Swedish weaving books, a list

... and some commentary, now on my website: here for English, here for Swedish.

If you see something wrong, or disagree with me, please send an e-mail (link on the page)

I have also some older texts for download (they are all on the page, but in the middle of the text) - collected here (English version, but there is a "button" at the upper left for toggling between languages. In fact, the button is there, same position, on all my web pages.)


To give this post some physical weaving content, here is a sample:

The warp is on the loom, the serial-to-usb works even for weaving proper, but the structure will be changed some.
Maybe the result will be called "the first daffodil".

(Sample above is hemmed but not wet finished. Once I saw the hemming idea worked, I was just interested in the float lengths vs how I think it will survive the "muggle" handling. Decided shorter are better.)

The profile draft challenge

The challenge in a nutshell: take this profile and "run with it" - completing, changing, interpreting, networking... and tell us what you come up with!

Some background:

A couple of years ago my local guild thought it would be nice if our national guild would present weaving ideas and/or drafts and/or complete instructions now and again.
We proposed that to the AGM, and we got very differing reactions – some thought it a great idea, others said they would never, ever "give away" their work for free. (If I tell "them", then "they" will know as much as I do – and then, where would I be?)

A year, or maybe 2, later it was decided that we should give it a try. (Now we have 26 "Månadens väv" published, all in .pdf-format. All are welcome to download and be inspired!) Me and my guild, being responisble for the idea, have taken it rather too seriously to supply drafts. (In fact, we have sent in over 30% of the drafts, having 2% of the members of Riks.)

"The usual" did happen: "oh, what a good idea – I love to see all the new weaves!" "What? Me contribute? But I’m not good enough/have only 4 shafts/only weave on a drawloom/..." (Note: nobody says, to my face, anyway, that they don't want to share.)

So I decided it was time to do something – and, in the last guild mag, I issued The Profile Draft Challenge (or click here for Swedish.)

I hope we can get at least 12 Månadens väv out of it!!!

After thinking a bit further, I decided to extend the challenge/invite to weavers from all over the world. (I may not be authorized to promise a publication as a Månadens väv, but as I am webmaster for the local pages, I can do what I want with them, right?)
To make the challenge even more open/accessible, I started a group on Weavolution, too.

So now I invite those of my readers who are neither members of Riksföreningen för handvävning nor members of Weavolution to at least read about it – and then maybe to become members of one or the other (or both!) – and join the challenge!

To get a .wif, you have to go either to the guild page(s) or to Weavolution.

"All about weaving"

In January I wrote about the myth about "there is no handweaving on the 'net" (here is the post). Among other things I told about the New Important Project aiming to create a 'net portal to contain "everything about handweaving".

That portal is now here. (Oh, it contains, presumably, "all" about several other textile art forms, too: embroidery, knitting, crochet, bobbin lace...).

I suppose it is A Good Thing that there is another weaving "portal" out there, to point aspiring weavers to many resources. So - why am I so obviously miffed? Well, to tell the truth, I am disappointed about not having been consulted. Oh, not me, personally, but, for instance, our local guild works near, or so we thought, the local craft association. We could have got a link, perhaps? Or we could have been invited to participate in the pattern-making ("weaving for all" - a collection of patterns "from north to south")... or: the collection of patterns could have had more than one (ok, two) projects that are not rugs, towels and tablecloths. After all, from the first I heard of the project, it was meant to inspire/convince "youngsters" that weaving is not just boring old things like rugs and tablecloths...

Well.
Perhaps it is just a case of sour grapes. (Age, perhaps? "grumpy old woman"?)
But I wander how one gets to be on the links list, or on the book list...
On the knitting pages, Ravelry has got a link. But Weavolution is not on the weaving pages - nor is handweaving.net.

Some hard facts to contemplate:

Netiquette?

I've been hanging out on the 'net since '96 (I think). A lot has happened since then, especially to the discussion lists. Then, everything was strictly text-based, and, as most of us were on dial-up and had to pay per minute and/or byte, postings were often well thought-through.
Now, it is easy to add pictures, broadband often (but not always!) means no restrictions on bytes. There are more "lists", more "forums", more "communities". Blogging is free and easy to manage. It has become cheaper to own websites.
But. It seems to me that at the same time words have become less... important? On some communities where I participate, nowadays it is quite normal that commenters have not really read the question, and thus answers/comments on something else entirely.

Let me fabricate an exaggerated example:
Q: "Anybody knows how to define 'houndstooth' pattern?"
A: "Use one light-one dark in both warp and weft and you get 'log cabin'"

Yes, but... that wasn't the question?

Or, another one:
1:st post: "I found this interesting article (link provided)"
1:st comment: "Very interesting, esp the discussion on ..."
2:nd comment: "Where can I find the article?"

?

I suppose the above is a cousin to what I wrote in january.
Except... these (albeit fabricated) examples are from within a forum. That is: the participant(s) has 1) managed to find the forum, 2) managed to sign in and 3) has had enough interest to read the first part of the thread (well, obviously not - but open the page in question).

OK, everyone of us has "senior moments", whether we are old or young. But I think this is getting more and more common?

I have read articles saying that elderly people get "smarter" when they start using the 'net (whatever that means - and, question is: if you already were a 'net user, are you already "smarter" than you would have been, without the 'net?). I have also read articles saying that surfing/gaming children lose reading ability - but also articles that state that children having access to a computer read better than children without.

Whatever. But: shouldn't we all be courteous enough to try to understand the question(s) before we answer/comment?

Some textile content from our co-op, now open seven days/week:

To search the web / att söka på nätet

Till alla er som kommit hit för att ni sökt på "gratis vävmönster": välkomna!
Här finns inga "mönster" - om ni med mönster menar "vävbeskrivning". Det absolut bästa sättet att finna gratis vävbeskrivningar är att gå till biblioteket och låna vävböcker.

Naturligtvis finns många websidor med vävmönster - en av dem finns på Riksföreningen för handvävning, där vi sedan drygt ett år publicerar en vävbeskrivning per månad.

På Vi Kronobergsvävares sidor finns många vävtekniker beskrivna, vi har många solvnotor som vi bjuder på - men regelrätta "beskrivningar" finns inte så många. Vi vill snarare inspirera än uppmuntra till att "göra efter".
Vår registersida hittar du här.

På min egen "stora" sida finns ett antal artiklar om hur man analyserar en väv (så att man kan "göra efter"), om hur man konstruerar dubbelvävar, om hur man förstår ett partimönster mm. Samlingssidan hittar du här.
På denhär bloggen finns en del småsaker - sök "weave constrution".

Läser du engelska finns den (tror jag) absolut största samlingen av "gratis vävmönster" på handweaving.net.
Under fliken "drafts" kan du söka på många olika sätt - efter antal skaft, efter teknik, efter källa (oftast mycket gamla böcker). Inte heller här finns regelrätta "beskrivningar". Däremot finns (under fliken "archive") ett stort antal gratis vävböcker, alla copyrightfria (alltså mestadels gamla) att ladda ned. De flesta är inte svenska - franska, engelska, amerikanska, ryska, tyska...

På Weavolution kan man ta del av andras mönster (och bidra med egna, förståss!)

Till sist ett söktips: skippa "gratis", och försök att söka på något mer specifikt: solvnota daldräll, kypert, trasvävar...

(To all of you who have arrived here after searching for "free weaving pattern": welcome!
Here you will not find "patterns" - if by that you mean a complete weaving recipe. The best way to find free weaving "recipes" is to go to the the library and borrow their weaving books. This might not work all over the world - .

Of course there are many websites out there with weaving patterns - one of them found on the site of Riksföreningen för handvävning. We have published a monthly pattern for more than a year, now.

On the site of Vi KronobergsVävare (my local guild) we are offering many drafts - but most of them are without detailed information. We believe in trying to inspire, more than offering instructions on "how to make *this*".
Our index page can be found here. (English version)

On my own "real" site there are a number of articles about analyzing a fabric (to be able to weave it), about constructing a double weave, how to understand a block draft... To find them, go here.
On this blog you can search for "weave construction".

For those of you who read English, the biggest (I think) site to find weaving drafts is handweaving.net. Under the "draft" tab you can search for drafts according to number of shafts, tecknique or source. There are no "recipes" to be found here, either - but there is a big number of old books to be downloaded for free.

There is also Weavolution, where many drafts contributed by others can be found - and you could contribute, too!

Lastly: a tip for searching the 'net: try searching for something more specific - overshot, twill... )

Some random thoughts

At the beginning of the new year, it is time to study the statistics from the old.

But first a short story:
in the middle of the autumn, I went to a weavers' meeting. There, we were, among other things, introduced to a New Important Project: a national crafts assoc has decided to promote handweaving.
They had several reasons for this - the first mentioned was that there is nothing about weaving to be found on the 'net ("If you search for weaving, you get no hits").
Another reason mentioned was that there are no weavers in Sweden anymore, and, after all, Sweden was once famous for its weaving and weavers.
Also several techniques (among them trensaflossa) were "dead", and needed published instructions.
So, the proposed main goal of this New Project was (among other, smaller, goals) was to create a 'net portal to contain "everything" about handweaving - .

At that very moment I searched (Google) for "vävning", with no qualifications, and got about 63000 hits. Among the first 50 hits about 4 were about other things than loom weaving (weaving intrigues, weaving horses, which probably is called something else in English, and two hits for dictionaries).
"Handvävning" only yielded about 1600 hits, of which about 30 of the first 50 were about weaving, the other 20 were from yarn sellers.
As it happened, my guild had had a program about trensaflossa just a week earlier - and, lo and behold, our page about trensaflossa was already to be found - on 3.rd place among about 850 hits. (Ok - our page wasn't there when she prepared her talk...)

Sigh.

Now I have been looking at 'net statistics from 2010.
I have my own web page, but I am also responsible for my guild's page.
Vi KronobergsVävare has had web presence since late 2003. We have accumulated about 100 different pages, of which maybe 10 has a content other than weaving (a few annual meetings and so on), but I really try to make sure that there is some weaving content on every page. We have an index page (in English - for Swedish, go "home" and choose "register") which lists content sorted into weave techniques, material, dyeing, ergonomics, theory, ideas, guild projects and exhibitions, curiosities. (Granted, some of the pages/meetings fall under more than one category.)
We also have a fairly large links page, linking to many "foreign" organisations.
A number of our pages are also translated to English.

So, what did I find in the statistics?
We had 2300 Swedish visitors, 470 from the US, 380 from the rest of the world, making up a total of about 3150 visitors. That makes an average of between 8 and 9 visitors per day. Those visitors viewed a total of 13150 pages, which gives an average of 4 pages per visit.
We had a total of 100 (clicked) outgoing links (I have no idea of how many links there are on the whole site), of which only 35 had more than 10 clicks. 35 had less than 5 clicks - of which 18 were to foreign organisations/resources (such as Weavolution, Complex Weavers, HGA, GCW, Atasda, Italian and French sites... AND handweaving.net). (No, no links here. You are all invited to use our links page, to better the statistics for next year... ;-)

The pages in English (about 20) all have more than 15 hits. Of the 8 outgoing links (from pages in English), 6 have more than 10 clicks.

What can I conclude from that?

Combining the "information" from the Project Person above with the fact that only 1/3 of our links have been popular, perhaps I can say that Swedish weavers don't care about a) information available on the 'net and b) weaving in other countries.
(Yes, I know: English is a foreign language to us, and the study of English hasn't been mandatory in Swedish schools for more than about 50 years...)


Combining the above with the fact that my own site has had 3600 Swedish visitors and almost the same number from the "rest of the world" - well... that was the reason why I decided to write my blog in English. And, in fact - this blog has had more than twice the numbers of visits from the US (only) than from Sweden (1550 and 650, respectively).

So, again: who is interested? And of what?
... looking at keyword statistics for the guild site, the vast majority is after free weaving patterns/instructions.
Most just search for vävmönster, vävnotor (patterns, drafts) but several add "gratis" (free of charge).


There has been several discussions here in Sweden over the last couple of years about the "fact" that there is no handweaving information to be had on the 'net. And that that is especially unfortunate, as all "youngsters" are supposed to search facts on the 'net only (supposedly they can't read books?). Said youngsters have complained that us "oldsters" (if it isn't a word, then it ought to be!) do hoard our information/knowledge, and besides, we only weave boring things like tablecloths.
What I'm wondering is: HOW can us oldsters "share" - if a) books are "out" and b) the 'net is "out", too?

To add some weaving to this (over)long post, here is a boring old thing (sunscreen?), woven on a boring old countermarche, using 4 shafts (but could have been only two...):

Mercerized cotton 50/3 and fishing line for warp, white horeshair for weft; tabby, but woven with a fan reed (sorry, I won't disclose the sett :-) - there is a limit to what I want to share...)
And: no, on account of the fishing line, it could never be used as a tablecloth.