By Nancy Gossell

Traveling to the Tingsryd Vävstugan [Tyngsryd Weaving Studio] fulfilled a long-held dream of mine to weave in Sweden. I was interested and hopeful to find a place I could experience various Nordic weaving techniques for a short period of time. More hours than I care to admit with online search engines identified several intriguing possibilities. Formal classes lasting a month or more was not what I was seeking. My elementary level of the Swedish language allowed me to read enough about a Vävstugan in Tingsryd, Sweden, to catch my interest.

Föreningen Vävstugan [The Weaving Association] is in southern Småland, between Växjö and Karlshamn. The Association was created in the 1980s from the efforts of artists Kerstin Jonsdotter, Folke Samuelsson, and the Tingsryd community to continue the craft of weaving.

Kerstin was a weaving instructor, and Folke a furniture maker and designer, when they met while teaching at the renowned craft school, Capellagården on Öland. In 1964 they moved to Tingsryd. They created a weaving workshop, offered courses, and wove commissioned work identified by their business name JonSa.

Vävstugan is a welcoming and unique community. The community offers weaving opportunities one can not find in many places. An individual can arrange to weave here without becoming a member. It is unique because the Association has a full-time employee who keeps all the looms in order and can help visitors as well as the members. The Association has 23 looms, many enhanced with Folke’s talents to design and build additions to the loom.

I arrived in May, 2022, for three weeks of weaving. In my correspondence with the Association, I requested to weave smaller pieces that I could easily transport back to the United States in my one suitcase.

What an experience it was to walk into the weaving room with 23 warped looms, seeing an example placed on each of the loom of its weave structure and warp.

That May, I wove many hand towels, on three looms: an 8-shaft Dräll with vertical stripes using 16/2 cotton warp with 16/1 linen weft.

A 4-shaft Korndräll [a type of diamond twill] 16/2 cotton warp with 16/1 linen weft;

On the immense draw loom I wove with with 1,254 60/2 linen threads in the 23 cm wide warp, a 6-shaft satin damask utilizing 17 upper pulls plus additional draws on each side to be placed on hooks. The weft was 16/1 linen.

I also came home with rosepath placemats woven on a 4-shaft warp of unbleached cottolin, weft in the same cottolin and 8/1 tow linen. The fifth loom provided another draw loom experience weaving korskypert [broken twill] on a 4-shaft 16/2 cotton warp inserting harness blocks using 8/1 tow linen.

My time in Tingsryd provided full days for weaving as well as getting to meet, watch and learn from many of the members of the Association. A question was asked of me how I liked visiting Tingsryd’s Vävstugan. My answer? “I feel like a 5-year-old in an immense candy store.”

In May of 2023 I returned to weave two two-meter wool rugs on the large linen warp rug loom.

The week I arrived, a young woman from the Netherlands had reserved the large rug loom to weave a 184 cm x 2.5 m (app. 6′ x 8′)  rag rug from denim she had prepped and brought with her. I used that time to wind all my rug wool yarn into balls and requested time on a loom warped with 8/2 cotton to weave some hand towels.

Then it was my turn and under the watchful eye and timely instructions from Rosmarie, the Association’s employee, I focused on each throw or pick with multiple arches, or in Swedish båger, in the shed before I closed the shed and brought the beater forward.

There is a daily fee to weave at a loom. In addition, each loom has the per meter cost of the warp listed and one is charged by how much of the warp you have woven. An individual can bring their own weft or purchase weft from the Association to be used for your weaving project.

Many Swedish hand towels are woven with a linen weft on a cotton warp. The Association has buckets of wound spools of bleached, semi-bleached and unbleached 16/1 linen available, thanks to volunteer members who come in to wind these bobbins. Talk about a weaver’s dream. The bucket is weighed before you begin your towel(s) and then weighed after you are finished to determine the amount/cost. Colored linen, all Cottolin and Cotton can be obtained from the Association but must be wound on spools by the weaver.

Tingsryd Vävstugan web site provides much information in English and Swedish, including details and pictures of the type of warp on each of the 23 looms. When a warp not used for rugs (often 50 meters long) is finished, the Association discusses what the next pattern should be for that loom so there can be a replaced warp from what was reflected in the pictures.

Their web site is: www.vavstugan.com.
The Association can be contacted by email: vavstugantingsryd@gmail.com

Lodging can be found at the Tingsryd Resort where housekeeping cabins are available. The surrounding area has rentals via Air B&B listed.

October 2023

Nancy Gossell, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, is not letting grass grow underneath her as she takes full advantage of an open calendar and her long held interest in Swedish weaving.  She has strong Nordic roots, learning and working in Norway as a young adult.  From her 30s on she and her family visited many of her mother’s cousins in southern Sweden where she saw the magic in community based Vävstugor.

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