Swedish Weaving: Part 3

"Right" (top) & "Wrong" (bottom) sides

Swedish weaving, or “huck” weaving, is traditionally done on a closely woven cotton toweling fabric called “huck” (shortened from “huckaback”). If you If you examine the fabric closely, you will find that one side is rough to the touch, while the other side feels smooth. Since the purpose of a towel is to dry something, the rough side is the “right” side of the fabric. Look closely and you will see rows of raised stitches running horizontally across the cloth, perpendicular to the selvage edges (– – – – –). Turning to the smooth, or “wrong”, side of the cloth, you will notice pairs of upright (vertical) threads running parallel to the selvage edges (⌡⌡ ⌡⌡ ⌡⌡). these slightly loose threads are called “floats' or “slubs”. The “floats” alternate position in each row, so that one “float” that is directly above another is in the second row of stitches above it — not the first. It is with these “floats” that Swedish weaving is done. This makes it a rare type of embroidery done entirely on the “wrong” side of the cloth!

Horizontal and diagonal stitches

It has been several months since we discussed this topic, and some of you are new readers, so some of this material will be repetitive. We concentrated in the first two sessions (March 11, 2016 and March 31, 2016) primarily on horizontal stitches and diagonal stitches and the patterns which can be made with them. Vertical stitches were shown only as connections. These stitches, however, are decorative on their own. They are also useful in making tall, columnar patterns and four-sided designs. To make an upright (vertical) pattern stitch, run the needle right to left under the first float. Move up to the float directly above and again run the needle under the float from right to left. Continue until your column is the desired height. This produces a “wrapped” appearance to the stitches. A block of upright stitches gives texture to a design. Upright and horizontal stitches combine well. The red patterns will give you ideas for simple patterns you can do with this stitch. In the purple patter, each upward and downward vertical stitch skips a float in the center of the stitch.

The step stitch combines a horizontal stitch and a vertical stitch, and moves diagonally upward and downward across the fabric Multiple rows of this stitch produce interesting designs, particularly when a different color is used for each row. To do this most easily, begin with the bottom row of the design and work each following row directly above it. The rows can also be worked in reverse to make a larger more complex design. Do all the upper rows first. Then turn your fabric upside-down and repeat the pattern, starting once again with the bottom row. A diamond-shaped space is created in the design when it is done this way. If you like, you can put initials or tiny embroidery designs in these spaces.

A simple step-stitch pattern, repeated two different ways

 Another useful basic stitch is the loop stitch or circle stitch. Begin with one or more horizontal stitches. Slip your needle under a pair of floats from right to left. Point your needle in the opposite direction. Move up to the floats directly above the one you just worked. This time pass your needle from left to right. Return to the lower stitch and once again run your needle under the same floats from right to left. Pull the thread gently until it makes a loop or circle. Tension is very important with this stitch. If you leave the thread too loose, your stitches will be irregular and not look like even loops or circles. If you pull the thread too tight, you will distort (pucker) the fabric. Practice until it feels right. Spacing the loops differently in parallel rows makes different patterns. To make reverse loop- stitch rows, turn your fabric upside=down and proceed normally. Loop stitches and horizontal stitches combine attractively, as you can see in this border. Here the loops are alternated, with the top of each loop passing under the same float as the spacing stitch either above or below it. If you want to have even lines of loops, try them two ways: evenly spaced so that the loops intersect, or lines of loops spaced a row of floats apart so they do not intersect. You will be surprised how much difference this makes.

Aqua/turquoise loop-stitch design

There is another loop stitch that you might like, called half-loop stitch. It is used for up-and-down borders, stems, etc. Work from right to left, make a couple of horizontal stitches, and pick up a float. Then, working from left to right, insert the needle under the float directly above the one you just picked up, but complete only the right half of the loop by picking up the float above. Complete the left half of that loop by crossing under the middle float with the needle pointing from left to right. Complete the right side of the bottom loop, working under the first float again. You can make the column of loops as tall as you like by working in this back-and-forth manner. Make at least one horizontal stitch between loop columns. The stitch gets its name because it is made a half loop at a time. To make the pattern below, begin with a couple of straight stitches. Make a loop stitch and a spacer stitch, then make a column of two half-loop stitches. Continue making columns of half-loop stitches in increasing sizes, with spacing stitches between them, for as long as you like. Then repeat the stitches in the reverse order to the end.

Dark blue half-loop stitches

Finally, there is the long stitch. This is a very flexible stitch which can be used in a variety of ways. It is primarily used to create diamond shapes. In the top example, a long diagonal shape is created by skipping more floats horizontally than you skip vertically. One long-stitch row is worked across the design. Then a second long-stitch row is worked as a mirror-image of the first row. Where the rows intersect, both threads pass under the same floats. The second set of diamonds is more open and the diamonds are square. The same number of floats are involved, both vertically and horizontally.

Two kinds of diamond shapes

The weaving is done with a small tapestry needle. Tapestry needles have blunt points that can slip under the floats without breaking the float threads. The smallest needle that will hold the type of thread being used for the embroidery and slide under the floats without breaking them is the one to use. If the “weaving” is done properly, the needle never dips through the huck fabric and no stitches are ever seen on the other side of the cloth. (NOTE: This is not possible when doing the designs on other fabrics like monk's cloth or Aida; you will always see some thread on the reverse side of the cloth.)

Practice your stitches and patterns, please, because we will soon begin a project with them.

Have fun.

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Swedish Weaving: Part II

Vintage Swedish weaving example

Here is another example of Swedish weaving or huck embroidery. It is worked selvage-to-selvage on pale pink huck toweling in red and shades of violet embroidery floss. It could easily have been done with other materials, such as cotton crochet thread or fine acrylic yarn. As you can see, the patterns of spires are worked alternately in both directions. A square this size is suitable for a decorative pillow top.

Below are more patterns done on huck toweling. Some are linear, while others are all-over designs. You can repeat elements of a design indefinitely to make wider borders or cover larger pieces of fabric. You can also combine elements of two or more designs to make a more intricate design. Try several. Who knows? You may come up with a unique design of your own.

Sampler, Swedish weaving on huck

If you don't have appropriate fabric on which to practice your stitches, try doing them on plastic canvas. Look closely at the samples of pattern darning shown below. See how the two exposed bars of plastic resemble the two “floats” on the huck fabric? Note how this very simple design changes when you do it in one, two, or three colors. You can practice many linear designs on plastic canvas. Your samples will be durable and easy to file for future reference. Also, it is easy to pull the yarn out if you make a mistake. Diagonal designs are more difficult, but many can be done with a little practice.

Sampler, Swedish weaving on Aida cloth

In the first post of this series, I mentioned in the introduction that this type of embroidery could be done on a number of fabrics other than huck toweling. My first choice for this would be Aida cloth. The fabric seen here is #14 Aida, the most popular and readily available kind. It comes in a large range of colors. It is most commonly used for counted cross-stitch, but is useful for a number of other techniques. The set of stitch patterns on this piece of gold Aida were adapted from samples used in describing Holbein embroidery. Be careful with the pattern done in orange: it is more difficult than it seems.

Needle technique on Aida cloth

To make the stitches, run the tip of your needle under the small squares made by the weave of the Aida cloth, just as you would under the “floats” of the huck. Some needleworkers recommend that you pick up only the center pair of threads in each square, to make it more like picking up the huck “floats”. You may want to try this for yourself. At this small scale, I prefer to pick up the entire square of four threads. The fabric is double-layered, allowing you to keep all your stitches on the surface of the fabric as you do with huck. It takes some practice, however, to pick up only the top layer of threads, leaving the bottom layer undisturbed. It is important to keep your stitches level as you do repeat motifs like the stepped diamonds done in green on the gold Aida. Because the squares on the Aida cloth are so small, it is easy to accidentally move up or down and stitch in the wrong row. I use my needle as a “pointer” to check that my stitches are in their correct row. I check both horizontally and vertically. Now I would like to revisit two of the patterns from the first post in this series.

Swedish weaving pattern with large open spaces

Patterns like this, which leave part of the background exposed, are very useful for adding monograms or names to towels, linens, inserts for clothing, etc. Just embroider a single letter in each open space, using your choice of embroidery stitches. Words, too, can be decorative — particularly when framed. Some years ago it was quite popular to place colorful and decorative signs everywhere, encouraging everyone to “THINK!” Perhaps that is an idea whose time has come again. Why not do it in embroidery? A future post will be on the subject of the decorative possibilities of words.

Here is another simple open-work pattern which can be adjusted to the size you desire simply by adding or subtracting stitches. It could be used for words, phrases, or even entire signs. Place punctuation marks in the same spaces with the letter they precede or follow. Another use for this type of space is to frame tiny cross-stitch or other embroidery motifs (like the Holbein “doodles” you can download from the August 20, 2014 post).

Simple pattern to use for "framing"

Stitch away!

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Introducing ... Swedish Weaving!

As Annake promised in our 3rd anniversary post, here is the first in a series of tutorials on Swedish weaving (huck embroidery)

Vintage Swedish weaving sample

This type of needlework (there is also a type of loom weaving with the same name) goes back at least as far as the 1600s. It was widespread in Europe, but probably is called "Swedish" because the best surviving samples of it may be found in Swedish museums. It has many names, including Nordic weaving, huck embroidery, and huck weaving — which is what it was called when I learned to do it. It was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s and has come back into fashion several times since then. The latest surge in popularity has been for monks' cloth afghans; but that is quite an undertaking for a beginner, so I'm going to focus on smaller projects like linens, pillows, framed decorations and decorative inserts for clothing.

The “huck” in huck weaving comes from huckaback, a type of linen woven with loose surface threads called ‘floats’. The embroidery is done on the surface of the work and does not go through to the back of the fabric. Huck toweling is still the best fabric for this kind of work. Unfortunately, it is not easy to find it and it is expensive. It customarily comes in white or cream color. Here is a close-up of huck toweling showing how a blunt-pointed needle (so you don't split the float threads) is used to lift the pairs of floats. Needles with long, narrow eyes are preferred, because they don't pull the floats out of shape in the way needles with rounder eyes do.

Many other fabrics may be used, as long as you can count the threads and lift them with your blunt-pointed tapestry needle. One of the best is Aida cloth, which is available in several gauges from many sources, and comes in a wide variety of colors. Monks' cloth comes in a few gauges and is commonly available. It also comes in a wide variety of colors. However, it is loosely woven, so it must be pre-washed because it shrinks and pre-hemmed because it frays. Also, some of the dyed versions are garish and the dye is uneven; examine them carefully before you buy them. I have discussed monks' cloth in previous posts (see the posts for February 27, 2014 and April 30, 2014). If you have been practicing embroidery chain stitches with me, you may be able to use the same practice material for this weaving. Below is a sample of it done on decorator burlap.

There are a number of pattern books and teaching DVDs on this subject available in shops and online. These are expensive and many of the patterns are confusing. Check with your nearest library to see if you can check out the books or order them through inter-library loans before you purchase them. Also check the back issues of the library's needlework and craft magazines for useful illustrated articles. I'm assuming that you would prefer not to spend a large sum on a craft which you may decide you don't want to pursue, so I will suggest inexpensive alternatives. If you are a regular reader, you know that my intention is to show you basic stitches and patterns like the ones below and to encourage you to to go ahead to develop your own designs. If you decide you really like the technique, then is the time to invest in materials, books, DVDs, and so forth.

A sampler of some traditional huck weaving stitches

The most basic stitches in this technique are straight horizontal and diagonal ones. You can make a number of patterns using these alone. Diagonal stitches can move either up or down and either backward or forward. Even the simplest lines of horizontal stitches make an attractive border if they are done in a pleasing arrangement of bright colors or graduated tones of the same color. Each line is identical to the one before it, so you can follow easily and the pattern develops quickly. The patterns are traditionally worked from right to left, but will work equally well from left to right for left-handed people. I often work one row one way and the next row the other way. Although I usually prefer to do embroidery with a hoop, these linear patterns are easier to do without a hoop. Click on the sample patterns below and enlarge them to make them easy to understand. Remember that your thread or yarn should lie lightly on top of your fabric. Do not pull your stitches tight and distort the material.

More simple huck weaving samples on Aida cloth

Do you want an easy way to make your borders more interesting? Just double the pattern. Put in a pattern as you have practiced. If it starts with a baseline and reaches upward, turn your fabric 180 degrees. Repeat the pattern. You may want the two straight sides to join, or you may want to leave one or more unworked rows of thread in the middle, or to put in a row or two of running stitches in a contrasting color. If the pattern starts with a baseline and reaches downward, turn the fabric 180 degrees and do the pattern again, deciding whether to join the two halves together or to separate them with running stitches or a small amount of space. The examples below show how this is done. Experiment with other patterns you have learned.

A simple stitch pattern, repeated two different ways

We are going to concentrate on stitches and simple patterns for a while; later we will discuss preparing the materials, beginning and ending rows of stitching, estimating the amount of thread for a single row of stitches, finishing the edges of projects, etc. I will show you more patterns, done on Aida, monks’ cloth, decorator burlap, and so forth so you can compare them.

Be creative,

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