When June and I visited knitters throughout Lithuania in 2008, we met Marija. When we drove up to the Soviet-era apartment building where she lived, I could not imagine what it would be like inside. The outside of the building was plain concrete, with no beauty whatsoever. The hallways and stairs inside reminded me of the nineteenth-century railroad apartments where my grandmother lived in New York City. But once Marija invited us into her apartment, we found ourselves surrounded by beauty. Lace curtains, a vintage wooden sideboard, and all the comforts of home.

Marija’s beautiful knitting, incorporating traditional Lithuanian motifs into modern garments and accessories, was such an inspiration! Like so many other wonderful knitters that we’ve met over the years, Marija makes both easy projects for sale in the market, and more complex ones for herself and her family. These socks are inspired by a pair she made, which used different motifs but featured the same method for shaping a knee sock by decreasing in salt-and-pepper columns between patterns of a traditional motif.