Here in Minnesota, we are in winter’s icy grip.

Fortunately, creativity is flourishing among the Scandinavian Weavers!

Alla Hale was inspired by Theodor Kittelsen’s image of the “Skog Troll” or Forest Troll. Kittelssen (1857–1914) is one of Norway’s most famous artists, known for his paintings of nature as well his illustrations of Norwegian folklore. We are grateful to Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet for the free use of the above image. (See link below.)

Alla wove this piece as part of a series of eight, starting with six silhouettes of family members. Her warp is a very fine cotton threaded at 24 EPI. (She notes that the photo above is of the unfinished weaving fresh off the loom, rather than a “glamour shot.”)

Alla writes, “You’ll notice [my weaving] is a mirror image- I pin the reference cartoon to the work, but printed on an inkjet printer, and it was rubbing off on the work, so all my pieces became mirror images.”

“Background weft is a laceweight hand dyed merino wool. The troll is a Briggs & Little sport weight Canadian wool.  The moon, eye, and shading is accomplished with an inlay of various remnant wool and alpaca, mostly fingering and lace weight.”

“I will share that I felt very unsure about weaving this,” Alla writes, “worried that I wasn’t doing the painting justice, until I got to his eye and saw how the overshot pattern lined up just so in the eyeball. This made me cackle with delight.” (Somewhere, the Trolls are cackling, too.)

Alla’s eighth weaving in her series was a raven. “The raven was a request by a friend building a cabin up in Northern California,” she writes. “The raven is a cheviot spun at Badgerface Fiber, Minnesota’s first solar powered yarn mill.” (See link below)

“The moon is woven in a laceweight alpaca. The background is woven with a fingering weight merino wool that I dyed with red onion skins. Weaving this one was very challenging since I had to keep track of the moon [and] raven treadlings separately. What a brain workout for this baby weaver.” 

Needless to say, all the weavers in our group were impressed!

Above is Lori Lab’s Rölakan weaving, which she is in the process of finishing. Lori wove the piece in a class by Christine Novotny at North House Folk School. The weft yarn is Swedish Mattgarn. Five strands per pick allows for for color blending. The woven motifs were inspired by Lori’s travels in Morocco. With the colors echoing the flames above, Lori’s weaving seems to have found an appropriately cozy home by the fireplace.

Equally cozy are Nancy Ebner’s lovely hand towels, woven in 16/2 linen that echoes the colors of the winter landscape. Nancy chose her favorite treadlings in a Bronson lace pattern from Halcyon Yarn in Maine, a state that is enduring an equally icy winter.

Look for more winter weavings in Part Two, including Norwegian pick-up bandweaving, the very last of the skillbragd warp, and the beginning our next group warp in Flesberg technique. Plus, a surprise gift lends hints of spring in Swedish linen!

Links:

Norway’s National Museum (Search on Kittelsen)

https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/

Get Bentz Farm and Badgerface Wool

https://getbentzfarm.com/