My own fabric – the idea, the weaving, and the final garment
I designed a stripy folk fabric and Susanna, the owner of Kultavilla the weaving mill wove it. Now I have the folk skirt of my dreams!
Weaving my own Finnish Iron Age legwraps
I wove myself some Finnish Iron Age legwraps.
Stripy Finnish folk fabrics – Kansanpukuraitoja
My mother says that even her grandmother used to weave fabrics for simple garments when she was younger. Handweaving used to be a skill that most women knew and valued. I haven’t ever woven fabric for garments, just pirtanauha-bands, and one table runner a long time ago. But the more I have studied Finnish folk costumes and textiles, the more I have come to love the simple stripy patterns that still have lots of variability in them. In fact, there is one thing that the canonized National costumes lack and that is the creativity in fabrics. In the 18th and 19th century, weavers could decide what patterns and colours pleased…
Making an early 19th-century Karelian dress, part 2: Weaving the belt
I learned how to weave with a backstrap rigid heddle to make traditional belts for my Karelian folk costume.
