The story behind the pillows.
For a number of years, I have been collecting Swedish textiles, which have been woven by women, on small looms, in their own homes. These pieces of textiles are originally intended for use as a kind of long narrow decorative tablecloth. Since they have no practical purpose anymore, many have never been used and have been kept in drawers and cupboards.
In order for the beautiful hand-woven fabrics to come into life again, I decided, to use them for a production of pillows.
In Scandinavia, the tradition of weaving stripes on textiles is very old,
we have used duvets and pillows in our beds for centuries.
Old bed linen, in Denmark know as `olmerdug´, was a tightly woven duvet made from linen.
The bed linen was striped, usually in blue, but also in reddish brown.
It is mentioned in papers from 1685 both as under- and over-duvets.
In 1971 in Östergötland in Sweden, a large group of women decided to document the local tradition of weaving. They managed to collect traditional patterns by interviewing elderly weavers and through weaving samples of the old textiles.
The women presented 120 symmetrical patterns in a book, which helped to keep
a tradition of home weaving and weaving in local handicraft associations alive
until the turn of the millennium.
Textiles are still being woven on a small scale today.
The productive period between 1950 and 1980 has greatly influenced the color composition of the beautiful fabrics.