We are pupils of the second grade and as the subject for the competition we have chosen to study Latvian artisan mittens. Some children brought pairs of mittens that had been knitted by their great-grandmothers and grandmothers. We examined them all. They were warm, soft, and had beautiful patterns on them. The children said that their grandmothers had knitted them with love and care.

To learn more, we invited Dominiks' mother to our visual arts class. She showed us how mittens are made and explained more details about knitting. She said that knitting mittens requires patience – sometimes one mitten takes several hours or even days to be knitted. Many of us were surprised at how fast her hands worked and how beautiful the colour combinations were created. We also tried knitting by ourselves. It turned out that it was not that easy. When we learned more information about mittens, we got to work in our visual arts class. We each draw a contour of our hands to get the shape of a mitten. We cut the mitten shape out of paper and each created our own pattern for our mittens. Some chose traditional Latvian ornaments, while others added to them their own ideas. As we worked, we felt like we were becoming little artisans ourselves, and our paper mittens became real. All of the models together looked like a warm and colourful basket of mittens. 

Our study helped us understand that cultural heritage is not just old things or ancient objects. Cultural heritage can be both studied and created. It is what we learn from our parents and grandparents, and, also, it is  what we create and preserve by ourselves. We all are Europe, and also our little mittens are a part of it.