Emstad. However, the knitted star motif has a far longer history throughout Europe than it has just in Norway. This history includes the Quaker pincushions I wrote about earlier this year.
The earliest pincushions that I featured in that post dated to the late 18th century. However, yesterday on Twitter the chap behind the Modern Folk Embroidery website, Jacob de Graaf, drew my attention to an older pincushion in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. This one is not a circular or spherical pincushion like those made at Ackworth School at Pontefract, or The Retreat at York, however it is otherwise very much in the style of those later Quaker pincushions.
So, the Nordic Star was not in fact originally Nordic, and in fact has a long history here in England too!
