Hardanger and What to Buy

This module reconstructs North House Folk School’s two-day Norwegian Needlecraft: Taking the ‘Hard’ out of Hardanger with Lori Zimmerman, who promises that if you “can count to five, you can do hardanger!” ¹, and Vesterheim’s online class with Shan Rayray, which makes a small doily of kloster blocks, woven bars, a buttonhole edge, and fillers such as picots, spoked wheels, and dove’s eyes ². The class plans aren’t published; this follows the sources cited.

What Hardanger is

Hardangersøm took its present form in western Norway, especially Hardanger, continuing the Italian cutwork called reticella. It is a white embroidery (hvitsøm) worked by counting threads, first on fine textiles such as bridal shirts and aprons, and today on the shirts and aprons of the Hardanger bunad, where a wide apron border can take up to 180 hours. It was worked on local linen with linen thread; what matters is a plain weave whose threads can be counted. It spread widely among Norwegian Americans in the Midwest ³. It flourished from about 1650 to 1850 ⁴.

The Vest-Telemark Museum’s runner is 26 by 132 cm ⁵; a Hardanger bunad shirt at Nordfjord carries the work at the neck, cuffs, and bib, with eight-petal roses between ⁶.

Fabric and thread

Old pieces were on linen of 36 threads per inch or finer. Modern Hardanger fabric is cotton woven with threads in pairs, 22 per inch ⁴. Carol Leather’s pairings ⁷:

Hobby House sells Zweigart 22-count Hardanger by the fat quarter for $9.25, DMC pearl cotton #5 at $1.99 a skein, and tapestry needles ⁸; Vesterheim sells pearl cotton #8 and Gingher stork scissors ⁹. Vesterheim’s kit gives four prepared 22-count squares, DMC thread, and tapestry needles ².

Try it

Cut a 6-inch square of the fabric and count 18 threads in from the center along one line, as Leather’s first lesson does ⁷. Count it twice. Counting is the whole skill; if it comes out the same both times, you’re ready for lesson 2.