"The Woven Coverlets of Norway" showcases one of Norway's most beautiful and enduring folk arts. A warm, thick cover has always been important during Norway's long winter nights, but coverlets also decorated the family bedsteads in one-room farmhouses, affording housewives an opportunity to display their talents. Coverlets were a central feature in the important ceremonies of a person's life as well, wrapping an infant at christening, providing a cover for the marriage bed, and draping the coffin as a last offering of comfort to a loved one. To explain the coverlet's importance as the pinnacle of the Norwegian weaver's art, Katherine Larson looks at the role textiles played in the lives of women prior to the twentieth century. She takes readers through the yearly cycle in rural Norway and relates it to the many steps of cloth production in a pre-industrial era. Larson describes traditional methods of preparing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving wool and flax, and the tools with which these tasks were performed. She devotes chapters to the different types of coverlets and their origins: tapestry, square weave, krokbragd, double weave, rya, and overshot. Numerous illustrations show patterns from ages past faithfully preserved in the coverlets of Norway. In addition, the book includes a wealth of bibliographic sources and a complete glossary of weaving terminology. Katherine Larson is a weaver and researcher whose Norwegian-American background has inspired her study of Norwegian coverlets. Her book will appeal to anyone who owns or has ever admired an antique coverlet, and especially to Scandinavians who are interested in their cultural heritage. The historical aspects of her work will be important to textile studies, women's studies, and art history. She lives in Seattle.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Coverlets were woven at home by Norwegian women from as far back as Viking times up until the last century. In this attractive book, weaver and independent researcher Larson presents an overview of the history of wool and linen yarn production and the function of the coverlets in rural Norwegian homes and fishing boats, illustrated with black-and-white photographs and drawings of tools and processes. She then examines various types of coverlets, organized into chapters according to woven structures. These are accompanied by detailed diagrams of the threads and multiple color photographs of each type of coverlet, taken mostly from museum collections. When possible, Larson points out analogous weaving types from other cultures and contemporary American craft weaving. This is a carefully constructed book that provides the fullest presentation of this topic to be published in English. Recommended for specialized collections. Kathryn Wekselman, M.Ln., Cincinnati
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Katherine Larson is a weaver and researcher whose Norwegian-American background has inspired her study of Norwegian coverlets. Her book will appeal to anyone who owns or has ever admired an antique coverlet, and especially to Scandinavians who are interested in their cultural heritage. The historical aspects of her work will be important to textile studies, women's studies, and art history. She lives in Seattle.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cultural Gem about Rural Life in Norway,
By "grtwater" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Woven Coverlets of Norway (Paperback)
A Review in the December issue of the Norwegian-American newspaper, Døtre av Norge, a publication of the Daughters of Norway..Let me begin by saying that Katherine Larson is a member of Nina Grieg Lodge #40 of the Daughters of Norway in Poulsbo, Washington. Katherine worked with the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle and the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa, to develop a major exhibit on woven coverlets from major museums in Norway and the United States that was or will be shown as follows: * Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle, Washington, September 13-November 11, 2001; The first forty pages of Katherine Larson's book are a cultural history of Norway using weaving and coverlets as a unifying theme. Katherine writes extensively and well about the isolation and self sufficiency of rural life in Norway. Although the precise dates that many techniques and technologies arrived in Norway from abroad are not typically known, she does try to frame such introductions in terms of centuries. More importantly, she discusses why weaving was so important to the development of the culture. My favorite chapter in the first section of the book is titled, "More Than Just a Cover for the Bed," in which she describes the arrangement of farm households, the psychological boost from colorful additions during the long winter months and the cradle to grave use of coverlets, including baptisms and funerals. Katherine uses historical photographs of women and their equipment; color prints from paintings in the National Gallery and line art of plants used for dying wool, of weaving techniques and of weaving patterns. She presents about 130 high-quality color photographs of finished coverlets, either flat so you can see the entire design or a close up section or in use on a bed. In addition there are many, many black and white photographs of more whole coverlets. Some of the detail drawings would also be useful for embroidery and knitting. The later chapters of the book are devoted one each to the various types of Norwegian woven coverlets. Some of these are pan-Scandinavian and others even pan-European, but the essence always comes back to what Norwegian women had, wanted to have and were willing to create for their homes from roughly the middle ages to modern times. Each valley or district in the country had a favorite technique and pattern for its coverlets, providing a rich visual texture to the book. The weaving styles and techniques covered include tapestry/billedvev, square-weave/rutevev, bound-weave/krokbragd, other weft-faced styles, knotted pile/rye, (reversible) double-weave/dobeltvev, and overshot/tavlebragd or skillbragd. This book is NOT a beginner's how-to. It is a highly readable cultural reference book about weaving. It would be a useful addition for anyone making hand-woven textiles, anyone who likes to apply older techniques in modern textile settings (not just weaving), and anyone interested in the cultural history of Norway and for Norwegian-Americans. In short almost everyone interested in Norway. I was pleased to find my own family's two dominant weaving styles in the later chapters of the book: Danish weave, common in southeastern Norway, and overshot weave, mostly the Monk's Belt pattern. One of my maiden great, great aunts was a professional weaver and both my grandmother and aunt also wove.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful history and design source,
By
This review is from: The Woven Coverlets of Norway (Hardcover)
there are many publications about american coverlets, this one attracted me because it concerns coverlets from another weaving tradition.
another reviewer has done a first rate job of detailing many of the books historical strengths. i am adding my review to include the patterns and designs. this is not, as the other reviewer noted, an instruction manual. but it is a superb design resource, for many other fiber arts as well as weaving. the photos are fantastic. the examples are inspiring--i'm mentally designing a color pattern sweater from one coverlet, and several beaded pr jects from others. some coverlet designs would translate very easily into several kinds of embroidery. the author notes the similarities in design among scandanavian, russion, other european and mid-eastern weavings. what i found interesting is the similarities between some of the coverlets and american patchwork quilts. all crafts borrowed freely from one another--lace patterns were made into embroidery, and vice versa, weaving patterns were used in knitting, etc., so finding simialr elements is common. but the designs of several coverlets in this selection could pass for patchwork in their arrangement. since morwegian settlers are credited wtih introding the log cabin to american in the colonial era, i wonder is they also influenced the design of 18th and 19th century quilts. this is a wonderful book, that would be of use and interest to norwegians and non-norwegians, anyone who designs for any textile craft, and the general reader who is interested in how our forbears lived. i can only hope that another edition will be brought out.
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