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.
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.
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.
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.
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