By Karin Bøe
Editor’s note: Weaver and historian Karin Bøe, from Valle in Setesdal, Norway, took a hike to find beautiful spring flowers, but found another treasure…
My kvitveis [a white early spring wildflower] trip turned into a kviletjeld [blanket] trip!
In a pile of old building remains, some textiles peeked out. The friendly landowner let me take them out and do what I wanted with them. I took them out and laid them to dry in the sun. A winter out in the snow and wind had taken its toll. It is easy to understand that they were thrown away, they were in horrible shape and looked useless. But for a historian and craftsman, these are valuable treasures! It is rare that I have seen old wool quilts, because they are usually thrown away, unfortunately. We may not be able to preserve everything, but then it is important to document it well first.
All photos by Karin Bøe
Lying in the pile were four woolen quilts, a piece of a kyrkjetjeld [a woven shawl worn to church], a piece of vadmål [woolen cloth] and one end of a skirt.
One wool quilt had a cotton cover and didn’t look very exciting. A second woolen quilt was made from machine-woven blankets, with wool in between. Two woolen quilts were made from old kviletjeld [handwoven wool blankets], quilted (or darned) and folded together with some coarse straw and cotton fabric and sheep’s wool inside. Often in the old quilts one layer was made of coarse burlap, likely woven from jute. 
Older people have told me that there were three types of woolen quilts, which were called stoppeteppe [quilted blankets]. One was with carded wool, which they put between two blankets and sewed in place, such as these. Another type was to sew together all the rags of old woolen clothes, but those became quite heavy. The third type was a vatteppe [a quilt bought at the store].
These woolen quilts tell so much. Think how skilled they were at making use of what they had. Think how much time and work has gone into them. First carding, spinning and weaving blankets. And when the blankets are worn out, they stuff the remains together with carded wool into a warm quilt.
Even if an old textile looks horrible and useless today, a craftsman can glean much information from them. Here we can study the colors, patterns, threading on the loom, thread density, thread quality and wool quality in the weave, as well as technique and use of wool quilts…
The conclusion is; please do not throw away textiles before you have asked a historian or craftsman. It could be worth its weight in gold to someone! These textiles are part of our cultural heritage and are important cultural relics that tell us about the people who have lived before us and women’s crafts.
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, June 2024.