Traditional Embroidery in Telemark

For part of the Vesterheim Textile tour we were in Telemark, a deeply traditional part of Norway. We visited the Bø Museum, where a beautiful exhibit of woven bands, embroidered linen textiles, and Hardanger fiddles had newly opened. At a day-long class on June 23, we learned the embroidery stitches found on traditional linen textiles that were used on costumes, to cover food baskets brought to new mothers, to commemorate weddings, and to lie on coffins. In other words, the linens were important objects incorporating traditional designs used to mark the important passages in life. The stitches were tiny, made on a linen base. We saw pieces made as early as 1796. As often happens in a class, we toiled a long day to make a small sample, which only made us appreciate the large pieces even more, both the old pieces and the equally stunning pieces done by our teacher, Helga Bergland.

This is an old example of a coffin cover embroidery, two linen pieces that would be placed over the top of a coffin in the form of a cross.

This is a modern piece made by Helga Bergland.

The bands of the two linen pieces were balanced beautifully, but it you put them side-by-side, you see that they are not exactly alike.

Look at this beautiful detail of Helga’s embroidery, from a piece she displayed during our visit to her studio.

Here is the sampler that Helga developed for the members of our embroidery class to tackle.

As almost a joke, here’s the tiny bit I embroidered that day, made into an ornament so it would not sit lost in a file or notebook.