From the Archive

 

Sweden 2002

Sweden in the winter can be grey, but the warmth of the people makes up for the short days and gloomy aspect of the countryside.

My trip to Sweden in November/December of 2002 came about primarily because of the wedding of my studio assistant, Karena.

Karena's mother is Swedish, married to a Canadian, and Karena determined to marry in the same church as her mother and father. I could not overlook the opportunity to go!

As it happened, a group of Swedish weavers were also trying to get a Vadmal "party" happening, so it seemed a perfect opportunity to learn more about this interesting woolen cloth. Unfortunately, the vadmal making fell through, but it may happen at another time.

I arrived on Tuesday, November 19 late in the evening. Taking it easy on the Wednesday, Kerstin spent most of the day getting a wool warp onto the AVL. We did make an excursion to Tynnsryd to visit a weaving studio.

Folke has spent many hours thinking about how to make looms and weaving more efficient. After problems with his neck, he was finding it more and more difficult to weave on a standard draw loom with overhead pattern cords, so he worked out a way to place the cords in front of the weaver. Other tinkerings with the loom have made it possible to have a shaft draw loom without the long body or extension necessary to get a good shed. It was most interesting to see the modifications and watch the weavers at work on a couple of large commissions.

On Friday night, Ingrid Hanssen arrived and we spent Saturday weaving on the AVL. Kerstin had installed the new auto cloth advance, and we were having some problems with it, but eventually sorted it out and were able to weave off the wool warp.

Sunday we set off west, visiting a Hembygd museum where a vadmalstamp was on display.

 Vadmalstamp (hammer mill)

These hammer mills were used extensively for making vadmal cloth – a heavy, serviceable fabric used by outdoor workers such as farmers, tree fellers and so on. Vadmal was a densely woven, heavily fulled fabric that stood up to the heavy use demanded of it. In spite of our present understanding of how fulling works, this fabric was not loosely woven, but set tightly, and beaten in firmly. Fulling took hours of intermittent compression by heavy hammers, traditionally operated by water wheels.

 Close up of hammers

 Axle to lift hammers

As our need for such a heavy duty fabric in this day and age is much reduced, modern "vadmal" is being made with more open sets and looser webs. This opening up of the cloth means that fulling in the vadmalstamp takes much less time, and produces a softer cloth depending on the fibre and weave structure used.

From the vadmalstamp, we carried on to visit the producer of a specialty yarn made from peat moss fibre blended with wool. The peat moss fibre is made from the left overs of another peat moss industry. The fibre is sifted and sorted until the large chunks of wood are removed and the fibre that is left is of a uniform coarseness and length. Due to the ability of peat moss to hold moisture, it has to be run through the dryer twice before it is finally blended with wool, made up into bales, and then sent to the spinning mill to be spun or felted for filters and boot insoles.

That evening we stayed with Ingrid and worked on her loom trying to get her fly shuttle to work more efficiently. But we were all too tired and gave up until the next morning when Ingrid wove without difficulty.

 Portion of 8 meter long cold mangle

We set off from Ingrid's to visit another Hembygd museum where an enormous cold mangle was on display. This mangle was part of a system of linen manufacture where the weavers were assigned their warps,

Web being transferred from cloth beam to dowel for cold mangling

then returned the completed webs to the mill for wet finishing and mangling. This mangle is 8 meters long and weighs in at a hefty two tonnes (approx. 4500 pounds).

The motive power for this mangle was a donkey or small horse, not a water wheel.

Leaving the mangle, we set off for Ekelunds, a weaving mill that makes household textiles in cotton and linen. In the lobby of the mill factory outlet they have one of their original Jacquard looms from the 1800's on display.

Jacquard loom with Kerstin Fröberg

Part II

Attaching bout of 288 ends to beaming machine

The tour of Ekelunds mill is self guided, and the first thing we happened upon was the beaming operation. I had always wondered how industry beamed, and we got to see their brand new (three week old) beaming machine.

Unlike the tour of Pendleton Woolen Mill I had taken last year, we were allowed close inspection of this and other areas of the mill.

Warp being wound (gathering reed in is upright blue stand operator is leaning on)

430 meter long warp ready to be transferred to warp beam

The two men beaming the three colour warp were quite happy to answer our questions, and it was amazing to watch 288 ends at a time rolling onto the beam at enormous speed and high tension.

bouts being attached to warp beam with flanges

In very short order the warp was completely beamed, and we were allowed to watch the transfer of the warp from the beaming machine to a warp beam. The operation went smoothly and quickly. By the time we made it to the loom room, that same warp was being installed into a loom and we watched in amazement as the knot tying machine delicately selected the next pair of ends to be tied together, then made the knot.

Warp sheet being transferred to warp beam

From beaming machine to warp beam with rock hard tension in about 10 to 12 minutes

The looms at Ekelunds were all Jacquard and rapier and almost faster than the eye could see, the looms wove off two or three tea towels at a time. Each tea towel had a selvedge that was formed by taking the loose end of the pick and weaving it back into the cloth.

Once off the loom, the fabric went through the wet finishing department where they were hot mangled, rather than the traditional Swedish finish of cold mangling.

With darkness descending, Kerstin and I set off for Bergdala

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Once back at Bergdala, Kerstin made the necessary adjustments to the auto cloth advance and we put on a test warp. After determining that it was, indeed, working, Kerstin tackled her double weave sample for the study group and managed to get the warp on and the first sample off by Thursday.

Friday morning, very early, we set off for Falun, where she dropped me off so I could attend Karena's wedding.

Sunday afternoon, I took the train to Hudviksdal where Kerstin and her friend Karin met me. We stopped in at a Julmarket (Christmas craft fair), but unfortunately they were just ready to close up for the day. We did see some weaving, tho – mostly rag rugs.

Monday morning we set off for Helmi Halsinglands, and spent an interesting hour touring their plant. They do much of the dyeing of linen, cotton and wool for many yarn suppliers in Sweden. It was interesting to note that they dye linen as singles and then ply it, for maximum penetration of the dye.

From Helmi Halsinglands, we took a jaunt further into the countryside to visit Växbo. Unfortunately their museum is not open in the winter, so we could not see the whole process of linen fibre preparation, but again a self-guided tour of the mill allowed us to see the drawing operations and the weaving up close. The spinning frames were not in operation as the operator was just setting them up to begin spinning.

The looms at Växbo are shaft looms, most of them with shuttles. It was quite amazing to hear the pirns being changed when they ran out of weft. You could not see the operation happening it was so fast, just hear the bang as the new pirn punched the old one out of the shuttle. It happened so quickly that the loom did not miss a beat in the weaving rhythm.

Växbo weaves only linen, not cotton, and has a line of table textiles and yardage that at least one designer is using for garments.

We had hoped to stop in at the textile school at Uplands Vasby, but weather conditions deteriorated, and we cancelled that side trip and went straight on in to Stockholm where we stayed the night with Kerstin's mother. In the morning the weather had improved, and we set off for Bergdala in dry conditions – a vast improvement over the previous day.

The last few days were spent quietly. We visited another Julmarket, but saw little weaving. We also stopped in at a studio and visited with the artist.

On Saturday evening, we went to a Hyttsill at the Bergdala Glass Works.

Hyttsill are based on the fact that during the 1800's itinerant peddlers and workers would be granted the freedom to use the annealing chamber in the glass works to cook their dinners. The Hyttsill at Bergdala Glass Works is considered one of the best ones, partly due to the configuration of the works themselves. The six glory holes are centrally located which means that those attending the Hyttsill can visit in the area around the glory holes.

The glory hole is kept at 1100 degrees C; the annealing chamber is kept at about 350 degrees C. The traditional country diet of potatoes, salted herring, and the local sausage would not take long to cook. While waiting for dinner to be ready, these travelers would share news of the region with each other and the villagers, story telling and singing keeping all entertained.

As an added bonus, we were given a demonstration of glass blowing. The workers are in teams of three, and for a simple glass, each team can produce 50 or so an hour. More complicated designs requiring more working of the glass would reduce their production to 25 an hour. The glass master giving the talk allowed some of the audience to try blowing. It is apparently very easy to blow the bubble – extremely difficult to produce glass that will actually function!

He ended his demo by making a glass pig which Björn asked if I could have. He was instantly christened Boaris in honour of the wild boars that still live in the forests of the area (and which are quite delicious!)

And so ended my 2002 trip – it was time to go home and get back to work……