A Krokbragd with Added Information

The Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum is rich in krokbragd coverlets.  One of my favorites has a beautiful embroidered signature in the bottom band. Here is a bad and incomplete image, the only one I could find recently. Still, you can see how lovely it is.

monogram

The weaver left a wide bottom border without krokbragd pattern in which a name is embroidered in a lovely script, along with a year.  I don’t know whether it is the name of the weaver or the recipient of the weaving.

I loved this idea; a coverlet or wall hanging is made more personal with the addition of a name, and it certainly helps future generations figure out when it was made. Shortly after that, I wove one of a series of krokbragd pieces in “The Old Pattern,” from a Norwegian Husflid magazine article. (Read the translated article from the Norwegian Textile Letter, here.) On one of them I left a portion of the top band free of pattern, in which to embroider a name.

New Robbie

I donated this piece to the Vesterheim silent auction this year, with a note saying that I would add the name or initials that the purchaser would like.  I was really happy that it was purchased by Diane Edwards, a talented rosemaler who is also a friend of both my mother and my sister Barbara.

I thought I was going to add a pretty script name to the krokbragd, but that wasn’t a big enough spot! Instead I used block letters to add the initials that Diane chose.

name

It was still a nice addition. In the future I will plan more carefully, and one of these days, I’ll have a piece with a name in pretty script.