Bio: Sharon Moe Marquardt has been weaving since the mid-1980s. Inspired by her sister’s summer/winter cow runner, she studied rigid heddle one- and two-heddle loom techniques from the Prairie Wool Companion, edited and authored by David and Alexis Xenakis. She used her notes to teach rigid-heddle classes at the Weaving Works and Experimental College in Seattle. Moving to her home state of Minnesota, she taught these classes at several weaving conferences. At one conference, she discovered Syvilla Tweed Bolson’s vendor table and later signed up for her boundweave class in Decorah, Iowa. These lessons led to a life-long pursuit of learning Scandinavian techniques. She has studied at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, in Norway, and at the Hemslöjden in Landskrona, Skane, Sweden.

Description: On a Vesterheim-sponsored tour which included the folk school in Kabelvåg in the Lofoten Islands I learned to weave a traditional black and white Sami coverlet called a grene from teachers Sonja Vangen and Olaug Isaksen. They work and teach at the Sami Husflid [a handcraft organization] in Manndalen, a Sami community on Kafjord east of Tromso. I was one of the first to sign up for this class because my grandmother is from the Vesterålen Islands north of the Lofotens and west of Tromso, where I have relatives. The grene is a much-desired coverlet and wall hanging. Sonja weaves them for customers on her warp-weighted loom. For wider grene, the looms are propped up against walls and woven outside. Later on the tour, we visited their husflid where I purchased a miniature warp-weighted loom which allowed me to teach classes.

Regarding the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group: The Scandinavian study group has been my main support for decades. I live in a small rural area where hardly anybody weaves. I’ve traveled to meetings, but with Zoom now available I can attend most of them. Mange takk to this group.

shmarquardt@gmail.com