By Lisa Anne Bauch and Robbie LaFleur

At the Weavers Guild of Minnesota the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group often sets up a group project to learn a new weaving technique. For those members who already know the technique, it’s an opportunity to experiment and share the joy of seeing a wide variety of color and patterns develop on the same warp. Sometimes members of our group warp their own looms at home and weave along. The next group warp for the Scandinavian Weavers will be set up for Flesberg technique, and we are inviting you to weave along at home during the same time frame (May-September). Our Weavers Guild members will be weaving on a Glimåkra loom in Minneapolis, but we’d like to hear from others, no matter where you are.

Flesberg is a style of three-shaft boundweave, named for the Flesberg area of Norway where it is popular. The style allows the weaver to create a multitude of curved motifs. 

We will be warping our Glimakra loom with 12/6 seine twine at a sett of 10 EPI. Our weaving width will be 14″, suitable for a runner or pillow top. Weavers will experiment with a variety of wool weft yarns. 

How can you participate? Use the basic threading and tie-up, written by Kay Larson, linked below. (Please note that Kay’s draft calls for black seine twine yarn. Our project will use a neutral shade instead, as black warp threads can be visually tricky if you haven’t woven this style before.) There are also links to pattern PDFs created by Anna Bakken.

The basic threading and tie-up are here. The draft calls for Rauma åklegarn for weft at a sett of 6 epi, a yarn that is no longer made. Nancy Ebner used Swedish mattgarn at that sett and it worked well. (See photo below.) For a thinner weft yarn, like Rauma prydvevgarn or Frid yarn, a sett of 10 epi works well. For our Weavers Guild project on the Glimakra loom, we are warping at 10 epi.

Here are many patterns to try. 

The November, 2020, issue of the Norwegian Textile Letter included several articles about Flesberg. It’s filled with information and inspiring photos of historical and contemporary pieces.

Flesberg: The Norwegian Pattern Book Shared
How to Draft Your Own Flesberg Patterns
Flesbergplegg: An Enduring Norwegian Regional Design
On a Flesberg “Fotojakt” (A Photo Hunt) with Marit Stevning
Retro Reprint: Flesberg Bound Weave System
Flesberg Exhibit 2005: Americans (and a Canadian) Try Out the Norwegian Technique
Across the Border: Exploring a Similar Swedish Technique

If you choose to try out the technique, we’d love to see what you weave. Here is a short form to report the details about your weaving. Please respond by September 30, 2026. At the end of the year we’ll publish galleries of submitted photos from our Fun with Flesberg project on the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group blog. 

For inspiration, here are more Flesberg weavings done by members of the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group.

Nancy Ebner wove the Flesberg wall hanging above, using the instructions from the Norwegian Textile Letter. (See link above.) . She reports that Flesberg is one of the most fun weaving styles she has done.

Nancy Ellison wove the above sampler in a class she took from Katharine Dickerson at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum.  “After weaving with the black, gray, and white yarn and drafts supplied in the class we were encouraged to try something on our own, so I wove a row of red covered bridges with blue sky and green grass as the covered bridge at Zumbrota, Minnesota is a local tourist attraction here.”

Nancy Ellison created the weaving above for an exhibit of the Flesberg Study Group in Decorah in October 2005. Nancy writes, “[This weaving] was in natural colors of brown, gray, and black yarn from Shetland and Icelandic sheep in my flock at the time.” She spun the white yarn from wool she purchased during a textile tour of Norway.

If you try your hand at the technique, tell us your story by September 30, 2026.