Icelandic lace knitting

 

I saw these lovely knitted lace shawls in the Textile Museum at Blonduos in the north of Iceland. There were various designs, some were large square shawls with scalloped borders, others were large triangles and one was a long straight shawl. They are all made from Icelandic wool, which is made of two distinct fibres. The outer ‘tog’ fibres of the sheep’s coat are long and water repellent and the inner ‘pel’ fibres are soft, fine and provide insulation. The two fibres can be spun alone or in various combinations depending on their final use, but the finest shawls are made from pel alone. It is claimed that these shawls, like those of Shetland, are so fine that they can be drawn through a wedding ring.

The wool is often used in the natural white, brown and black colours of the fleece, but some is dyed in delicate earth shades using natural plant dyes. The shawl with the brown edging in the main image was made by Pordis Egilsdottir (1878-1961) with pel wool in natural colours.

Helene Magnusson, who we were lucky enough to have as our guide, has carried out research into the collection at the Museum and most of my information comes from her book Icelandic handknits. She notes that this long white shawl was made by Johanna Johannesdottir (1895-1989) and was probably inspired by a motif in the 1885 edition of the handcraft book Kvennafraeoarinn by Elin Briem, which was one of the first books about handcrafts to be published in Icelandic. Helene has recreated this pattern and many other old patterns for the 21st century. She has also designed new patterns and garments inspired by the textile collection at Blonduos, and has created a lace weight yarn in which to work them.