In June I attended a two-week weaving course on a farm in the spectacular mountains of Telemark, Norway. The purpose of the course was to make the traditional Norwegian fulled cloth called Vadmal. The farm dates from at least the 18th century and is situated on a hillside with magnificent views and a fully equipped weaving studio. There were eight of us on the course, five from the US, two from Canada, and one from Paris. Everyone had a lot of weaving experience, and all but one had considerable sewing experience.

In the first week we wove 6 or 8 meters of wool cloth. The yarn we used was spun in Norway and came from the indigenous Spelsau sheep, whose ancestors provided the material for Viking sails. This breed is unique in that it has a very long outer hair, up to ten inches long. It is thick but silky and looks exactly like wavy human hair. It comes in a range of colours, black, greys, various blonds and a rich, almost gold colour. Spelsau pelts make stunning blankets and rugs. The undercoat is fluffy and warm and spins easily, unlike the outer hair fibre. There is only one mill left in Norway that spins the Spelsau and no one expects it to last much longer. The Norwegian government subsidizes the farming of this sheep because of its historical importance, although there is tremendous pressure from Australia and New Zealand to stop.

We wove on various Scandinavian looms, with which most of us were unfamiliar. I found the lack of a shuttle race on the beater to be an enormous problem. Several of us had this problem and it really slowed us down. We constantly were sending the shuttle down through the warp and had to scramble amongst the wool fluff on the floor to retrieve it, coming up looking much like a cat that has been exploring behind the couch. Sometimes I would have this problem one out of every four or five shots. The instructor fiddled a lot with the tie ups and this did not help. But then she gave us a big shuttle with wheels on the bottom, and tightened our warps so taught I thought the whole thing would snap. After that, we were fine. Another thing we short people found was that the loom was too high for us. If we put the bench on the top rung, we couldn’t reach the treadles. Eventually we got it worked out, although one of our shorties went crashing onto the floor reaching for the treadle a few times that week. I came away thinking I’ll never complain about my old rusty beat-up Leclerc again.

At the end of the week we fulled the cloth in a reproduction “stampa”, a hand made device with slabs of heavy wood that pound down onto the cloth in a hot-water filled trough below it. The stampa is situated next to a large, fast running stream because it is run by a paddle wheel using the force of the water. The fulling is traditionally done in June because the stream is very full with the melting of the snow in the mountains. After the fulling is done, the fabric is stretched, rolled and unrolled repeatedly, then finally laid out to dry. With the violence from the huge slabs of wood crashing down on the fabric and the hotness of the water, it was a great mystery to me why the fabric held together at all, let alone shrank just ten percent.

Most people wove a 3/1 twill, which gave two distinct sides. The long floats were not a problem because the fulling process felted all the threads together. Having different sides provided flexibility when designing the jackets we sewed the second week. I wove a Herringbone twill which I figured was appropriate in the Herring capital of the world. The zig zag of the original pattern was obliterated in the stampa and came out with a kind of mottled effect. The fabric was soft and had drape after the fulling.

We had previously sent our ideas for a garment to make to the sewing and design instructor, who teaches costume history and design in the Theatre Department of the University of Northern Iowa. Her specialty is Norwegian clothing history so she is very knowledgeable about design and construction. Most of us wanted to make some reference to Norwegian clothing history in our garments. Some people did this by using typical Norwegian clasps or buttons, others by sewing on traditional types of trims. I had spent the last year researching Norwegian historical costume and designed a jacket based on men’s long jackets from several regions. I am doing traditional embroidery around the neck and down the fronts. We used a traditional Norwegian construction method of making each pattern piece a bag made from the outer fabric and its lining sewn together and then turned inside out. All the bagged pieces were sewn together by hand. There are no raw edges anywhere in this method and if the special joining stitch is done with care and skill, the seams on the inside show a lovely decorative stitch down their length.

Throughout the two weeks, we were given many wonderful cultural lectures connecting weaving and other textiles to Norwegian cultural and political history. We saw private as well as public costume collections, met traditional embroiderers, and visited a folk museum. We also went to a university college that specializes in folk traditions including textiles, wood-carving, decorative painting, knitting, embroidery, weaving, music, etc. We were also very fortunate to have a visit from Annemor Sundbo, author of several unique knitting books. In the end, I came away with not just a jacket and some new techniques, but also a real sense of the role of textiles in Norwegian life.

Submitted by Toby Smith

This book was published in 1987 and was written by the Keeper of Textiles at the Paisley Museum in Paisley, Scotland. The book is much broader in its content than the title suggests. It is more generally about the 19th century reproduction ‘Kashmir’ shawls famous for their paisley designs [the so-called 'hundred-year fashion']. There are six substantive chapters, each illustrated with many coloured photos.

Chapter One concerns the paisley design itself. Although this distinctive design has also been know as pine, tadpole, little onion, flower, vase, Fanny’s fern, mango, among others, what became known as the ‘paisley’ to English speakers took its name from the town of Paisley itself. No one really knows from where the design came, but many believe it originated in ancient Babylon.

The second chapter is about shawl production in the UK, Europe, and Kashmir. It describes how the different shawl shapes and paisley designs were produced, as well as how they were woven. The chapter includes many coloured photos of the shawls, design drawings, and graphed charts for weaving. As spinning and weaving technology, such as introduction of the Jacquard loom, progressed, the weavers were able to produce ever more complicated patterns.

There is a chapter about the evolution of the fashion for Kashmir shawls itself. As the shapes of women’s clothing changed over the century, the shape of the shawl changed. The original shawls came from Kashmir; they were rare and very expensive, costing up to 315 Pounds Sterling in mid 18th century. Only the ultra rich could afford them, but you got a lot for your money. Some shawls were as large as 6′ square, others 5′ wide and 10′ long. I’m curious about their weight. The author says they were heavy, but she doesn’t specify.

There is also a chapter on the shawlmakers themselves. I found this chapter particularly interest- ing because it addresses the social history of shawl weaving. The town that became later known as Paisley because it was entirely dominated by ‘paisley’ shawl production was originally a weaving outpost. The history of the town followed the ups and downs of shawl fashion. At the beginning of the 1800′s a good weaver could make over three Pounds a week. Thirty years later wages had fallen to 35 pence a week. In 1842 the entire town went bankrupt.

There are historic photos and engravings in this chapter, which help to illustrate what it was like to be a weaver in 19th century Scotland. I am struck by the similarities of one of these photos to a weaving workshop I recently visited in India. There is a chapter on Paisley’s competitors, and a chapter on the Paisley Museum, which opened in 1871. The museum now has hundreds of the highest quality shawls in its collection as well as displays of weaving equipment and other related material.

I really enjoyed this book because of its complex exploration of the subject and its many illustrations. I am particularly interested in the social history of weavers, but all of this book made for fascinating reading.

Submitted by Toby Smith

Debra Sparrow is an acclaimed weaver who has been weaving for twenty years and is deeply involved with the revival of Musqueam weaving. Her Musqueam blankets are displayed at the Vancouver Airport, and at UBC. She is active in a program at the Museum of Anthropology designed to teach grade four children about Musqueam culture and history. She helped with the design of the Queen of the Night costume in the Vancouver Opera production of The Magic Flute.

Debra and her sister, Wendy, felt a need to find their roots; they wanted to know what their place was in the world. Their grandfather had told them that they had to know who they were and where they come from; otherwise they were nothing. They decided that their path to this knowledge was through traditional crafts. Wendy revived traditional Musqueam blanket weaving, a craft which had been neglected for eighty five years. Debra chose to pursue jewellery making, but later found herself involved more and more with weaving.

Wendy and Debra organized a local group of Musqueam weavers who wove traditional blankets. They were inspired by an old blanket passed down in their family, by blankets owned by museums in Washington, DC and New York City and by a book on Salish weaving by Paula Gustafson. Now Debra is involved with the commercial production of blanket designs in clothing as well as blankets.

The program finished with a brief slide show showing some of Debra’s blankets as well as some traditional spindle whorls and combs.

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn

Barbara is a foster parent through Plan Canada and began her trip with a flight to Lima to visit her 9 year old foster child’s family. Thanks to Barbara’s help, the large family, living in very small quarters, is doing fairly well. What is more, she is engaged in a fund-raising effort to clean up the water in the community and add clean bathrooms to two local schools. According to Barbara, “As to how funds are being raised, I have been to two other guilds, set up a booth at a craft fair, sold lots of photographs and cards and have had some big donations from supporters. So far I have given Plan Canada $35,000.00 and I need another $15,000.00. The building is more than half complete and the children are already using the completed sections of the project. It is very exciting to see.” After this visit to her foster family, Barbara embarked on a three week tour of Peru. She showed us slides of many craft activities, including knitting, spinning, braiding and tapestry weaving. We saw the colourful abstract tapestries designed by Maximo Lora (featured in the Nov.-Dec. 2006 Fiberarts). Lora hires deaf weavers to weave his tapestries. We also saw more traditional tapestries designed by Alejandro Gallardo. These are sold at fair trade prices which benefits the village in which he lives. We saw pictures of a knitter named Rufina who knits garments using bicycle spokes as needles and also pictures of tape being woven using “toe weaving” Finally we saw examples of back strap weaving at the Centre of Traditional Textiles in Cuzco.

Barbara concluded by urging us to invest $30.00 a month in supporting a foster child through Plan Canada. According to Barbara, children who are supported in this way “do not fall through the cracks.”

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn