A visit from fellow bandweaver Kathleen Almelien and writer Ceanne Alvine of Iowa.
I first heard from Kathleen back in 2023, when she was planning a holiday to Norway. She introduced herself saying that she had attended a course at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah where Vovne Skattar was being used as a teaching resource. (Vone Skattar or Woven Treasures is a book written by Eldbjørg Breivik Smeland and myself published in 2020, based on research carried out by ourselves and Olga Maria Breivik in Åmli.) I was so pleased to hear that our book is being used so far afield.
Kathleen bombarded me (in the nicest possible way!) with a series of questions and after a few more emails we decided to meet up to chat bands in person when she visited Oslo. Little did I know, sitting at Oslo’s central train station in 2023 that a few years later Kathleen would be visiting me at my home in Åmli.
She subsequently successfully applied for the American Scandinavian foundation fellowship and started organising her weaving trip, with writer Ceanne Alvine to Norway in the summer of 2026. I have been following her application process with interest and doing my best to answer questions and provide information along the way.
On Monday the 31st of August this year I met Kathleen Almelien and Ceanne Alvine at Telemark Museum, Brekkeparken in Skien. Where we enjoyed looking at a series of beautiful pick-up bands/ribbons, some hairbands, apron bands as well as a few other objects. Ceanne and Kathleen stayed in Skien for some hours visiting the Husfliden store for yarn shopping before heading towards my home in Åmli, where I had supper waiting.
In one email during the organising phase Kathleen mentioned she would like to see as many bands as possible during her visit, so I took her seriously and planned a week with two archive visits (plus the trip to Skien that had been arranged for Kathleen by our dear bandweaving colleague Mona Øvregård) So we had quite the packed week planned!
Luckily however, we also had a full day of weaving, chatting materials and getting to understand each other’s work. As we chatted we made warps and spent time understanding each other’s method. Kathleen is very fond of her Rui Loom (add footnote) and I enjoyed watch her dress and weave on my Rui loom. I don’t often use mine, but this has inspired me to use it more in the future. I introduced Kathleen to some of the thicker, courser wools and linen thread used in Åmli and we spoke about patterns, techniques and what our overall aims and goals are. I think this process is often helpful to clarify one’s own aims and goals, my own being a desire and hope to help maintain and preserve a living and dynamic bandweaving tradition in Norway. I hope to do this by being a practicing weaver myself, learning as much as I can along the way wherever I can, and hopefully be able to communicate this to others and as time goes by helping inspire, teach and train more weavers. I found talking this through with Kathleen who has been a teacher for over 50 years very helpful.
We enjoyed a visit to see Åmli History Societies collection of bands in Åmli, a visit to the costume exhibition at Elvarheim museum, a well as a trip to KUBEN museum in Arendal who have a small but interesting collection of woven bands in their archives.
I find the connections between Norway and the USA or “Uniten” as my grandmother always called it, very fascinating. The continued interest in, practice of and perhaps even parallel evolution of some aspects of Norwegian culture in the USA is something that I one day hope to see firsthand. I think perhaps the Welsh word Hiraeth may come closest to describing the impression I get of it, there isn’t a direct translation to English but it encompasses a sortof longing for home or the land, sometimes nostalgic. Norwegians reverse interest is also intriguing, so many Norwegians have some family in the USA and have in some way or another a connection. Having a visit from Kathleen and Ceanne, was a really lovely way to connect with fellow textile people from across the pond.
As a craftsperson, whose fulltime job it is to weave, sew, teach and research, most often from my home workshop, work can be quite solitary which makes me particularly appreciate having the opportunity to spend time with colleagues from near and far. I very much look forward to reading what Ceanne writes about their tour of Southern Norway and their visits to fellow bandweavers including Eli Vesaas, Sigrunn Brattekås and Mona Øvregård.
On a practical note, I promised Kathleen a brief overview of some of the wool yarn qualities commonly used by band weavers in Norway. So I thought I may as well pop it in here. ( For those not adverse to using a translate function, my last blog entry describes this in more detail in Norwegian) The list is not exhaustive and is not meant as advertising for any specific producers or retailers, just a quick overview that I hope may be of use to some of you.
For fine and thin wools suitable for bands such as apron bands from Vest Telemark, here are some options.
Perle 70 – 18/2 a two-ply worsted merino wool, imported and dyed by Hillesvåg.
Uusii Veera – a two-ply worsted wool produced in Europe, dyed in Finland by Wetterhoff.
Slightly thicker and with a different feel often used by weavers of East Telemark bands, both pickup and tabletwoven
Beltegarn from Rauma – 25/5 a soft worsted wool. Dyed by Rauma and sold by a series of retailers.
Jane Boddy wool 500m/ 100gr – just a smidge thinner than the Rauma beltegarn.
Another fine thin wool is Alv 700m/100gr from Hillesvåg, for a thicker yarn with the same qualities its big sister Huldra is a good option.
And Tynn Peer Gynt 410m/100gr from Sandnes Garn-
And for a selection of thicker qualities, (used for amongst other things belts and hairbands for the Åmli bunad)
Peer Gynt 182m/100gr from Sandnes Garn
To tråds prydvevgarn 300m / 100gr from Rauma
Frid tynntvevgarn 300m / 100gr from Hillesvåg – even though it has the same weight as the Prydvevgarn from Rauma, Frid seems more compact and finer.
Having written that, I realise that a visitor from abroad may find a little list of yarn producers and retailers useful.
A few of the main Norwegian yarn producers:
Hillesvåg : Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk | Ull.no
Sandnes garn: Sandnes Garn – Den norske garnfabrikken siden 1888
Rauma: Rauma Garn
A small selection of good retailers for finding weaving quality yarns mentioned above:
Dalebutikken: Dalebutikken
Sidserk: Sidserk Systue – Bunadkurs – For deg som vil sy selv – Sidserk AS
Almankås: Almankås – Telemarksbunad til dame
Norsk Flid shops all over the country: Hjem – Norsk Flid Husfliden
I hope this list may be useful to some of you.
