Jen Ellis, the Vermont teacher who created the mittens that Senator Bernie Sanders wore in his now-famous photo, has written a surprisingly moving memoir not only about how that happened, but also how it ties into her wider story of coming out, becoming a parent, the power of crafting, and the magic of generosity.
“Like most stories of upcycling, the Bernie’s mitten meme tale begins with unraveling and stitching back together,” Ellis writes in Bernie’s Mitten Maker (Green Writers Press). She takes us back to her childhood and her experience of sexual abuse (not graphically told, but clear) that left her with a dark shadow of trauma. When her home economics teacher introduced her to sewing, however, she found a renewed confidence and a creative outlet to focus her mind.
We see how sewing became an act of healing, helping her navigate other difficult moments in her life and connect with previous generations of her family. Ellis takes us through her coming out, her early years of teaching, meeting and marrying her spouse Liz, and settling in Vermont to teach at an elementary school. She also launched a small side business with a friend who had shown her how to make mittens from upcycled old sweaters. Although she wasn’t very interested at first, she grew to value the activity and the friendship. “We were joining in a sacred history of women crafting together,” she observes. They began selling them at craft fairs in Vermont.
Ellis’ journey to parenthood also forms a key part of the narrative. She and Liz began trying to start their family via donor insemination, but after numerous attempts and one miscarriage, thought they would not succeed. When they finally did have a child, their daughter’s early life brought its own medical issues. Through all of these challenges, Ellis was grateful to have mitten making. “Sewing was my respite,” she says. “It was the one thing I could control, and it was a beautiful, unique creation every time.”
Bernie’s relationship to the mittens happened almost by accident, after Ellis and her mitten partner had amicably parted ways. After an accidental encounter with the director of her daughter’s preschool, who was Bernie’s daughter-in-law, Ellis spontaneously asked if she thought he would like a pair. Ellis, who says she doesn’t actually follow politics that closely, nevertheless liked the senator from Vermont, whom she knew had long been a supporter of gay rights.
The sudden interest in Bernie’s mittens took Ellis by surprise. They first caught local attention in Vermont before the inauguration, but the inauguration of President Biden, and the photo that became a meme, led to an avalanche of further requests. Ellis found it hard to manage her sudden meteoric fame. She didn’t want to give up teaching simply to chase money, but she also saw that she could use the opportunity to do some good. She offered pairs to Outright Vermont, an LGBTQ youth organization, and to other non-profits so that they could be auctioned off. A sweatshirt sold by Bernie’s campaign, showing him in the mittens, raised money for Meals on Wheels Vermont. Vermont Teddy Bear, the company that she ultimately worked with to mass produce the mittens, now donates a portion of the sales to Outright Vermont. Through these and other unexpected ways that she details in the book, the mittens inspired both her and others to use them as a tool for generosity.
Not all was smooth sailing, and Ellis candidly narrates some of the bumps as well. Woven through the book, too, are thoughtful descriptions of her life as a small-town teacher, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she turned her creativity towards ways of keeping her students motivated and learning.
Bernie himself plays a very small part in the book; the focus is on the yarns of Ellis’ life before and after the famous photo. This charming and unpretentious memoir of crafting, parenthood, healing, and connection offers a read as comforting and warm as her famous mittens.