Photo Credit: JasondavidfidoeStore on Etsy
Bernie Sanders merch

Jen Ellis, the second-grade teacher from Vermont who knitted the now world-famous mittens worn by Senator Bernie Sanders to President Joe Biden’s inauguration last week, has tweeted: “Thanks for all the interest in Bernie’s mittens! It truly has been an amazing and historic day! I’m so flattered that Bernie wore them to the inauguration. Sadly, I have no more mittens for sale. There are a lot of great crafters on ETSY who make them.”

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Etsy is an American e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies.

Sen. Sanders’ image, sitting all curled up by himself on a folding chair in his heavy coat and mittens in the middle of the (muted) celebration of the Biden-Harris swearing-in, has become the subject of a slew of memes and videos placing him in fantastical locations, including a reflection on Neil Armstrong’s helmet on the moon, on Saturn’s rings, and on a bench next to Tom Hanks’ character Forrest Gump.

Jen Ellis told Jewish Insider last week she had no plans to cash in on the sudden interest in her work (Meet the woman behind Bernie Sanders’s viral mittens). “Honestly, I don’t really do it a lot anymore,” she said. “I’m flattered that they want them, but there are lots of people on Etsy who sell them and hopefully people will get some business from them, but I’m not going to quit my day job. I am a second-grade teacher, and I’m a mom, and all that keeps me really busy.”

“There’s no possible way I could make 6,000 pairs of mittens, and every time I go into my email, another several hundred people have emailed me,” Ellis told JI. “I hate to disappoint people, but the mittens, they’re one-of-a-kind and they’re unique, and sometimes in this world, you just can’t get everything you want.”

Senator Sanders for his part told Gayle King of CBS: “In Vermont, we dress warm. We know something about the cold and we’re not so concerned about fashion. We want to keep warm.”

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David writes news at JewishPress.com.