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Book Review: Vevd Fargeglede: Sengetepper i Vest-Agder

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By Katherine Larson

Vevd Fargeglede: Sengetepper I Vest-Agder [Woven Delight: The Coverlets of Vest-Agder]. By Nanne Støhlmacher. Skald Forlag, 2024. 

Square-weave coverlet, Øyslebø, Vest-Agder.

The whole pattern looked like a cubist flower meadow strewn diagonally, sprinkled with small scintillating stars in a jumble of colors, cheerful and smiling… all talking over one other, yet playfully and without fuss. (Review of a coverlet exhibition in Kristiansand, 1925)

So begins the chapter on square-weave in the long awaited book, Vevd Fargeglede: Sengetepene i Vest-Agder [Woven Delight: The Coverlets of Vest-Agder]. With vibrant textiles pictured on nearly every page, author Nanne Støhlmacher presents the distinctive bed covers that were once prevalent in her district of Norway, from coverlets of serviceable yet decorative plain weave, to those woven in the unusual danskbrogd [Danish-weave] technique, an anomaly even in Vest-Agder. 

Typical plain-weave patterns
Danskbrogd [Danish weave], front
Danskbrogd, back

Many of the coverlet types from this southern district were also typical in other areas Norway – krokbragd and square weave, overshot and rya. But there were significant differences in the preferences of Vest-Agder weavers. Of particular note are the color nuance and pattern choice characteristic of the area’s square-weave coverlets. Unusual as well are the weft-faced techniques that often served as the groundweave in both rya and monk’s belt coverlets.

Square-weave coverlet, Vigmostad
Monk’s belt with weft-faced ground weave

The book’s introduction by Bjørn Sverre Hol Haugen, curator at the  Norwegian Folk Museum, provides the context for Vest-Agder’s coverlet tradition. Hol Haugen notes the social differences to be found between Vest-Agder’s narrow band of well-to-do and outward-looking coastal towns and the relatively conservative interior farming communities, with accompanying contrasts in what was typical for a bed and its accoutrements. He touches on the creation of bedding as an accustomed part of the yearly cycle on Vest-Agder’s mostly self-sufficient farms, and he introduces the work of pioneer textile research Anna Grostøl. Grostøl, a teacher who grew up in the coastal town of Lista, documented many Vest-Agder traditions that were fast disappearing by the early and mid-20th century.  Her substantial collection of notes, photographs and samples, now held by the Norwegian Folk Museum, provides a rich resource on which Støhlmacher draws throughout the book.

Rya coverlet with a ground weave of krokbragd
As the pile wears away, the underlying krokbragd patterns become more visible.

In her thorough treatment of the coverlet tradition, Støhlmacher begins with a chapter on  the materials, tools and dyes needed to make the coverlets, describing the enormous amount of work required before weaving could begin. She then devotes a chapter to each coverlet type, with sections on technique, materials, pattern and color. Støhlmacher’s grounding in textiles, from her own training in textile techniques at the Statens lærerskole i forming [Norwegian Teacher’s College in Handcraft] to her several years as a board member of Norges Husflidslag [the Norwegian Handcraft Association], is evident in her treatment of the subject and combines nicely with her enthusiasm for the textile traditions of her district. Building on the foundation provided by Anna Grostøl, she has seemingly left no stone unturned, perusing estate documents for indications of past coverlet usage and visiting remote farms on the chance that coverlets might be tucked away and forgotten in trunks or storehouses. 

Above, detailed images of krokbragd, square-weave and skillbragd coverlets.

The text of this book is in Norwegian, with English summaries at the end of each chapter, but the visual impact of the book may compensate non-Norwegian readers for the inevitable loss of some historical detail.  Each coverlet type is represented by a mix of full and detailed images that convey pattern and color, and the ornately carved or painted beds on which some of the coverlets appear allows one to appreciate the context in which these textiles were used. 

Goose-eye coverlet, Sirdal.

Beyond her textile knowledge, Støhlmacher’s interest in the cultural history that the coverlets represent is unmistakable. Visually striking among the many coverlets are the photos of both farm life and the women at the heart of this textile tradition. Most of these images are in black and white, pictures taken nearly a hundred years ago by Anna Grostøl while recording the recollections of her interviewees. The weather-beaten faces of these older women speak to a time and a way of life that is now gone, bringing to mind the countless women behind the textile traditions that are portrayed in this book.

Kari Hodne, b. 1871, with scythe, bucket and rake in Åseral, 1943.
Gurine Kimestad, b. 1850, told Anna Grostøl she learned to spin before she was 8 years old.

On a personal note, it has been my pleasure to consult with Nanne Støhlmacher for over 10 years on this project, watching it grow from a sparsely outlined idea to a fully realized and impressive presentation of Vest-Agder’s coverlet tradition.  Perhaps my own family’s roots in the district explain why I find these coverlets particularly appealing, with their patterns “all talking over one other, yet playfully and without fuss.”

Siri Haagensdotter Fuglestveit (b. 1822), Øyslebø, 1904.
Siri wove her initials into this coverlet in 1851 (for larger view of coverlet, see first figure).

May 2024

Katherine Larson is an Affiliate Assistant Professor, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington. She is the author of The Woven Coverlets of Norway. 

All photos are from Vevd Fargeglede: Sengetepper i Vest-Agder, by Nanne Støhlmacher, with permission from Skald Forlag.  The book is available at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum bookstore after mid-June.

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk!

Nordic News and Notes, March 2024

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Scandinavian Weaving classes

North House Fiber Art Courses

Among the many tempting fiber arts courses held on the shores of Lake Superior are a few with a specific Scandinavian theme: Scandinavian Band Weaving with Caroline Feyling, Swedish Toothbrush Rugs with Melba Granlund, Tvåändsstickning – Mittens in Swedish “Twined” Knitting with Lily Bell, and Warp Weighted Tabletop Loom: Build and Weave with Melba Granlund.

Vesterheim Folk Art School 

Vesterheim Folk Art School has announced their summer and fall 2024 in-person and virtual classes. Be sure to check out both the Fiber Arts and Weaving categories.

Video

Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson. “With Sail over the Baltic Sea.” (On the potential connection between the introduction of sails and the Viking phenomenon). Part of a 2022 conference, “Vikings before Vikings.”

From the description: “The iconic image of the Viking Age is arguably the sailing boat, as e.g. seen on the Gotlandic picture stones… Sail production was an extensive and in research often underestimated process, requiring extensive amounts of raw material that then had to be processed, spun and woven. Sailing provided quicker and less arduous means of transportation, increasing the range of travel, but the making of sails was an advancement that required a new level of organisation and planning. The connection between sails and the Viking Phenomenon is significant, but the social development it reflects is equally important, constituting an even more significant indicator of the beginning of a new era.”

Båtryer. Romsdal Museum. 

This brief museum video highlights båtryer [pile coverlets, or rya, used on boats]. Båtryer has English subtitles. (It seems odd they chose to make it black-and-white.)

Exhibitions

“Swedish Folk Weavings for Marriage, Carriage, and Home 1750 to 1840.” Swedish American Historical Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. March 15-September 22, 2024. 

From the description: “Swedish Folk Weavings for Marriage, Carriage, and Home is an exhibition of rare and artful cushions and bed covers woven by women for their households. Many have inscribed dates ranging from 1750 to 1840. Such textiles were used on or displayed for special occasions and were a significant form of decoration for the typical household.

“The design elements and patterns reflect the influence of centuries of trade since the Viking era. Visitors will see colorful geometric patterns, exotic birds, real and mythical creatures, religious depictions, crowns, floral themes, and even patterns from Roman mosaics. Swedish Folk Weavings for Marriage, Carriage, and Home was developed in collaboration with Wendel and Diane Swan, both of whom are of Swedish descent, and whose collection is primarily featured in the exhibition.”

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you for all your appreciation along the way. Tusen takk!

Ryas at Sörmlands Museum

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By Elisabet Jansson

Editor’s note: These photos of charming older Swedish rya coverlets were originally published in Elisabet Jansson’s blog, Textila Inslag, on February 28, 2020, and shared here with the author’s permission. 

In Sörmland’s museum’s collections there are three old ryas. When we hear rya, we might think of rugs, but these ryas have never been used on the floor, but as coverlets. A little over 15 years ago, I looked at the ryas together with then domestic crafts consultant Lille-Mor Boman. A few days ago it was time again. A weaving colleague, Åsa Viksten Strömbom, and I had the opportunity to study the ryos together with home craft consultant Maria Neijman. A conservator was constantly in the background and made sure that the worn and fragile textiles were handled properly. We spent a couple of interesting hours with the old ryas. We have not decided if and how we will proceed after this visit, but something will surely happen.

Here are some brief notes about the three ryas.

The rya in the top and following photos was most likely used in a boat out on the Baltic Sea for overnight stays in connection with fishing. It is sewn together from three layers, with a width of approx. 83, 83 and 61 cm respectively (2’7”, 2’7”, and 2’). The bottom fabric is woven in equilateral twill and the pile knotts are embedded in the bottom in such a way that they are not visible on the smooth side. Where the pile is worn, you can see how they are distributed irregularly over the surface. Inventory number SLM 9210, look HERE.

The next rya is woven in two lengths in weft rib with a fairly regular pattern in brown, white and yellow between the rows of knots. The pile is largely worn out. Inventory number 3203, look HERE.

The third rya is woven in bound rosepath in several colors. Each side is different, and the right side of the rosepath is on the smooth side. There is no regular repetition of the rosepath borders.  The pattern in the two lengths match, except for one border on one of the edges. The pile knots build a pattern of gold and white squares. The inventory number is 3204, here.

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Elisabet Jansson lives in Eskilstuna. She weaves and embroiders, sometimes for a living but since she became a pensioner, often just for her own pleasure. When she isn’t weaving or embroidering, she dyes textiles, reads about textiles, looks at textiles, attends courses on textiles, or holds  courses on textiles. She shares all the elements of her textile life on her blog, Texstila Inslag.

[Editor’s note: this is one of my favorite blogs. I recommend it, even if you don’t speak Swedish. In particular, she posts many photos of wonderful textile works from Swedish museums and gallery shows.]

Translated by Robbie LaFleur, with help from Edi and Roland Thorstensson. Edi wrote an article about a Swedish rya in the Norwegian Textile Letter in 2014. See: “A Fabulous Find: A Rya from Ryd.” Also,  the article “Celebrate the Rye – or Rya – or Ryijy!” compiled all of the articles on rya that appeared in the Norwegian Textile Letter up to 2019.
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

The Meanings of Finnish Folk Rya: Cultural Traditions

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By Marjo Ahonen

The cultural history and other possible meanings of Finnish folk “ryijy” or rya have attracted a great deal of public interest following recent flea market discoveries, and the publicity they have attracted aroused wild interest in other folk-like ryas as well. In this article, we share the story of Finnish folk rya. This article is based on the Craft Museum of Finlands’ 2007 rya publication Ryijy esillä [Ryijy in the collections of the Craft Museum of Finland]. We highlight the meanings that have been explored in material for which information on ownership or use is no longer available. 

The Craft Museum of Finland’s rya collections are based on ryas collected in the early 20th century, and which were born from the tradition of castle rya. They are covers and bridal ryas made by unknown peasant women, mainly during the golden age of rya weaving in Western Finland from 1770 to 1850. The collection of these weavings was linked to the national spirit of the period.

A section of interior at the State Handicraft Museum in 1914. Photo: Craft Museum of Finland.

The Craft Museum of Finland has a collection of around 40 folk ryas, which were collected when the museum was founded and in its early decades. Lauri Mäkinen (from 1920 Kuoppamäki), an advocate of the home industry idea and the first museum director, assembled a collection of ryas for the State Handicraft Museum at a time when the national rya was elevated to the status of a national treasure. One of the results of this development was the publication in 1924 of U.T. Sirelius’s first study on folk rya, which was followed by a huge interest in rya in our country.

In the early 2000s, the old collection of the State Handicraft Museum was studied as part of a large-scale collection and storage project, the results of which were presented in the exhibition Ryijykuume! The museum’s old State Handicraft Museum-era rya were analysed both in terms of weaving techniques and cultural as well as historical features and placed in their regional and historical context. The materials, size and shape of the weavings reveal the cultural history of textiles and crafts at different times, while the composition, symbols and colouring of the patterns give an indication of the use of the weavings at different times, in different contexts. 

The cultural history of rya

Purpose and use changed appearance

The earliest rya were simple and undecorated. The pile was long and was tied on one side only. In a bed, the pile side was turned down and the plain side was the upper side of the rya. When used in this way, rya was a very warm blanket. In the Finnish archipelago, the tradition of the so-called boat rya continued almost unchanged for a long time.

The use of the rya gradually changed from a coverlet to a 19th century bridal and dowry rya as well as a decorative rya to be kept on the wall. At the same time, design of the pile became more complicated, with the use of various symbols and surface ornamentation. Peasant weavers, however, did not use weaving patterns, but composed their weavings according to their own recollections about the pattern. Regional stylistic features can therefore also be discerned in vernacular weaving. Places and regions close to the coast and cities were more exposed to new influences and to changes in style and fashion.

The most traditional type is represented by the reticulated weavings, which are woven with both rectangular and diagonal designs. In Finland, the most common national rya pattern is the diagonal weave, which is directly descended from the castle rya. The so-called scattered diamond weaves are those in which the grid pattern has disappeared, leaving meshes with visible fillings: diamonds, crosses, brides, crowns, hearts, and floral patterns such as stylised tulip petals, vases, and tree motifs. In Central Finland and parts of the Häme, the frame of the ryas widened to include a variety of motifs, such as flowering vines, spotted stripes, checkerboards and hexagons. In the later phase, the diamond pattern disperses and transforms into an even, small cloth-like pattern.

The early days of rya circa 1300-1770 

The different phases of weaving and cultural history have many meanings when looking at folk rya. In the Viking Age, rya was brought to Finland via Scandinavia, and in a cultural-historical sense, Finnish rya is a West Finnish textile, originally from the coastal regions. The oldest ryas were blankets, used as a cover in a boat, bed or sleigh, simple and undecorated. In the islands and along the waterways, the rya was a standard item of traveller’s equipment.

By order of King Gustav Vasa, ryas began to be listed in property inventories and hereditary records from the mid-15th century onwards; they could also be used as means of payment and taxes could be paid partly in ryas.

In the large rooms of stone-built royal palaces and manor houses, ryas were used on the sleeping lounges along the walls of the rooms. Blankets with thick piles to ward off the cold were the lifeblood of sleepers. Ryas made in narrow looms were joined with several seams to make a wide blanket, and up to four people could sleep side by side under one blanket.

A rya was also a commodity or an object of personal possession given to a soldier of the Crown to carry with him on his travels. When the army was at its strongest, weaving was at its most productive. As times became more peaceful, the weaving of rya also declined.

There was very little decoration and colouring in the blanket ryas, initially only white and brown sheep’s wool was used. Patterns were limited to the edges or ends of the rya, which were decorated with stripes, squares and borders using different coloured pile. In castle ryas, the pile surface could also be decorated with simple dice patterns or coloured stripes. Inventory lists and bailiff accounts show that the use of coloured pile was sometimes used for the ryas of the nobility. Sometimes they might also be knotted with the owner’s coat of arms. As the use of different plant dyes became more common, so did the use of patterning, with the introduction of rectangular and diagonal decorations and various types of meandering decorative borders. On the plain side, the surface of the cloth was decorated with coloured stripes and a patterned binding on the base fabric.

The ryas were made by professional weavers in the castles’ own workshops or under the auspices of the crown estates. Apparently, Finnish weaving was already acquiring its own special characteristics, as the ryas made here were worthy of the court and were priced higher than those made in Sweden. King Gustav Vasa paid special attention to Finnish weaving and sought to develop it.

Towards the 1700s at the latest, the nobility began to favour stuffed quilts as covers instead of ryas. At the same time, the great wars of the early 1700s and the Russian occupation led to the exile of the Swedish nobility from Finland. These factors, together with the economic depression caused by the years of famine and war, contributed to the cessation of rya production for a time. The so-called Gustavian period, which is considered to have begun in 1772 with the coup d’état of Gustav III, brought self-government and court life back to Finland. The internal construction and economic development that began at that time (known as the Age of Utility), together with increased trade with the rest of the world, helped western parts of Finland to prosper through shipbuilding and the tar trade. 

The improvement in living conditions naturally began to be reflected first in the rise in the standard of living of the gentry. New winds were blowing in the furnishing industry, and furniture fabrics and wall hangings were imported from Sweden to Finland. The rising living standards and the associated technical innovations in residential buildings, such as the introduction of smoke-controlling stoves and glass windows, contributed to the spread of rya and other interior textiles among the peasantry. As the art of weaving ryas spread from castles and royal estates to the surrounding population, vernacular ryas emerged among the peasantry, woven by skilled and talented weavers. Peasant weavers transferred ornaments from the cross stitches made by bourgeois women to the ryas they wove by visual memory. The designs and colours of the ryas, especially those made as bridal coverlets, were particularly rich. The oldest surviving ryas date from the 1700s, except for one dating from the 17th century. 

Folk-style rya and manor style rya – the heyday of folk rya 1770-1850

In the beginning, the sleeping platforms were wide, designed for more than one sleeper, and the shape of the rya resembled a large square rather than a rectangle. When the dwellings were cramped and the looms used for weaving were narrow, one or more central seams were needed for the wide ryas used as blankets. The weaving of the rya was not technically demanding, but as pattern drawings were not yet in use, the weaver had to have an eye for colour and compositional skills. They had to be able to memorize the alignment of the sides that were to be sewed together. Later, as prosperity brought the introduction of wide, two-weaver looms and beds began to be reduced to single beds, ryas became one-piece and rectangular instead of the square shape of the past.

A folk-style rya from 1791, combined from two pieces. Photo: Craft Museum of Finland.

Ryas were made for everyday use as well as for ostentation, using blue and red purchased dyes in addition to natural plant dyes as a sign of wealth. As the textile wore out, it was used for another, less important purpose, and finally used as a horse blanket, for example. Everyday coverlets were usually worn out in their own time.

The enrichment of the patterning of the weavings was influenced by a change in the weaving process: the ground weft and pile yarns were thinned, and the piles were cut to precise dimensions, so that the patterns began to stand out more clearly than in the case of long-piled coverlets. Decorative patterns were used on bridal ryas to wish the couple good luck, but also to express the wealth of the house and the profitability of the matrimony. Bridal and dowry ryas were made for the festive turning point in life, but also to be used as a coverlet from then on. 

Dowries were woven and sewn and included gifts that the bride made and gave to her new relatives. When a daughter of the house was married, she received a dowry of not only domestic animals but also a bridal rya and possibly a bridal chest. The dowry had to last for the rest of her life, as it was also her inheritance from her household. In most cases, valuable bridal ryas have been handed down to descendants. 

A folk-style bridal rya, 1810. Photo: Craft Museum of Finland.

Originally a West Finnish tradition, the rya gradually spread deeper into the inland areas of Finland. At the same time, the motifs of the ryas changed; local differences and distinctive ways of decorating the ryas were born. In the areas furthest from the coastal harbours and urban settlements, the old-fashioned colouring and lustre wool yarns were preserved for the longest time.

Weavers of national rya

All ryas made before 1900 were textiles for use as coverlets. It is not known whether they were designed and made by professional weavers or rural weavers. In the era of castle ryas, the elaborate designs of professional weavers were usually for utility and bridal ryas in line with fashion trends. Since model drawings were not yet in use, the transfer of designs by memory only and their application to existing materials required good compositional skills and an eye for colour. In turn, the peasant weavers who worked under professional weavers in castle workshops and royal mansions memorised the designs, decorative motifs and colours used by the professionals and then applied them to their own purposes.

When using narrow looms, the weaver also had to use their memory to align the patterns so that the sewed halves of the finished rya somewhat matched. Peasant ryas are a testament to the skills of their makers, and at their best are considered to be Finnish folk art of their time.

The value of rya

Meanings associated with rya in the 1700-1800s

A rya has always been considered a textile of value. Its value has been determined by its size, material, weight and colours. As a large textile, it contains a lot of expensive material; when decorated, dyeing also added to the cost. In the Middle Ages, ryas are recorded in the account books and property lists of royal estates and were included in the distribution of inheritance in the estate inventory deeds. Textiles were a vital source of warmth at that time and that was reason enough for them to be valuable. Wool, the material used to make ryas, retains heat well and insulates moisture effectively.

A folk-style bridal rya, 1799. Photo: Craft Museum of Finland.

Finnish craftsmanship and wool as a material were obviously highly valued at the Swedish court. Ryas were exported from Finland to Stockholm for use by the royal family and the court. However, the delivery of the ryas was mostly about a payment of taxes and not an actual fulfilment of order. The inhabitants of the Archipelago and coastal towns also paid their taxes in the form of ryas, for example by supplying their troops with boat ryas. 

The heyday of the traditional rya lasted until the 1850s, when social changes also brought changes in living conditions and the use of new materials to all sections of the population. The old type of utility items, such as the rya, was no longer needed. Industrialisation had a strong impact, and the succession of different styles highlighted the need for mass production. The nature of craftsmanship changed, and the traditional craftsmanship that had been part of Finnish folklore began to disappear. Hand-made and expensive ryas could not compete with cheaper industrially produced textiles. Eventually, even in peasant homes, the old textiles of value gave way to the new fashionable textiles.

The rise in the value of peasant ryas in the early 1900s

The change in the appreciation of the old ryas at the beginning of Finland’s independence made old peasant ryas into wall and interior textiles, so that displaying them and their decorative function became paramount in their appreciation. Lauri Kuoppamäki compared the importance of the rya to Finnish culture with the importance of folk music and poetry.

“Just as it has been considered necessary to collect old folk music and poetry, it is also important to take an inventory of the most precious flower of our folk art, the rya.” (Lastu ja Lanka 1933 no 4, 52; SKM-A0476.)

Kuoppamäki was not alone in his comparison. Arttu Brummer (1891–1951), then a leading figure in the Finnish art industry, also equated the old ryas, ‘the products of folk weaving,’ with folk songs, poems, and stories (Käsiteollisuus 1926, no 3, 43-44). “As proud as Greek culture may be of its beautiful vases, we can be equally proud of our wonderful ryas.” (Käsiteollisuus 1924, no 6, 99.)

In this way, Brummer incorporated the rya into the invaluable national cultural heritage. For him they were Finnish “treasures of art,” the fate of which he was particularly concerned about.  According to him, Finland should learn from the old European cultural countries, which had already imposed a special export duty to prevent the export of their own art treasures. According to Brummer, Finns should protect their old ryas and other ‘minor’ art treasures by an outright export ban. 

Where is this collection  that was assembled and stored about a hundred years ago? Today, the Craft Museum of Finland collections of folk art rya can be accessed from your home computer via the Finnish museums’ user service at skm.finna.fi. Soon they will also be available on the museums’ international user portal at https://www.europeana.eu/fi.

[Editor’s note: If you search with the word ryijy at skm.finna.fi , you will come up with over 200 images.]

Marjo Ahonen is Curator at the Craft Museum of Finland, and is a great fan of their collections of ryas. Marjo was part of the team of authors that wrote Ryijy elää! Finnish ryas 1778-2008. (2008) and her co-written article on ryas was also published in RYIJY!: The Finnish Ryijy-Rug (Helsinki: Designmuseo, 2009). Craft Museum of Finland works in cooperation with the Design Museum to preserve the Finnish rya tradition.
November 2022
See also an article on the This is Finland website, “Helsinki Show spotlights the Continual Renewal of an Age-Old Finnish Art Form.” It includes an informative short video.
Suopanen, Toumas. “A Short History of the Ryijy-Rug.” Suopanen wrote a beautifully-illustrated book, The Ryijy-Rug Lives On, Finnish Ryijy-Rugs 1778–2008.
“Finnish Ryijy Rugs at the Swedish Institute,” originally published in the Norwegian Textile Letter in July 2014.
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

The Meanings of Finnish Folk Rya: Patterns in the Folk-Style Ryas

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By Marjo Ahonen

The technique of weaving rya is best suited to geometric decorative motifs. However, more complex patterns and plant motifs unknown to many rural weavers, such as tulips and acanthus, were also transformed into stylised patterns to the weaver’s liking. In the peasant weavers’ ryas, the plant motifs, the tree of life and the human figures are all simplified.

The edge patterns and stripes of the ryas

  • Border stripes. Marked the central area or central pattern of the rya. The border stripes are narrow or wide; later several stripes were placed next to each other.
  • Stripes, diagonal stripes. Oldest patterns in ryas. The stripes are either only on the border or as central patterns on the rya. They may also cover the entire surface of the rya.

Diagonal stripes on a ryijy from 1850-1900. (full information)

  • Checkerboards. Checkerboards were already used in mid-16th century castle ryas. The decorative patterns were probably adopted from other woven textiles of the time. The squares were possibly only on the edge, or they could pattern the entire rug.
  • Grid patterns. An old pattern model from the Middle Ages, both straight and diagonal checkered. The grid pattern has developed from fabric binding patterns, various twill bindings. The grid patterns were first made in large squares, over time the squares became smaller. Small flowers and spots could be used as filling patterns in the eyes of the grid. In Finnish ryas, the grid pattern is a common center field decoration. Straight checkered rugs are common in the Satakunta region, slanted checkered ryas on the coast and Central Finland. Later, the different squares moved away from the center, to frame the edges. Square filling patterns such as flowers and rhombus patterns, i.e., dots and crosses, remained in the middle. The filling patterns were first in vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, later scattered.

Checkerboards and zigzags (full description)

  • Zigzags. Zigzags are a typical Finnish pattern from the 17th century. They were first used to decorate wooden objects, from which they moved to ryas. Ryas have serrated stripes on both the central shield and the border.
  • Flowing ornaments, vine and decorative stripe patterns. In ryas, flower vines go around the edges of ryas, either abundant and decorative or rigid and reduced. The acanthus leaf vine, a pattern from 17th-century fashion textiles, is the frame, for example, in the ryas of Southwest Finland (or Finland Proper) and Satakunta. In ryas of Kokemäenjokilaakso, flower vines line the middle field.

The patterns in the middle area of ryas

  • Rhombus. “Rhombus” is a dot in the shape of a diagonal square. The rhombus shape is difficult to make with the rya technique, because the pile forms angular patterns. Cross-shaped small rhombuses are made with just a few pile tassels. In the final stage, diagonal check patterns typically form into a spotted pattern covering the entire surface of the rya. When the grid is no longer left, only loose rhombuses or smaller cross spots remain. 

The diagonal network becomes small squares.(full description)

  • Cross. The cross pattern has appeared on shrouds and coffin covers since the Middle Ages, where the marks protected the deceased on the last journey. The cross pattern has also been used by priests, in so-called bishop’s ryas and church ryas, and later in bridal ryas. In the bridal rya, a cross and other symbols protected the married couple when being wedded on the rya, the same rya protected the wedding bed as a cover. The earliest ryas had one or more large crosses as the central design of the rya. Later, the cross became smaller and moved to the border. The cross also transformed into cross-shaped flowers. Large crosses were woven in Eastern Finland and in some places in Häme. In the Hämeenlinna region, there is a cross-shaped meandering stripe on the edges of the ryas.
  • Dice patterns. Dice patterns have been used as filling patterns inside the grid pattern and as separate, individual patterns in the middle area of the rya.
  • Tulip. The design is of noble origin and has been in fashion since the 17th century, when the tulip was a fashionable plant in Central Europe. The tulip model has been adopted from embroidered samplers, but the flower was still stylised and simplified a lot. The use of the tulip vine as a border decoration also came from the samplers. The oldest Finnish tulip ryas have a lamb’s black wool as a base color, in the 19th century the base color became lighter. Tulip rya is typical in Häme and most common in Satakunta. In Satakunta, the so-called the three-tulip pattern has been woven since the 18th century: in the middle of the vase, one large straight-stemmed tulip, on both sides of it meandering tulip plants with several flowers and leaves. There are also three tulips in the ryas of the Kokemäkijokilaakso, of which the middle one is dominant. Around Tampere and Hämeenlinna, two-tulip ryas, sometimes three-tulip, were woven. Some models have two tulips and only the stem of the third tulip in the middle.
  • Palmette patterns. A decorative motif resembling a palm leaf was used from the beginning of the 19th century, the influences have come from upholstery fabrics and embroidered samplers. It is a pattern connected to the nobility, which has not been common in Finland, but has appeared e.g., in Satakunta. The palmette pattern is usually a fabric-like surface covering the central area, but sometimes it has also been used as a border pattern.

Zigzag borders and a tree of life on an early ryijy (1807?)(full description)

  • Tree, sacred tree, tree of Life. An old ornament that is a metaphor for life. The tree pattern also belongs to ecclesiastical symbolism and appears, for example, in the story of the Fall of a Man, from which the so-called paradise rya was born. In ryas this model has been adopted stylised from samplers and pattern books. The tree pattern is common in the Kokemäenjoki area and Central Finland. The tree in ryas is usually straight-branched and narrow. The trees appear in pairs, as large main motifs or as filler patterns with others. The branches are slanted upwards. Usually, the end of the branch has a small pattern, a square or a cross-shaped star.
  • Human figures. In ecclesiastical symbolism, the human figure is connected to the stories of the Bible, but the human figures have also come from samplers. A man in a knee-length outfit and a woman in a skirt are often depicted as a couple in wedding ryas. However, female figures are more common. The human figures are usually arranged symmetrically in the middle field. The process of making rya could be described as different patterns on rya itself. Many people in line often describe a circle dance.
  • House, windmill. A house is a metaphor for a person themself, the idea of how they have found their place. Windmills are found in the meadows of the Hämeenkyrö region. Windmill patterns have gradually become reduced and simplified.
  • Animals, bird, lion. The lion came from the castle ryas. The sheep in the bridal ryas depicted the bride’s dowry. The dogs originating from samplers are usually depicted naturalistically.  Also from samplers, the birds are depicted in several species such as roosters, chickens and forest birds. The rooster is the old folk’s teller of time.
  • Crown, wreath. The crown comes from heraldry, it is a symbol of the king’s power. The bridal crown and wreath have signified the inviolability of the wearer. Initials are often placed below the crown; the layout comes from samplers. The crown later turned into a wreath.
  • Cornucopia. The pattern came to rya from samplers at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, but it has been a popular decorative motif since ancient times. The cornucopia is a metaphor for life’s inexhaustible gifts and fertility.
  • Roses, bouquets of flowers. Roses represent the Virgin Mary, love, rebirth and silence. Flowers are symbols of youth and vitality. The patterns for the ryas have come from cross-stitch patterns. Cross-stitch patterns were naturalistic already from the beginning of the 19th century. The rose ryas usually have scarlet roses on a black background in bouquets, vines or repeating patterns that cover the entire surface.
  • Initials. Usually, the manufacturer’s initials are woven into the rya, but bridal ryas could have the initials of the bride or the wedding couple. The letter t or d after the name or initials means daughter or in Swedish “dotter”. Sometimes the initials of several people involved in the weaving could be woven into the rya. However, professional weavers did not sign their work.
  • Year. The year rya was manufactured or the year the rya was remade. Bridal ryas usually feature the couple’s wedding anniversary year. 
  • Spur wheel, stave cross, eight-pointed star. Different variations of the same pattern, which appear as symbols already in the classical period. The pattern appears on samplers in the middle of the 18th century. In the Längelmävesi region, there is a spur wheel in the middle of a rya, in the Tampere region, the spur wheels appear as stripes on the frame.
  • The heart. The motif is very old, hearts have been used in the interior decoration of churches since the Middle Ages. Collection of hearts, known as “sydänsikermä” has probably changed from a cross motif. The heart is a metaphor for love, which is depicted singly, in pairs, in different groups, even with moustaches (initially a romantic, silk ribbon-decorated love heart that the weaver has seen and remembered). The heart motif is also common in wood carving.
  • Hourglass. A metaphor for impermanence and the passing of time. The pattern appears in church and coffin ryas.
  • Looped square or Saint John’s Arms. Originally a Christian symbol, which name comes from St. John. A decoration and a magic sign that brings good luck and that gives strength and love. The Saint John’s Arms has been used as a protective mark on various objects and textiles, e.g. in bridal ryas.
  • Swastika, sun spinner. The sign expresses the sun, seasons, compass points, infinity. The svastika is a very old symbol of luck, as the earliest information about the use of the sign is approx. 2000 years B.C.
  • Coats of arms, provincial coats of arms. In the Middle Ages, when ryas were woven in royal mansions for the use of the courts, the coat of arms of a gracious lord or a noble owner was knotted to them. The coats of arms were gradually reduced and began to resemble a shield, with perhaps a lion in the middle, the owner’s initials or a pattern resembling a four-paned window. In the 1950s, towns and municipalities acquired coats of arms for themselves, and these coats of arms also became textile patterns. In particular, the company Neovius Ltd. published in its collection ryas dedicated to different localities, on which coats of arms had been composed.
  • Warp threads. The warp thread of the oldest folk-style ryas was hemp thread, which gradually changed to linen thread in the 19th century. The yarn material was grown and spun at home, so the warp threads of the old ryas were a little uneven in thickness. Folk-style ryas never had fringes but had hand-sewn hems at the top and bottom. 

Late 18th century wedding ryijy made of plant-dyed yarn, featuring traditional motifs of husband and wife, plants, and birds.

  • The colours of the pile yarns. The islanders’ boat ryas were woven in almost one color using the natural colors of sheep’s wool: white, black, gray and brown. When dyeing with Finnish plants, mostly yellow and brown-yellow colours were obtained with birch leaves, marsh teas and heathers. Red, blue and green colors were rarer. Since durable bright red and blue could not be obtained from native plants, they became the desired colors among peasant women for centuries.
    However, the tar trade made it possible to get indigo from the Mediterranean countries to Finland, and indigo blue became an important color – a luxury colour for ryas. Other imported dyes were caraway root, which gives a red color, and cochineal, which is an aphid that lives on cactus leaves, and also releases red dye. Red and green were popular colours in ryas at the beginning of the 18th century, and during the 18th century the reign of yellow gradually ended completely, when blue, red and green were adopted as the dominant colours of ryas.
November 2022
Marjo Ahonen is Curator at the Craft Museum of Finland, and is a great fan of their collection of ryas. Marjo was part of the team of authors that wrote Ryijy elää! Finnish ryas 1778-2008. (2008) and her co-written article on ryas was also published in RYIJY!: The Finnish Ryijy-Rug (Helsinki: Designmuseo, 2009). Craft Museum of Finland works in cooperation with the Design Museum to preserve the Finnish rya tradition.
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

Another Excellent Rya for the Vesterheim Collection

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By Laurann Gilbertson

Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum has a new rya or pile-weave coverlet. It belonged to Karn Aambø Unhjem, who was born in Ørsta, Møre og Romsdal, Norway, in 1881.

Karn’s brother, Andreas Aambø immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Sigourney, Iowa. In 1898 he returned to Ørsta and brought his three sisters – Karn, Caroline, and Lisa – back with him to Iowa to help with a hotel he and his wife Anna owned in Sigourney. By 1900 Karn and Lisa had returned to Norway. Caroline married and moved to Marinette, Wisconsin.

Back in Ørsta, Karn found work in a tailor shop owned by Magnus Oscar Unhjem. Karn and Magnus married in 1909. At that point, Karn became Karen because Magnus thought it was more refined to spell the name with an “e”. The Unhjems had 8 children: Hulda, Elsa, Arne , Ragnar, Kaare, Berta, Olga, and Magnhild. Karen died in Ørsta in 1937.

The rya hung on the wall in the home of Karen and Magnus. It had originally been two panels sewn together. The rya was separated after Magnus’s death in 1955. One panel was given to son Kaare and one panel to daughter Elsa. Elsa gave her panel to her daughter Grete and son-in-law Mark Unhjem, and it was this panel that was donated to Vesterheim. The whereabouts of the other panel is unknown and the family does not remember if there were initials or numbers woven into it. The weaver is unknown.

Back of the rya; note how the knots of the pile are not visible. Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

The panel is 28.25” wide and 65” long. The twill ground has a wool warp sett at about 13 warp ends per inch and a wool weft of 25 picks per inch. The warp is natural sheep white and brown with two shades of purple. The purple was likely dyed with korkje, a fermented lichen dye that was commonly used in Norway. The weft is white. 

The pile side is made up of rows of knots of natural sheep white and brown wool. Most of the knots are white with just a scattering of brown.

Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

Near the top, brown knots have been placed to form the numbers for a date of “1881.” The top-most row of knots are cotton rags, well used and faded. The knots do not show on the smooth side of the coverlet. The rya is hemmed at both ends. The hem was rolled to the pile side and then was neatly and firmly sewn with purple yarn. 

Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

 

Vesterheim 2018.037.001 – Gift of Berit Aus, Hans Magnus Aus, Karen Hagrup, Grete Unhjem, Mark Unhjem, Erik Unhjem, Lars Gilbertson – all grandchildren of Karen Unhjem who lived in the USA. 

Editor’s Note: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum has an excellent collection of rya weavings. Here are two coverlets that are featured in their Virtual Collection: coverlet one, coverlet two.
Laurann Gilbertson holds a BA in Anthropology and an MS in Textiles & Clothing, both from Iowa State University. She was Textile Curator at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, for 19 years and is now the Chief Curator there. Among her duties are overseeing the collection of more than 30,000 artifacts, creating exhibitions, and leading Textile Study Tours to Norway.

Sharon Marquardt: Using Traditional Voss Rye Technique–to Depict Show Shoveling?

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By Robbie LaFleur

The Baldishol tapestry, woven around 1180.

In 2005 Sharon Marquardt attended a lecture by Marta Kløve Juuhl; it is reprinted in this issue, “Voss Ryer – Traditional Bedcover and Contemporary Art.” Sharon was intrigued by the technique. Fourteen years later she incorporated Voss rye into her remarkable entry in the exhibit at Norway House in Minneapolis, “The Baldishol: A Medieval Tapestry Inspires Contemporary Fiber Art.”  

Sharon Marquardt, “Birthday Blizzard”

Sharon described how the Baldishol inspired her image.

When the exhibit was announced, entrants were encouraged to be creative. I employed the arch, name of the month, and figure from the Baldishol to use in my tapestry… A January blizzard in west-central Minnesota had blocked my doorway, so I had to shovel out. It’s also the month of my birthday; therefore the title “Birthday Blizzard.”

The image itself was clever, but the method she used to make it was amazing. Sharon Marquardt’s ongoing study of Norwegian weaving techniques laid the foundation for her weaving. Marta Kløve Juuhl was a important instructor and mentor in her weaving education. 

Sharon Marquardt, Sampler of West Coast åkle techniques woven on a warp weighted loom.

In 2005 Sharon took a course on Western Norway åkle techniques on the warp weighted loom from Marta at Vesterheim Folk Art School. This is the (impeccable) sampler Sharon wove. 

This class built on her skills learned in a workshop In 1999, when she studied Sámi grene weaving from instructors from the Manndalen Husflidslag in northern Norway. Classes were held at Vågan Folkehøgskole in Kabelvåg in the Lofoten Islands. Sharon’s grandmother came from the island of Andøya.

In 2006 Sharon joined a rya study group organized through The Norwegian Textile Letter. It was led by Judy Ness, a weaver and weaving instructor at the University of Oregon, with Marta Kløve Juuhl as a consultant. Sharon was interested in the Voss rye Marta described the previous year and reached out to Marta via email for tips. In 2007 when Marta was again teaching at Vesterheim, Sharon consulted with her in person. “I had woven what I thought was a Voss rya for a loom bench cover,” Sharon said, “but Marta tactfully informed me I had woven it completely wrong. She graciously gave me some tips and a copy of her instructions for a Voss coverlet.”

Marta Kløve Juuhl brought this Voss rye to the Conference on Norwegian Weaving in 2005.

icelandic varafeldur knot

In 2018 Sharon continued study with Marta when she took her class at Vesterheim, “Weaving Techniques for a Vararfell.” In this Icelandic pile weave, unspun locks are knotted into the woven base with a special knot. (More on the technique here.)

By the time Sharon created “Birthday Blizzard,” she used her broad skill set in a unique combination to depict an image inspired by the medieval Baldishol Tapestry. In particular, she used expertise she gained from Marta in two Norwegian techniques–Voss rye and the Icelandic varafell pile weave.  

She used a Voss rye threading with rye knots for the snow and inner borders. Calling on her tapestry experience, she used inlay threads in various colors on her basketweave background to form the shapes. The weave structure enhanced texture in her forms. Look at the bark-like effect of the basketweave on the tree trunk. This detail includes her dog and snow-covered mailbox, too. 

Sharon used 16/3 bleached linen at a sett of 20 ends per inch. The weft was Rauma prydvevgarn. She used several strands of Swedish faro singles or Norwegian brodergarn for the inlay. Some details were added with embroidery.

The deep, fuzzy outer frame is woven in Icelandic varafell technique. The locks were from sheep owned by Joana Friesz from New Salem, North Dakota. 

Sharon’s work shows a broad leap of creativity and vision to adapt the Voss rye technique for a tapestry-like image. How wonderfully the background weave structure worked for her sweater!

Perhaps if someone asked her how long the weaving took, she could answer “Fourteen years”–the time since she first heard the Voss rye lecture. 

When Marta Kløve Juuhl saw a photo of her student’s new work, she was clearly impressed. “Sharon’s piece is amazing,” Marta wrote. “She has transformed the rya technique into a piece of art, also including varafell technique on the edges!”

A Draft and Tips for Weaving A Voss Rye

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For those readers who might want to try the Voss rye technique, below is a draft and tips provided by weaving instructor and weaver Marta Kløve Juuhl. 

Draft

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Suggested Materials

 

Voss ryer are woven with wool for the warp, weft, and pile. Using a 10 dent reed at 20 epi (1 thread per heddle and 2 in each dent), two suitable yarns are Hillesvåg tynt vevgarn (thin weaving yarn) or Rauma prydvevgarn.

Traditional Voss ryer were woven in two sections, each about 70–75 cm wide, and sewn together afterwards. One half is turned upside down, causing the nap to appear in two directions. 

Weaving

Start weaving a hem for app. 15 centimeters without knots. (At the other end, weave a hem of the same length, too.)

The weft might be one color, or if you use the stripes in the warp, you could weave stripes in the weft. If so, start with the knots once you start with the stripes.

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This piece from an exhibition at the Voss Folkemuseum includes stripes in the warp and the weft.

Beat hard: the rya is supposed to be quite firm. You make the knots after each 8th shot, always on treadle 4. Then you will have the knots right in the middle of the “goose eye”, see the draft. 

The yarn for the pile knots could be of the same type as the rya, then 4-double it. Of course you may use whatever you like, just be sure that you have enough for the whole textile.

You can make “butterflies” of the yarn to do the knots. Another way to do it is to cut the threads in right length before you start knotting. Then each knot will be of the same length. In earlier days, this was most common.  If you want the knots to show on the other side, you have to cut the threads before, then use knot B. These knots should always be made around the 3 warp threads in the middle of the goose eye. Then you’ll have to make the other knots on the cross in the middle between the 2 “goose eyes”, see knot A. It’s most common to use knot A.

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If you use both types of knots in the same row, they don’t have to be as thick as if you have just one.

The pile could be 6 – 8 cm long,  then the threads should be double this length when making the knots. In this way you decide how thick you want the rya.

On many of the old ryas the pile is in squares; for instance red and black. For example, you might have a total of 30 knots across the width of your piece. If you want squares, make 4 knots on each color in the width and 6 rows of knots in the height.

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Bright colors–and squares– shine in this rye from the Voss Folkemuseum exhibition.
 

Finishing the Rye

If you have a long warp, it’s best to cut it when you have made 2 pieces for one rya.

Then you turn around one part and lay both close to each other on a table and sew them together by hand. Be aware of the pattern, it’s important that you have beaten with the same strength all through the weaving.

At last you make the hem in both ends. It should be against the nap side, because that is to be down to your body in a bed. Use 1 strand of yarn. The hem is doubled. Roll toward the pile side about 1 cm wide, and again. It’s called a rullekant, or rolled hem.

Some Inspiration Photos

Vesterheim object number: 2016.401.032

This is a fragment of an old Voss rye, likely given to the museum by Turid Nygaard. 

Vesterheim object number: 2016.401.033

This piece was woven by Elizabeth Lomen in or after Turid Nygaard’s class. 

Vesterheim object number: 2016.401.031

This is the front and back of a large piece woven in 1994 by Betty Johannesen after taking Turid Nygaard’s class. It was displayed at the National Exhibition of Folk Art in the Norwegian Tradition in 1993, and also chosen for the traveling exhibit, Migration of a Tradition. 40″w x 40″ h. 

 
 

 

RETRO REPRINT: Voss Ryer – Traditional Bedcover and Contemporary Art

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By Marta Kløve Juuhl

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Norwegian Textile Letter, Vol XII No. 3,  May, 2006. It was the keynote presentation at the Conference on Norwegian Woven Textiles held at Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum in October 2005. The photos in this reprint are courtesy of the Voss Folkemuseum. 

Three years ago, Voss Folkemuseum had a great exhibition on ryer (pile coverlets), a traditional textile in Voss for the past 200 or 300 years.  Voss is situated in western Norway, not along the coast though; it’s inland.  Through the local newspaper the museum asked the inhabitants to borrow ryer (I will use the Norwegian word) for the exhibition.  They got about 70, mostly from the farms in the district.

And I was asked to be a part of the exhibition, so to speak.  They wanted me to put up a loom in the museum’s great hall and sit there and weave during the summer 2002.  Of course, I accepted that invitation, partly because I am a weaver and partly because I grew up on a farm in Voss where we have quite a few of these old ryer.  I felt I could contribute to the exhibition in that way.

I will describe:

  1. The development of Voss ryer – from sheepskins to a woven textile
  2. Traditions in use
  3. How to make ryer
  4. The variety of design
  5. Inspiration for making new ryer

Variety of design was evident at the exhibition at Voss Folkemuseum in 2002.

The development of Voss ryer – from sheepskins to a woven textile

In the early houses, consisting of only one room with an open hearth, there were low benches made of earth along the walls.  The earthen benches were used to lie on.  Sheepskins were then used as blankets, both over and underneath the people when they slept.  Later on, these skins were replaced by the ryer and plain blankets made of wool.

Today of course, we realize that the ryer were based on the sheepskin idea, or perhaps you could say that they were inspired by them.  

Sheep-farming has long traditions in the Voss rural area, so there was certainly never any shortage of skins there.  Weaving took time, and it was intricate, so it was not a savings of work when the sheepskins went out of fashion for bedding. Besides, they had plenty of other uses for the skins, such as for clothing.

It was found to be more beneficial to shear the sheep in spring and autumn than to slaughter them. The ryer were much more pleasant to use, and they were easier to keep clean than the sheepskins. A rye can stand a good washing.

But still they were not so clean all the time. I have heard a story about a girl who was engaged to a farmer’s son and when she came to the farm to stay overnight for the first time, she was placed in a bed with a dirty old rye. I don’t think she considered that a warm welcome. I don’t know if they ever got married.

Traditions in use

The majority of the farms have a separate outside building, called a loft, where the valuables of the family were stored. This is where there were chests with the silver and other precious items.  This is also where their best clothing was hung to air, and where their tapestries, ryer and woolen blankets were kept.  

The servant girls slept in the loft on summer nights–no doubt under the colorful ryer.  Beds were to be found in the living rooms of the farms, too. Because beautiful woven articles gave a certain status, people began to adorn the beds with ryer and colored woolen blankets, to show to their visitors and families.

From the Voss Folkemuseum exhibition. A rye is on the bed, with the smooth side up.

On cold winter days, the ryer were used on the open horse-drawn sleighs, to keep the travelers warm.  And when the rye was too old for anything else it was used on the horse’s back on cold winter days.  

One of my parents’ friends, an old lady, told me a story about when her family’s rye was stolen.  This was in the 1930s when the farmers still used horses when they needed to go into Voss sentrum (city center). They were invited to a Christmas party on a very cold winter’s day. They felt sorry for the horse who had to wait outside the house for them. So they put the warmest and most precious thing they had on its back, the rye.  When they returned after the party, the rye had been stolen. The farmer’s wife never made another rye.  

Voss is not close to the coast, so using ryer in the boats was not a topic here. But the fishermen in northern Norway used to use ryer in boats. And when speaking of ryer to common Norwegians today, they think of båtryer (boat ryer.)

In some districts in Norway they have also used rags as the nap or pile, but we have no documentation for that in the Voss area. That is the same with initials and numbers; I have never seen them on ryer from Voss.

How to make ryer

Voss ryer consist of a loom-woven blanket and a nap, or pile, rug.  I will use the word nap to describe the loose yarns hanging down; they are 5 – 8 cm long.  Two different weaving techniques are combined to make into one rye.  While the blanket (you may also call it the bottom) is woven, the nap is knotted into it simultaneously.  Thus, the rye has a smooth side and a nap side.

The ryer are woven in woolen yarn, both in warp, weft and nap.  In bygone days the looms were narrower than today, so the majority of the ryer are woven in two widths of approximately 70-75 centimeters, and then sewn together down the middle.

The weaving technique is diamond twill on four harnesses and four treadles, and the pile knot is almost always placed right in the middle of the diamond.  Sometimes you can see the pile knots on the smooth side just as decorative spots, but I think it is most common that they are not shown.  

There are two different knots which are used.  When the knots are not to be shown, you tie the yarn (nap) around just one thread of the warp on each side of the diamond center.  This knot is called a Turkish knot.  The other type is knotted sideways around the three warp threads right in the middle of the diamond.  If you have both types of knots in the same row, you put the knots that are not to be shown on the top of the diamonds. 

On the top example, the knots are not visible on the smooth side; on the bottom, the rya knots are visible as a design.

The smooth side of the rye is the right side, the side you see when the rye is placed on the bed.  But just the same, it is most important for the weaver to know exactly where and how to tie the pile knots because the pile knots form the pattern on the reverse side of the rye.  It was, and still is, important that the rye be decorative on both sides.  It is the geometric shapes which are repeated, and there are also squares, stripes and bands.

In this rye from the Voss Folkemuseum exhibit, you can see the pattern of knots on the smooth side, and the design on the pile side.

In Norway, weaving, as far as we know, has always been women’s work.  I think this is the reason why so little is written about weaving.  It has always been a part of the silent knowledge passed on from mother to daughter.

When it comes to ryer, this is the reason why we know so little about the phenomena of using two different types of knots in our district.  It occurs on the ryer that are about 100 years old, in just a small area.  Let us imagine that there was a farmer’s wife using her creativity in weaving.  She wanted to do something special and discovered that the knots could be tied in different ways.  One day women from some of the neighboring farms visited her, looked at her weaving, and picked up the idea.

Because I am familiar with Voss ryer it was an unexpected experience discovering that this was known in just this small area.   I know my great-grandmother made several of these, but unfortunately, I never met her.   When I started investigating ryer, both my grandmothers and my mother were dead too, so I had nobody in the family to ask.

The variety of design

All the ryer that I have seen in Voss and Hardanger are in diamond twill weave, although I know that elsewhere in Norway other weaving techniques are used.  And most of them have bright colors both in warp, weft, and nap.  

Bright colors shine in this rye from the Voss Folkemuseum exhibition.

On the back of the rye, knots are visible and add to the design.

Red and black seem to be a common color combination, though the oldest ones I have seen (from the beginning of the 1800s) are often just black and white, the natural colors from sheep’s wool.  But almost all colors were used, even pink and turquoise, bright blue and green.

This Voss rye from the Voss Folkemuseum exhibit includes wild pinks and blues.

The design is often a very intricate combination of nap and bottom or blanket, especially when some of the knots make patterns on both sides.  Then the nap is very often black in the middle with just a few spots of bright blue, green and yellow.  If there is a frame of the colors, then the warp is usually black with a few stripes on each side and the weft is red.

Older ryer have the nap in small squares 10 times 10 cm in red and black or orange and black.  Sometimes you can see that the weaver did not have enough yarn of the right color for the nap.  Then she had to dye more yarn, and she did not get quite the same shade.  So, half of the rye is green, and the other half is turquoise.  Still it is very beautiful to look at, and I guess the utility was the same.  The old ryer show a brilliant combination of beauty and utility.

Does this rye from the Voss folkemuseum illustrate a design choice or did the weaver run our of light orange yarn?

The textiles may have a few mistakes seen through our eyes today, but the mistakes did not reduce the qualities for their use.  I think that is good, because together with age they are part of the exotic and outstanding expressiveness which is rare in new textiles.

Inspiration for making new ryer

Do we need such textiles today?  And how can we use them?  Of course, we don’t need ryer today, when it comes to basic survival.  In our beds we have all kinds of duvets, blankets, sheets, and pillows. The fishermen along the Norwegian coast don’t have open boats anymore; they want a more comfortable life when they are out in their fishing boats. We hardly have any working horses left at all and we don’t put ryer on tractors. So, they are not necessities that our everyday life depends on.

But still, I think we need such textiles because:

  1. They tell us about our past,
  2. They tell us about using what you have of raw materials, and
  3. They tell us about not being afraid of working hard for a long time with a textile which is important to you.  

Certainly these ryer are large and required a large investment of time.

I have great respect for the women who made these intricate patterns by combining colors and techniques.  Why should we not have a rye in our bed?  When we find ryer as contemporary textiles they are mostly on the walls.

I guess some of you have read about another of our textile artists, Inger Anne Utvåg, in the Norwegian Textile Letter.  She also uses old båtryer (boat ryer) as inspiration for her new textiles, which are large ryer as wall hangings.  As such they have a powerful emanation.  When they change place from bed to wall, one may also change the material to be of a more exclusive kind. And suddenly they become a piece of art.  

I myself put in some silk in my ryer when I find that suitable. I’ve made several small ryer for babies.  You may wrap the babies in it, and when the baby grows and starts crawling this rye with its nap is a very interesting subject to investigate.

One of my dreams is to get a library with lots of good books and a cozy chair with a rye in it.  Perhaps, one day in the future I will have time to weave the rye.  

So, with these I consider myself making contemporary textiles, standing in a 200 to 300 year-old tradition.  But after visiting the Egyptian Museum in Cairo some weeks ago, I have to think in another way.  Among all the mummies and chests and sculptures I also found some linen fabric, dirty and dusty and partly in bits and pieces, all placed in showcases.

In one of them I discovered something that looked very much like a rye.  It was about 90 cm wide, 2 meters long, and quite worn out some places.  There I saw the bottom, which was tabby, and for each 16 or 17 mm there was a row of Turkish knots.  Where the floss still existed, it was about 6 or 7 cm long; both the bottom and the nap were linen. I don’t know anything about the use of this textile because there was no information except for the age, about 3000 years old.  So now I suddenly find myself in a 3,000 to 4,000 year-old tradition. That gives weaving of ryer, and weaving in general, a certain perspective.  

Why should we stop now?   I decided to end my lecture like this before I left Norway, and I was kind of pessimistic when thinking about the weaving back home.  But I want weaving so much to continue.  

And so, I arrive here in Decorah and meet all of you who are so enthusiastic and full of energy and busy weaving.  That you are very skilled I can see from the exhibit “Frisk og Flink”.  And what I hear of the study groups that you have in many places also gives me that impression.  So, you give me the energy to keep on back home.  Thank you.

Marta Kløve Juuhl taught weaving in the Norwegian Husflidsskole system for many years.  In recent years she has taught at Vesterheim Folk Art School. She also worked part-time at Østerøy museum, primarily with textiles, and taught many courses on using a warp weighted loom. She is co-author of a comprehensive book on the topic, The Warp-Weighted Loom. She currently works in her private studio.

Katherine Buenger

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By Robbie LaFleur

Katherine Buenger is a weaver and teacher known for her wide-ranging fiber talents. She can tame a 15-shaft computerized loom, but also loves weaving on rigid heddle looms, simple portable frame looms. She mastered spinning of “regular” fibers like wool and silk, and then moved on to create yarn from the Yellow Pages, coffee filters, computer tapes and other non-traditional materials. She learned to make Sami-inspired jewelry using tin thread, and has now taught the technique to hundreds of students. She’s a fun teacher; she is not afraid to break the rules and try something new, and encourages others to do the same.

Last summer Katherine dipped into yet another technique, and warped her small rigid heddle loom to weave some small birds in tapestry. It wasn’t going well; she was stymied by a red cardinal. Just then the Call for Art was published for the Baldishol exhibit. Katherine wrote,

I was intrigued. I cut off the sad little bird and decided to use the remaining warp to weave a rya piece for the exhibit. This decision was made knowing that I had never woven a whole piece in rya. I focused on colors and the clusters surrounding the horseman. Using a variety of yarns from my stash of wools, silk blends and cotton I went to work.

Perhaps that’s a starry night behind the horseman? Katherine titled her piece “Pleiades” (Seven Sisters). 

Katherine has a degree in studio art from Macalester College and has been contributing her talents to the Weavers Guild of Minnesota for two decades, serving on the board of directors and importantly, on the Education Committee. 

After finishing her Baldishol rya, Katherine went back to work on her complex Dobby computerized loom. There is no doubt that when she decides to go back to a tapestry cardinal, she’ll master that too. 

Check out more of Katherine’s work at buengerstudios.com.