This artist’s reconstruction of a Viking woman standing at her loom
This artist’s reconstruction of a Viking woman standing at her loom gives us a glimpse of the great historical tradition which is behind today’s bedspread weaver. She wove with woollen thread from sheep which go outside in winter and which you still find on browsing landscape in Austevoll. (drawing: Åke Gustavsson, from: Almgren, B. et al. (1975) Vikingene. Oslo, Cappelen.) (utsnitt)
The Warp-Weighted Loom - A thousand year tradition in weaving
HAND-WEAVING ON THE WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM
It was the researcher of day-to-day life, Eilert Sundt who first made people aware of the warp-weighted loom. The article he wrote in his newspaper: ”Friend of the People” in 1865 shows that he had had the experience of seeing a Lappish woman weaving branches in Troms County. He also portrays a hand-loom in ”the southern part of Bergen County (south of Sogne Fjord) .....” where they wove tapestries with multi-coloured squares and stars. They were beautiful and particularly solid bed-coverings”. This corresponds very well with the decorated bed-spreads from Nordhordland and Sunnhordland which we know today, woven on the upright loom, åklestøyrer as they are known in the dialects of Hordaland. In his popular magazine “Friend of the People” Sundt also included an illustration of an upright loom from Fana which came into the possession of the University’s Museum of Antiquities in 1860; it was later deposited in the Norwegian Folk Museum. And still today the warp-weighted loom is a living tradition. When Berta Liarbø in Fitjar sets up a tapestry on her warp-weighted loom. She is working in an unbroken weaving tradition going all the way back into prehistoric times.
Utegangarsau (Peter Emil Kaland).
Characteristic details from the wrap-weighted loom technique. (Svein Nord).
A bedspread from Sunnhordland, a type with long traditions. (Ann-Mari Olsen, owner: University museum in Bergen (Bd 5516)).
Bunches of thread in different colours are slipped deftly in and out between the fabric threads by Berta Liarbø.. It is the weighted stones that keep the warp threads stiff. We know this from finds from 3,000 years ago. (Jan Rabben).