Loyesaum Practise

I've been taking a wee break from the socks lately, and am warming up for the Setesdal Sweater Makeover project.

Last weekend I cracked open the embroidery supplies and tried my hand at some traditional "loyesaum" - Norwegian embroidery.

Here's what I did:

1. baste so-called "waste canvas" onto the wool fabric and lay down the basic triangles.

[step 1: baste down waste canvas and embroider first triangles]

Then, you can fill in more shapes. Here I've used KnitPicks "palette" fingering for the green and Kroy sock yarn (3-ply, old stuff) for the blue - the embroidery shop was out of these 2 colours. The Palette works well and could easily be used for this type of embroidery, but I find that the sock yarn is too tightly plied and doesn't behave well when you embroider with it. I wouldn't recommend using tightly plied sock yarn for this type of embroidery.

The other thing I quickly realized is that the waste canvas is really, really stiff, and is a total pain to pick out over large areas. So, if you are doing edges, like I'm practising here, then it's probably a good idea to just use a narrow strip of the canvas and not a whole sheet.

As you can see from the photo below, I ended up cutting the canvas to make it easier to remove from the embroidery...Also, don't embroider too much over it. Just the basic design. Otherwise it really is hard to remove.

[just use narrow strips of waste canvas and keep embroidery to a minimum before removing it.]

Finally you can stitch in details. Here I detailed black diagonal lines over the coloured shapes and am doing little "fleurs-de-lys" over them.

[detailing freehand]

I can tell this is going to take some more practise on my part before I'm happy enough with the results to try it on the "real thing". I'm not yet happy with:

1. the way the fabric puckers (try steaming lightly after embroidery??)

2. my design skills (my next try will be to copy exactly an existing design rather than freewheeling like I did here)

3. the overall size of the result. It seems a little small to me. 

4. the openness of the stitches. There's too much black showing in the coloured triangles/diamonds.

5. the thread used for the details - I will try with thinner stuff (embroidery cotton) next time.

Practise makes perfect!!

Loyesaum Supplies

In my quest to recreate the traditional Setesdal embroidered cuffs and collar, I'm trying to get together all the required supplies. Here in Vancouver, a city of some 2 million, you'd think it'd be a breeze. Not so!

I can find the fabric (wool) pretty easily; I've managed to source some nice, blazer-weight 100% wool fabric in black and a nice wine red colour (no green available). And I've got some nice black cotton flannel for a lining.

But, trying to find the right embroidery "yarn", and so-called "waste canvas" is harder. Michael's craft store is useless in this regard; you need a specialty needlework supply shop. So off to the Interwebz again...and there is a bewildering supply of material...what thread count do I need for the canvas? 8.5, 14, or 18? What type of crewel wool? Or do I get Persian wool? DMC? Tapestry yarn? Can I use fingering (knitting yarn) instead? Uh-oh.

This is harder than I thought...so here's my thinking: I'd like to get 3-ply wool so I can divide it for the finer detailing. This means: persian. Hunting around, I find that this stuff means about a 13-count canvas. So, here goes, I'm just going to order from this online store. I'll pick a pretty basic pallette: red, yellow, green, blue, white, black, plus pink and purple. I figure any additional stuff I can fill in with locally-available DMC embroidery floss.

On another front, a friendly knitter on Ravelry who actually lives in the Setesdal has figured out that indeed, their local Husfliden shop does sell kits, and will ship internationally. So I just emailed them as well!! It's truly a global village that we inhabit. I love it!

...stay tuned for more progress!

Setesdal Sweater Makeover

My DH owns a Setesdal sweater. It's machine-knit (from Dale of Norway) and quite nice. But, I want to kick it up a notch by making a set of traditional "loyesaum" cuffs and collar.

[I want to turn this...]

[...into this. sweater contents not included.]

[photo from Dale]

The cuffs and collar are hand-embroidered on wool, which is sewn over the knitted sweater. The pewter buttons are non-functional, decorative only. The neck opening is like a Henley, with a slit to mid-chest, closed with a single decorative pewter clasp at the neck.

I've only ever seen sweaters like this in pictures, never in real life. I think they're stunning.

I've looked everywhere for instructions and/or kits that will let me make this collar/cuff set, but so far all I've been able to find are kits from Husfliden stores in Norway, which do not ship internationally. So off to Ravelry for help!  Some excellent knitters there have provided me with some embroidery diagrams (thank you thank you thank you) and I've Googled "setesdal embroidery" images for inspiration. Here is an especially interesting and instructive set of close-ups from someone who attended a workshop on loyesaum given by Annemor Sundbo.

Some things I've discovered:

- I won't need to cut the collar and cuffs off of DH's sweater; the embellished cuffs and collar are sewn over top of existing knitting. I will have to steek the front though. I think a crochet steek is called for!

- embroidery is done on wool fabric (not felt, as I originally thought), traditionally black, with in some cases green trim/edging.

- cuffs and collar are lined (either with same wool, or matching cotton/flannel)

- use crewel wool for embroidery, with some DMC cotton for the details

- you can baste coarse canvas over top of the wool to embroider the basic shapes (band outlines, triangles) and then remove the canvas by pulling out its threads.

- fine details are embroidered after the canvas threads are gone.

Now, I'm not a very good embroiderer, but I'm fired up to go! Next posts will include details on materials and progress. Stay tuned!!