By Karin Bøe
The kvitveis tour that became the kviletjeld tour, part 2. See part one here.
In the previous post I wrote about finding four old wool duvets in a pile of old building materials. They looked awful after a winter outside, but for a craftsman interested in history they looked exciting. Now I want to tell you about the woolen duvet which looked the least exciting – won’t that be interesting?
This woolen duvet turned out to have a cover of cotton fabric on the outside. I tore it off. Then it was a wool duvet with a machine-woven wool blanket on one side and red fabric on the other side.
Woolen duvets were made from old wool coverlets and pieces of woolen fabric, anything that could provide warmth. That’s why I had to look inside this boring woolen duvet and tear off the red fabric. There was a coarse burlap. Not so exciting. So then I had to tear that off as well.
Wait a minute, what color was the warp actually? It’s not just white, even if it’s very gray now. There are both some white and some dark threads! And there is no regular system for them! They appear helter skelter. How could this happen? If you run a warp with four threads at a time and have one white and three grey, they will of course repeat themselves. But they don’t.
Then there were old quilts that had been patched together. They were quite grey, but I could see the red of the stripes that were woven into dark brown woolen yarn. A familiar and dear sight.
I called a friend. I consulted with Annemor Sundbø and she believes that it is yarn that is spun with wool in different colors according to a random method, as you often see in warps on old Turkish carpets. Wow! Very cool. This gives a great effect in the background with dark stripes on it.
I want to take care of this blanket. I brushed away all the fluff that was in the edges with a soft toothbrush and pulled out loose threads, because there were many of them when it was sewn together, layer upon layer. I took it up to the river and washed it. I could probably have washed it longer. It’s still quite grey, but it feels much better. A gray treasure!
So now I’m inspired to learn how to spin using the random method. I am practicing spinning with a drop spindle from rolls of fleece. I’ve learned from the old people that the warp should be spun on a drop spindle. This avoids a weak point every time you take a new roll. So you just have to keep at it, practice and practice.
Think how much work went into these quilts and then the woolen duvets. A lot of wool was plucked, carded, spun, spun — many hours lie there, and a lot of love and not just toil, I hope. I am both impressed and humbled by our foremothers. Where would we be without their knowledge, experience, technique and courage?
🤍🐏🪡🐏🤍🐏🪡🐏🤍🐏🪡🐏🤍🐏🪡🐏🤍
Karin Bøe moved to Valle in Setesdal in 1995 as a craft instructor. She began to study weaving traditions in the Setesdal region by examining coverlets and interviewing older weavers. In 1996 she began her business, Valle Vev, creating traditional weavings. She has a certificate in handweaving and a masters in traditional folk art. In 2012 she published her book, Rugger og Brossar. Åkle i Setesdal (Rugger og Brossar: Coverlets in Setesdal).
Translated by Robbie LaFleur, July 2024.