Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Book Review - Håndplagg til Bunader og Folkedrakter

I cannot express how beautiful Håndplagg til Bunader og Folkedrakter is. I bought this book a couple years ago and pull it out from time to time. I was just checking to see if there are Fana gloves.

The book is full of patterns for bunad and folk costume handcoverings. It is a great resource for making mittens, gloves, pulse warmers, etc., but also stands alone with wonderful photographs of bunads and costumes.

It is entirely in Norwegian. Most of the patterns are knit, but there is also nålbinding. Some are embroidered and others beaded. The book starts with an introduction about supplies and techniques and then is divided into geographic regions. Each project shows a historical photo and instructions. Then there is a photo of the reconstructed item, sometimes modeled with costumes, sometimes with modern clothes, which shows how timeless the designs are.

Here is a small sampling of the projects: embroidered gloves from Setsedal and Telemark; stranded gloves and pulsewarmers from Flesberg; Selbu mittens; solid color patterned mittens from several places; several stranded Sami mittens; and much, much more.

If you are on Ravelry, do a pattern search and you will find several people have made projects from the book. A Google search will yield similar results.

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