Milena Stefanova started knitting when she was a schoolgirl, having mastered the skill from her grandmother and mother. Her love of beauty and elegance has blossomed through the years, as she creates her wonderful bags and knitwear, most of which she gives away to family and friends.

Not long ago Milena decided to present her works to a broader public, and, to her own surprise, they found many admirers, which, in turn, encouraged her to make more and more items, and not just new designs, but entirely new accessories. One such item are her gloves, and they have become highly popular for their unorthodox design, but also for their refreshing colour combinations.

“In my mind’s eye I see a model, I imagine something and then I start to knit – without a pattern, just like that. And as I progress, something completely different emerges. And that is not a good thing when it comes to gloves, because once I have knitted one glove, sometimes it is very difficult to replicate the other one, and the result might be two very different gloves – left and right,” Milena Stefanova says. “Then I started taking notes, and there are models I knit over and over again so many times, that I know them by heart. Most models are my own invention, some I have seen somewhere as an idea, though I always add something as I go along.”

The master knitter says that to begin with she made a lot of mistakes, she would knit and unknit something over and over again until she got what she had imagined just right. With the flair of a true artist Milena is constantly experimenting -  with different kinds of stitches and yarn, adding all kinds of elements, and the only thing she says she doesn’t seem to have enough of is time.

“One pair of gloves takes me about two days. If I want to make all models I have come up with I would need a year,” Milena says. “I have made up my mind to catch up and I will be knitting throughout summer, because I want to be able to offer people many and different models next winter. I take my knitting with me everywhere I go – when I go to see friends, or when we are driving somewhere, I always have a bag with me full of several different kinds of yarn and knitting needles, because I never know when I might start knitting.”

The young woman says she doesn’t have any pair of gloves she can call her favourite, and for lack of time she has opted for three basic models.

“One kind has flowers on them with petals made of satin, all kinds of metal buttons, beads and other ornaments. They are not well and truly winter gloves, but they are a gemstone for the hand of any woman. The other kind of gloves is called dragon scale gloves. The model is not originally my own but they are very popular. Few women knit them here in Bulgaria, on the whole they are better known in other countries but they are really unconventional. And the third model are gloves with concentric circles. Actually, I stole the original idea though I have made them all my own. They look like a sun, or even a mandala, there are many things we can read into them,” Milena Stefanova says.

The biggest reward for any artist is, of course, to see people happy with their handiwork – beautiful gloves knitted with so much imagination and positive energy.

“I would like to tell people to pay more attention to details and to opt for things that are handmade,” Milena Stefanov goes on to say. “There are so many souvenirs and all kinds of other items made by women like me at home. The market is flooded with things made in China, when we go to the mall we spend our money on such products even though we can afford something that is custom-made especially for us. The people who make items that are one-of-a-kind invest a great deal of positive energy in every one of them, and that is an energy the person wearing them can feel.”

And Milena Stefanova’s stylish gloves are a great way to bring some colour into the gray of winter.

English version: Milena Daynova