Friday 13 April 2012



I love going to the local library. Of course,  I always go straight to the craft/design section. Yesterday I found this beautiful book which takes a new spin on traditional Swedish embroidery. Why not embroider your toddler's onesie, or your own Dalecarlian hoodie? The designs in this book, "Karins broderier", are mainly from the region of Dalarna and from the southern most parts of Sweden.  When going through this book I did not only feel the urge to start embroidering immediately, but also realized I had some stained tablecloths with beautiful embroidery that I could upcycle (never throw anything away!). I especially loved the embroidered pillow cases in this book. These are special because they are embroidered on the side rather than on the front. The reason for this is that the stitches would not be worn out by you laying your head on it every night. Also, it served as part of decoration of your bedroom: the beautifully embroidered side of the pillow would be turned to the door of the room, so that guests who peeked through it could catch a glimpse of your handiwork.  Inspiring, don't you think?

What I missed in this book was Jämtlandsöm, which comes from the region of Jämtland. Jämtlandsöm seems to be hard to find patterns on, but it is a real fun style. You can have a peek at it, and many other types of embroidery, on the blog brodera.nu, which is run by a very talented blogger!





2 comments:

  1. I *love* traditional Scandinavian embroidery and it looks like this book puts a nice new spin on it - thanks for blogging about it :)

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    1. Emily, I have been somewhat obsessed with Scandinavian embroidery lately, especially the 60s freehand stuff. I am trying to find a good book on it. Glad you liked the post. :)

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