The Boats to Tools Auction returns June 20! Donate your gently used craft tools, materials, and outdoor gear to support North House. Online bidding for select items opens on June 15! Find the Auction Donation Form and full details here.

After a long winter, May on the North Shore feels like being reborn. In this blog post, intern Teagan Weiss writes about the bounty of spring ephemerals, and approaching the halfway point of the internship. 

There is no sweeter gift than the month of May. Here in the Northwoods, the winter months envelop us in their deep quiet and darkness, bidding us to slow down, rest, and retreat. The nights are long, the light is sparse, and the wind will bite if you’re not prepared. We bundle up and enjoy the stark beauty of the season, and then it's March and then it's April, and we hunker down and endure what some of us can no longer bring ourselves to enjoy. 

And then it's May. I am not being dramatic when I say that May on the North Shore feels like being reborn. That first warm breeze, the precious fuzz on the earliest willow buds, the long-awaited symphony of spring peepers is nothing short of sacred. It feels like the earth has been mustering all of the goodness and greenness just below the surface to finally burst forth in the most brilliant display of aliveness. It takes a moment for all of your senses to adjust to the sudden abundance after the long season of scarcity. 

Left: Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria); Right: Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana). 

The jewels of May are the spring ephemerals: woodland wildflowers that live their entire lifecycles between snow-melt and leaf-out. These hardy little plants sprout, blossom, and are pollinated in that brief window of direct sunlight available between the ground thawing and the leaves emerging in the forest canopy. 

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is my favorite of the spring ephemerals because when harvested responsibly, it can be used as a natural dye, as discovered by Indigenous peoples thousands of years ago. Some dear friends heard me mention bloodroot dye and offered to let me harvest from the patch growing on their hillside. I had only seen small patches before and was astounded to find their hillside absolutely carpeted in the delicate white flowers. It was a joy to have my hands in the dirt and unearth the quirky little rhizomes.

Another of my favorite spring ephemerals are the wild leeks, called Ramps (Allium tricoccum). The leaves and bulbs are edible and can be sauteed or grilled, or turned into seasoning salt, butter, or pesto! 

What an honor it is to enjoy the fleeting beauty and bounty of these wild plants. Now that the leaves on the trees have fully emerged, the Spring Beauties, Dutchman’s Breeches, Bloodroot, and Ramps have all completed their life cycles and lie dormant underground until they are ready to burst forth again next spring.

The emergence of these gifts of May has me thinking a lot about the seasonality of the Internship program. As an intern, I feel a bit like a spring ephemeral myself. When we arrived in Grand Marais in January, we were welcomed with open arms into a quiet but nurturing community. We spent the winter months “underground” learning the ropes at North House, getting to know our network of neighbors and friends, and pouring our energy into rooting in this place. With a solid foundation beneath us, we are ready to emerge into the bustling pace of Grand Marais in the summer. With many classes, seminars, and facilities shifts under our belts, we now burst forth as deckhands, pizza connoisseurs, and instructors!

As we approach the midway point of the internship, I am acutely aware that there will come an end to this season, as is the nature of all things. The pace of life will slow back down, we will return to the community that has nurtured us, and we will eventually leave this place in the dark and quiet of winter, the same way we arrived. For now, we will take our place in the sun, knowing our time here is fleeting and the gift of a lifetime.    

Every traditional craft practice raises the question: why bother? With hide tanning specifically, this question takes on a different depth. Program Director Jessa Frost writes about Hide Week, and the why of traditional tanning. 

Each week, North House Folk School is transformed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the many traditional crafts taking place. One week, the steady pounding of black ash logs and the scent of freshly baked sourdough wafts through campus. The next, the classrooms hum with the noise of chain mortisers and the smell of white pine timbers. This past week, campus was filled with the distinctive sounds and smells of hide tanning as some of the finest natural tanners in the world gathered for Hide Week to learn, teach, and share about the ancient craft of turning animal skin into durable leather.

But along with the smoky scents and sounds of scraping, a question permeated each classroom: “Why bother with hide tanning?” 

For the uninitiated, “Why bother?” is a pretty fair question to ask any North House student. Few of the things we make here are strictly necessary anymore; for any craft that can be made by hand, there’s usually a cheaper, faster way to produce it elsewhere. But as most folks who try their hand at craft realize, making things is about much more than just production. Craft is pleasurable, beautiful, and useful, and it has the ability to connect us to generational knowledge and the joy of being human. And with hide tanning specifically, the question of “Why bother?” takes on a different depth. 

With a few exceptions, most of our fingertips graze over leather on a daily basis: shoes, belts, furniture, and wallets are common items in our lives. But today, our actual knowledge—let alone experience—of making leather is minimal. Turning the skin of a dead animal into a useful material is a complex, intricate, and physically demanding process. It’s a skill that humans have been at for 40,000+ years, but has long been removed from daily view and looked down upon in many cultures. Now, it’s one of the least-explored crafts, and perhaps understandably so: hide tanning takes a certain kind of grit, and an overcoming of the initial “ick” factor. But Hide Week showed that beyond this, tanning is filled with joy, connection, time-honored knowledge, and deep satisfaction. 

At this year’s Hide Week, North House hosted eight courses with many of our usual talented instructors in tanning and leatherwork. We also welcomed five special guest instructors from the US, Canada, and Sweden. Students from Alaska to Germany to many First Nations territories in Canada and sovereign Native nations in the US to neighbors from just down the road all gathered on campus for a full week spent exploring these traditional skills together. They fleshed, scraped, smoked, and sewed everything from moose hides to beaver tails, from fish skins to cow, deer, sheep, and goat skins. With so many curious learners and teachers present, classes were immersive, and conversations stretched over long fika breaks and late into the evenings.  

As the week progressed, the question of “Why hide tanning?” was asked and answered, and the answers were as varied as the folks who joined in. 

For guest instructors Darla Campbell and Kevin Lewis, visiting from Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation with their mother, Mathilde Lewis, moose hide tanning is a deeply cultural practice rooted in the land, song, and story. It’s a part of generational healing needed to sustain their Cree culture and language. 

For Matt Richards, of Traditional Tanners, natural hide tanning is science and sustainability. It requires not just physical labor but our analytical brains to produce a durable material. Traditional tanning makes use of tons of otherwise-wasted animal byproducts from farming and hunting, and lacks the noxious impact of the industrial tanning process. Can all of our consumer demand for leather be met by traditional methods? No, but Matt points out that the scientific knowledge embedded in traditional methods holds promise to improve the industry and give people what they want: responsibly-produced goods made with care for animals and the planet. 

For Swedish tanner Karl Karlsson, tanning is part of preserving and adding to our collective inheritance of human knowledge, ensuring that after thousands of years, ours is not the generation that loses these skills. His commitment to documentation and exploration of historical sources is part of keeping traditional tanning methods a vibrant practice.

Students also shared their own stories of why—to honor and utilize the animals, to understand the source of the things they use on a daily basis, to feel the joy of doing hard work alongside other people, and to simply experience the magic of the process. It’s an honor to host a gathering like this, and we look forward to the next Hide Week in the years to come. 

A huge thank you to the many hands and hearts that made Hide Week successful: Emily Derke, Nate Johnson, Eric Edgin, Jean Marshall, Leanna Marshall, Erik Carlson, Shelby Gagnon, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, our many instructors, and of course, the North House staff and our community of supporters.  

North House offers half, full, and full+ scholarships. Scholarship applications for September-December courses are open now through June 28, 2026. Learn more about our scholarships here!

Meet our Featured Guest Instructors at Unplugged 2026: Eiko Tanaka and Kirsi Manni! Each of them will be teaching coursework and joining in the celebrations this fall. 

Unplugged is September 25-26, 2026, and we’re thrilled to welcome two very special Featured Guest Instructors: Eiko Tanaka and Kirsi Manni!

Eiko is a Japanese lacquer artist and woodturner based in Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture. While here, she’ll teach two Japanese Woodturning classes, as well as a half-day introductory class that’s open to folks who are brand-new to woodturning. 

Kirsi Manni is a Swedish weaver who specializes in Leksand band weaving. Leksand band looms are unique to the Leksand region of Sweden, with a foot treadle attached to a rigid heddle. 

Each of them will be teaching coursework around Unplugged and will be joining in the festivities. These courses open for registration at 9am CT on Thursday, May 28. North House members get to register a day early, starting at 9am CT on Wednesday, May 27. 

Read on to learn about these special craftpeople and the courses they’ll be teaching!

Eiko Tanaka

Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture Japan 

Eiko Tanaka is a Japanese lacquer artist and woodturner based in Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture. During her childhood, she was attracted by handicraft and was good with her hands such as doing crafts and sewing. Influenced by her parents, she found herself absorbed in the colors of Japanese traditional lacquer which are “red, black and gold” and wanted to learn the techniques of lacquerware. She trained under master craftsman Torao Nakashima, who inspired her to develop her own style. She now exhibits and demonstrates internationally and is much acclaimed for the unique way she conveys the charm of wood and lacquer. This is her first trip to North House.  

Kirsi Manni

Siljansnäs, Sweden 

Kirsi is the owner of Art&Craft Sweden. Since 2016, her business has been located in the former Parish Assembly Hall of Siljansnäs, Dalarna, Sweden. She has created the textile studio of her dreams in a tiny village in the heart of Sweden.

Kirsi's interest in textiles has been passed down through generations in her family of highly skilled craftswomen. Her grandmother grew her own flax and was the queen of recycling. In order to provide for her large family, she had to be creative with resources. Her mother is a seamstress and hand weaver. She let Kirsi cut into her fabric stash and encouraged her passion. 

Kirsi studied for a Bachelor's in Textiles and Mathematics Education at Gothenburg University. For 20+ years, she worked as an educator throughout Sweden and abroad, including in Tanzania and Hong Kong.

Today, she divides her time between her wearable-art weaving, heritage craft, textile conservation, and sharing her passion with the wider community through workshops, lectures, and the internet. She is a firm believer that we are creative creatures at our core, and she wants to invite you to co-create and express your individuality without judgment. 

Click here to explore all upcoming coursework happening during our fall events at North House!

On Friday, June 5, join Erik Carlson for Why We Burn Blueberries, a presentation about managing blueberry habitat with prescribed fire. Part of our First Fridays community nights. Photo by Emma Carlson

The 2026 sailing season resumes on May 22! Book a sail on our schooner Hjørdis and experience Grand Marais from the water. May-June sails are open for booking now. 

Inspired by the electric blues of Sweden, Lauren Newby set out to mix the perfect ultramarine for her Windsor armchair, using a combination of milk paint and raw earth pigments. 

In chairmaking, stick chairs, or Windsor-style chairs, are often painted because they are a mix of wood species. Ring porous woods, like white ash and oak, are split out for thin and flexible spindles. The seat is often a softer and lightweight wood for carving, like white pine or poplar. Chairmakers often employ color theory to adjust for the warmth and depth of color. For example, it is most common to put a layer of red under black to create a warm and deep black. 

After I finished a set of armchairs earlier this month, I was looking forward to mixing paint for a very particular shade of blue. I was enamored with the colorful interiors I encountered in Sweden, from the Karin and Carl Larsson home to Sätergläntan’s campus. This electric blue was seen on doors, light fixtures, and furniture. Back in the studio, I was trying in earnest to use a variety of milk paint colors to reach the desired tone. 

Sticking with milk paint for its familiarity, I spent time using color theory to mix up a warm, red-toned, vivid blue, without much success. With many craftspeople and woodworkers in Grand Marais, I connected with my friend Cooper Ternes over the blue I was searching for. He was also on a search for a particular green. And so a playdate for milk paint and color theory was set.

At Cooper’s, not only did we bring our collection of paints and pigments, but we made milk paint from scratch with Johnson’s skim milk and guidance from Make Fresh Milk Paint by Nick Kroll. Cooper, in his second year of the Artisan Development Program, was similarly inspired by the vibrant colors seen in Swedish homes, public spaces, and museums. We mixed vibrant greens and played with earth pigments to get the desired colors: Cooper for bowls and I for chairs and stools. Unable to mix milk paint shades for the vibrant colors, Cooper taught me how to mix raw earth pigments with unpigmented milk paint. The beloved familiarity and texture of milk paint will continue with a whole new world of color possibilities opening by using earth pigments.

Drenched in ultramarine blue and carved poppy finials, the armchairs are complete. I am often after specific colors and hues, and look forward to employing earth pigments to achieve them. Often, the pigments are minerals, and in labs, their molecules can be built with the same particle structures to create “synthetic” pigments. I unearthed a textbook from college we would reference in a color theory class called Artists’ Pigments, a Handbook of their History and Characteristics by Ashok Roy. On ultramarine blue, the name may come from 13th-century Italian painters who treasured the blue “from across the seas.” The pigment was ground from Lapis Lazuli, a rock found in modern-day Afghanistan. In the 14th and 15th centuries, it was as expensive as gold. Renaissance painters used it in reverence for the robes of the Madonna, with less expensive blues and greens built up underneath. It remained expensive until a synthetic was invented in the 19th century, made up of sodium aluminum sulfosilicate.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I have been building kid-sized shave horses for youth programming at North House. I have had the joy of teaching kids how to build with wood over the past few summers, putting hand planes, augers, and drawknives in their hands. I am looking forward to sharing with them the opportunity to use your whole body on a shave horse with a draw knife to carve wood away. To do this, I connected with Jeff Lefkowitz, a chair maker and engineer who has published chair and shave horse plans. We adapted the plans to fit small humans, with four little horses now living at North House for kids. They are sturdy and hold wood so securely, with a few adjustable pieces, heights, and lengths to fit a variety of ages. 

The northwoods change so quickly in the spring. This May, spend a morning outside Birding and Botanizing with naturalists Joe Walewski and Joe Lutz!

The 2026 Instructor Retreat brought together over 90 instructors from around the country. Program Director Jessa Frost reflects on the time together, and on craft's power to nurture our wellbeing. 

This April, more than 90 active North House instructors and recent alumni of the Artisan Development Program and Internship gathered on campus for a weekend of connection and learning we call the Instructor Retreat. Like professionals in many fields, there’s so much to learn from one another to continue to grow as craft educators. Thanks to donor and foundation support, North House has hosted this unique gathering for the last 14 years, and it’s become a significant moment in the annual folk school calendar. 

The instructor retreat brought together over 90 instructors from across the country

This year’s special guest was Dr. Anne Kirketerp, author of the book Craft Psychology: How Crafting Promotes Health. The core of her work is something that is self-evident to most North House instructors and students: doing crafts of all kinds can contribute significantly to personal well-being, and ultimately offers purpose, fulfillment, and joy. 

Dr. Kirketerp’s book and presentations helped us define and describe more precisely how this big idea plays out in our classrooms and lives. For example, it’s easy to say that craft connects us to one another. Wearing a scarf my mother has woven, drinking coffee from a beloved mug thrown by an old chum, using a knife made by a dear friend: I’ve always known that these things make me feel warm and fuzzy, but I haven’t deeply explored why it's meaningful to have objects made by hands I know. 

Dr. Kirketerp teaching a workshop on craft psychology

Dr. Kirketerp delved into how craft fosters a sense of interrelatedness that’s not just a nice feeling, but an essential part of psychological well-being. The scarf, the mug, the knife hold me in a relationship with the makers that exists beyond time, not only connecting me to family and friends but also something even bigger: to tradition, culture, and my place as a human on the earth in this moment. When students come to North House to learn and make, they are tapping into this bigger psychological need to feel connected to others and ultimately, all of humanity. Whew! That’s a lot to take on in a weekend!    

Beyond digging into big ideas, the Instructor Retreat was full of the sort of things that make for a good gathering anywhere: delicious food, time for connection and conversation, singing, dancing, games, and laughter. We heard about the work to revitalize cedar mat weaving in the Grand Portage Nation from instructor April McCormick. With Resident Artisan Dr. Mathilde Yakymets-Lind, we explored how the tools of historical craft research and folklorists can be accessed by anyone. We played with techniques from improv comedy as teaching methods with Joe Walewski, and we even stacked several cords of wood for this summer’s wood-fired pizza bakes. 

Learning about cedar bark mats with April McCormick and Erik Carlson

The next time you take a class at North House, ask your instructor about their experience at the  Instructor Retreat. Ultimately, this gathering is about shaping and stewarding the culture of this special place for everyone who comes here (or aspires to come here eventually!) to nurture our collective wellbeing. It’s a joy and an honor to host, and we’re grateful for the investment of time and energy our instructor community makes in being together. 

Hide Week returns May 12-18, and North House is excited to welcome an incredibly talented group of guest instructors! Read on to learn more about them and what they're teaching during their stay. 

Kevin Lewis and Darla Campbell 

Kevin Lewis and Darla Campbell are a brother and sister pair  from Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation (Treaty 6 Territory), Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Kevin Lewis is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous land-based education and founded kâniyâsihk Culture Camps, a non-profit organization rooted in Cree philosophy and traditions. As an accomplished educator and Cree language revitalization expert, Kevin integrates cultural teachings, language immersion, and traditional practices into transformative learning experiences.

Darla Campbell is nikâwiy to 3 boys, a licensed practical nurse for over 12 years, and has developed her love of hide tanning throughout the years. She facilitates with kâniyâsik Culture Camps, which leads two Hide Camps each year. Together, Lewis and Campbell will teach a Hide Week course called pahkêkinokêwin: Moose Hide Tanning. 

“Moose is supposed to bring people together. The hunt is meant to be done with people,” Lewis said. “It’s a huge animal, very heavy, and skilled hunters bring people together. They share meat, they share the work and unite families. This will create friendships because it takes a lot of people to work through a hunt, butchering, hide tanning, and making projects.” 

Cooperation is something students can expect from their class at North House. Over the course of three days, Lewis and Campbell will guide participants through several hides at different stages of the process—including dry scraping, braining, softening, and smoking—offering a hands-on introduction to each step, and an opportunity to engage in a traditional practice deeply rooted in the North. When asked what students can expect from the course, they said, “Lots of hard work and teamwork.”

Karl Karlsson 

Another international instructor joining us for Hide Week is Karl Karlsson of Stockholm, Sweden. Karlsson started tanning in 2016 and is the third person to have earned the title of Master Tanner through the rigorous three-year training program. His journey as a tanner started while studying organic farming at a folk school in Sweden, where he experimented with tanning on his own and fell in love with the craft. 

Since 2020, Karlsson has  run a small-scale tannery in Stockholm’s archipelago and works at Europe’s largest open air museum, demonstrating and informing visitors about this amazing craft. Although Karlsson said that interest in traditional tanning is quite low in Sweden, a big part of his work involves engaging the public through tanning demonstrations.

“People seem really fascinated by the subject,” he said. 

While at North House, Karlsson will teach Fish Skin Tanning—which he says is a great introduction to tanning—as well as Traditional Scaninavian Tanning Methods, which explores bark tanning methods dating back to the early Middle Ages. 

“We will look into the use of pre tanning methods and take on tanning of a beaver tail. A gorgeous purse found in Ångermanland, Sweden, dated 800-1100 A.D., is believed to be made out of one side of a beaver tail,” Karlsson said. “I’m looking forward to being part of this week, sharing knowledge and always wanting to learn more myself!”

Matt Richards 

Matt Richards, of Ashland, Oregon, has been tanning and teaching natural hide tanning since 1989. He’s the author of Deerskins into Buckskins and runs a tannery in Oregon. Much of his work has been inspired by making useful, beautiful material from hides that too often go to waste.

“This is a core reason why I’m into tanning,” Richards said. “Most hides these days end up at the landfill, especially deer, goats, sheep, cattle, and even bison. There are exotics such as mink, that are specifically raised for their hides, factory farmed in cages, and of course there are people who trophy hunt, where the hide and its display are a big part of their motivation. We don’t want any part of that, but the hides that otherwise go to waste? I’d argue that tanning those and making good use of them is the most sustainable of all fabrics.”

While here, Richards will teach three tanning courses, including Practical and Magical Chemistry of Natural Leather Tanning, a course that explores the science behind different tanning methods. 

“It will be a combination of theory and hands-on, mad scientist play, with the ultimate goal of participants getting to really understand how skins and different tanning methods work, why they work, and how to use that knowledge.”

Hide Week 2026 courses are open for registration, and all event details are available here.

Registration is open for our summer photography workshop, led by editorial photographer Layne Kennedy! Explore and capture the scenic shores of Lake Superior, July 15-19.

Have you met the mythical House Dragon? How about the Pig of Darkness? Read on to discover the roots behind these whimsical creatures Jake Fee is carving. 

Ever since I could hold a crayon, I drew dragons.

Now, after finding wooden dragons hanging all around Sweden, I’m back to my old habits of dragon-making. I carved this particular turquoise beast from a few funny-shaped branches and a handful of odd wooden leftovers.

Boddrakkar, these House Dragons, or Shop Dragons, are protectors of private spaces. They are the descendants of the Iron Age kronstång, carved dragons which hung just inside your front doors. No polite guest would pass under the kronstång until they were invited into the house.

I recently visited Minnesota New Country School, a project-based school in southern Minnesota, and taught a one-day class on carving these dragons. We had enormous fun, and now there are homes in Henderson, Minnesota which are protected by boddrakkar.

We met another mythical faerie-beast in Sweden, too. She is the mörksuggan, the “pig of darkness,” or “dark sow.” She was originally a boogeyman of the woods, a scary story to enforce a curfew. Don’t go out at night, or the Dark Pig will get you!

Nowadays, people in Sweden and especially Dalarna carve mörksuggans to protect their home. The fierceness of the pig has been domesticated, just like the dragon, and she is now a faithful house-spirit.

Any evil spirits or unfaithful peoples that try and enter into your home will be devoured whole by your trusty mörksuggan!

Since the mörksuggan is not so well known on this side of the Arctic Sea, I wrote a small poem to go along with the pigs. If you buy a mörksuggan from the North House Folk School store, you will find this booklet tied to her tail:

My childhood notebooks are filled with dragons, goblins, and mythical beasts of all sorts. I read all the myths and fairy tales I could get my hands on. These stories became the foundation of my inner world. Now that I am a full-time maker and artist and craft teacher, these stories are blooming for me again. I figure this sonnet to the dark pig is giving back to the canon of kid-tales that nourished me so many years ago.

In a surprising turn of events for many, Greenland has become ground-zero for climate change and expansionist desires to grow American influence in the north. But this is not new: in the 1950s and 1960s, the island was central to America’s Cold War strategy. Featured Speaker Dr. Paul Bierman examines Greenland through the lens of both natural and human history focusing on Camp Century, a nuclear-powered US military base inside the ice sheet. There, Army drillers completed the first deep ice core and from beneath the ice, recovered 12 feet of frozen soil filled with plant and insect fossils: evidence that Greenland’s ice had once vanished before. Unless we address climate change, that ice will melt again, raising global sea level as much as 25 feet and forcing half a billion people to migrate. Dr. Bierman shares vintage photographs, film, and video and includes short readings from his new book, When the Ice is Gone: What a Greenland Ice Core Reveals About Earth’s Tumultuous History and Perilous Future.

Professor Paul Bierman is a geoscientist, environmental historian, and writer at the University of Vermont. Both his research and teaching focus on the interaction of people and Earth’s dynamic surface. He is particularly interested in working at the interface between active research, education, and science literacy at all levels. Bierman currently has active research projects in both the tropics (Cuba, Puerto Rico) and the arctic (Greenland). When the Ice is Gone (WW Norton, 2024), his book about the history and future of the Greenland Ice Sheet, is a New Yorker Best Book selection and was featured in the New York Times and on Minnesota Public Radio.

paulbierman.net

This demonstration was given as part of Wood Week March 2026. Jarrod Dahl makes woodenware at Woodspirit Handcraft and teaches at Woodspirit School in Ashland, WI

Here Jarrod gives a presentation on Japanese turning wood tools and techniques. Jarrod has been using a type of Japanese style lathe and techniques in his production of woodenware since first learning some basics on his first trip to Japan in 2018. Using a modified Western lathe, Jarrod elaborates on how the free floating tool rest, hook tools, and hand held scrapers all work together to produce end grain bowls and cups quickly and efficiently. There are also be in-depth details about hook tool cutting techniques. He briefly talks about two Japanese wood finishes—Urushi lacquer and Hassui ceramic and how they are used in his work.

Part of Wood Week 2026 at North House.

Summer youth camps are open for registration! Spend a week at our lakeside campus exploring new skills and making new friends! Learn more and find all camps here.

The tools we use bear our stories. In this blog post, Mathilde Yakymets-Lind writes about a well-loved spinning wheel they saw in Sweden and shares the story of Inez Attemark and her relationship with this wheel. 

On our Artisan Development Program (ADP) trip to Sweden this January, we visited Härnösand, a small city overlooking the Gulf of Bothnia in western Sweden. There, I encountered an old spinning wheel in the collections of the Västernorrlands Museum that moved me with its many marks of loving care.

It is a medium-sized wheel with a strongly slanted table. Its delicate turnings enhance the sense of lightness and motion in its form, as though the spinning wheel were about to take flight. The treadle design is particularly interesting, as it includes a clever latching system to remove the entire treadle and clean and lubricate the pivot points.

This latching system allows the entire treadle to be removed for maintenance. Photo by author.

A date on the underside of the spinning wheel's table reads 1815, and there are signs that it was a hardworking tool for much of its life. There is a dramatic split in the table and multiple repairs to stabilize it: seven large hand-forged iron nails were hammered into the side, and a forged iron band was fitted tightly onto the table end and nailed into place.

A large crack in the table, or the large block of wood that forms the main body of the spinning wheel, is stabilized with iron nails and an iron band. The maker’s mark is stamped into the end of the table. Photo by author.

The feet of countless spinners have worn a portion of the treadle bar almost through. The leather bearings that hold the flyer are also worn, and someone reduced the diameter of a too-large bearing hole by adding an extra piece of leather. Dark oil stains and worn wood show that it was maintained and cared for as an important partner in domestic labor and folk craft for generations, finally ending up in the hands of its last owner, Inez Attemark (1920-2012).

200 years of wear from many hardworking feet can be seen on the treadle of the spinning wheel. Photo by author.

When Inez was six years old, her parents, Elin and Johan Arvid Bylund, bought the spinning wheel for her at an auction. Marked with initials (possibly a maker's mark) on the end of the table, a family mark on top, and the inscription IPS 1815 on the underside, the wheel was old, fascinating, and full of stories. It was already 1926 when they brought the wheel home, long past the point when mills had taken over textile production in Sweden.

An extra scrap of leather was nailed onto the flyer bearing to reduce the diameter of the hole, which was worn loose over the years. Photo by author.

Inez became a proficient artisan at an early age. At just eight years old, she won an award for her needlework at a handicraft exhibition and traveled with her parents from their home in Svarvarböle, Hässjö parish to the nearby city of Sundsvall to receive it from the governor.

Around the age of 14, Inez lost her father, and the resulting financial hardship for her family forced her to leave school and move to Härnösand to work as a maid. As the oldest child of five, she had to support herself and give up much of the handwork that had given her pleasure. After two years of hard work, she moved to Stockholm and found employment in a pastry shop. In 1942, she married, giving up her job to move across town and start raising children, but she returned to textiles later.

Now that life was more settled, she could find time for handwork again, so she joined a vävstuga (weaving group) and rented a loom to weave carpets. Inez passed away in 2012 after a long life dedicated to family, work, and craft. In her final years, the spinning wheel of her childhood made its way back to Härnösand as a donation to the Västernorrlands Museum, reuniting it with the living craft community of her home region.

There is so much we do not know about this spinning wheel: who was the maker? Where was it made? Who used it before Inez? But still, we have so much: here is a beautiful old tool, made and kept with care, and here is a story of one woman's life in relationship with that tool. Through her generosity, the spinning wheel has returned home, waiting quietly in collections storage for those who know how to read the story etched into its body.

Loom technology has changed drastically over time, from completely hand-operated to modern and mechanized. In this blog post, Josie Cooke wonders: which weaving tools make the most sense for her craft?

Good day friends,

There is a topic I have been pondering, which was expanded on during my journey in Sweden. That topic is tools. When you’re first starting out in a craft, the best tool is often the one you have, or can easily get. There’s no need to get stuck (for too long) in the trap of not starting because you don’t know which one you want, or which is best for the job. Almost any tool will provide you with the opportunity to learn a great deal, and from there, decide which direction to head next. I have been on my own tool exploration, trying to find what method suits my needs and goals in weaving. In this blog, I’ll share glimpses of weaving tools through history with examples from Swedish museums, weavers’ studios, and a textilier. 

Early weaving involved heddles and tablets for making bands: crucial elements in the tying of bundles and tethering of animals. A simple but clever loom setup known as backstrap weaving allows for wider widths and incorporates the weaver as the tensioning element. This form of weaving continues to be practiced in cultures worldwide. Looms, as we know them, started out as four stakes in the ground with beams between them to stretch the warp. This evolved into the standing (or more accurately, leaning) version of a warp-weighted loom. Archeologists know these looms were leaned because warp weights, flat circular stones with a hole through the middle, are found along the wall in excavation sites. 

Tablet weaving tools and warp weights at Swedish History Museum, Stockholm.  Warp weighted loom, recreation, Dalarna Museet

These looms slowly evolved into the horizontal version we are familiar with today, much like the one I currently use. Improvements continued to be made as experiments led to adopting or modifying components, giving us inventions like the flying shuttle, the cast iron pedal-powered Hattersley loom, the Jacquard mechanism (for individual thread control—think pixels in a photo), the compu-dobby (a home version computer-controlled loom), and the TC2 (a digital weaving machine). The difference amongst these looms is the degree to which they are weaver-controlled or loom-controlled when weaving. 

For many weavers, which loom to use and what kind of weaving to do is decided by what they enjoy, and what tools they need to make it. Sometimes this is determined by material choice. While in Sweden, I was introduced to some new looms and techniques that expanded my horizons. Large looms (think 14+ feet wide)  are used for large projects using thick wool and a heavy beat. A stunning example is on display at Dalarna Museum:  Helena Hernmarck’s “Mossklyftan.”

Helena Hernmarck’s “Mossklyftan” far and close up

Silk threads, fine as spider web, are weighted by lingoes (long metal rods attached to cords that go around each thread) and controlled by patterning cards (determining which threads go up and thereby show on the surface of the cloth as it’s made). This system is a type of Jacquard loom, a technology integral to the development of computers.  No longer in use, these looms are on display at  K. A. Almgren Silk Museum in Stockholm. 

K.A. Algren Silk Museum, silk loom punch cards control which threads get raised, weights (lingoes) for individual threads

As production remained the guiding principle for most weaving, it led to innovations in mechanization. This was interesting to see at the Växbo Lin factory, both in their “oldest loom” and the ones they use to weave linen today. To see a video of one of their looms in action, see my post on Instagram.

Växbo Lin’s oldest loom, made in Manchester in 1923, originally driven by steam, refitted with electric motors (left). Two Müller Frick looms, from Switzerland (center, right)

When I first started weaving, I had a 4-shaft Leclerc Artisat loom that was so light it slowly inched across the room with every thump of the beater (packing the weft material into the warp). For a time, I had an 8-shaft table loom, which was more versatile and portable for taking workshops far afield. From there, I got a Glimåkra Standard countermarch, which is unique in that every thread is either being lifted up or pulled down to make an opening to throw the shuttle through (instead of some threads going just up or just down). This loom is heavy, does not inch across the floor, and is capable of weaving everything from fine linen to heavy rugs. In the realm of loom technology nowadays, however, it is unquestionably on the analog end of the spectrum. 

I certainly have not outgrown my loom, but I am pondering what is out there, and where I want to put my time and energy. Some answers you come by through exploration. Would I find a flying shuttle accelerates production without diminishing enjoyment, or that a pedal-powered Hattersley would clear the path to create bolts of material for clothing? How primitive or advanced do I want my tools to be, and what are the advantages of both? How do I find a balance between production and method? Is there a way to use these tools to combat fast fashion, while maintaining the values and joys that brought us to weaving in the first place? I plan to explore these thoughts during my residency, through visits to weavers, weaving schools, and museums.  

Västernorrlands Museet archives, överdel “top”

In Sweden, I also had the opportunity to consider: what is the end product, and why? In museums, the textiles that are preserved are often in the form of clothing. We had the pleasure of examining some archive pieces at Västernorrlands Museet, where I viewed an överdel (“top”). This is akin to the simple garment construction I am currently exploring. 

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