The Ryijy and What to Buy

This module reconstructs the Finnish American Folk School’s five-day Ryijy Weaving Workshop in Hancock, Michigan, taught by Lisa Wiitala. Students weave “an approximately 12” square sample of their own design for use as a wall hanging,” learning “design patterns, preparation of materials, color blending, knotting methods, edge treatment and finishing techniques.” The studio opens the day before for warping, and students must be able to warp a floor loom on their own ¹. The class plan isn’t published; this follows the sources cited, with the design numbers marked as estimates.

Wiitala trained for three weeks in Finland in 2023 with Ulla Karsikas at Omnia in Espoo, learning design templates, how to choose yarns and colors “that blend well and achieve the right density,” finishing, and how varying yarn lengths changes the height of the surface ².

What a ryijy is

A ryijy (Swedish rya) is a knotted-pile textile: rows of yarn tufts knotted into a woven ground. It came to Finland from Scandinavia in the Viking Age as a tradition of the western coast. In beds, boats, and sleighs the pile faced down for warmth; ryijys appear in inventories under Gustav Vasa and were even used for tax. The golden age of folk ryijys in western Finland ran from about 1770 to 1850, when bridal ryijys showed off a family’s wealth, bought red and blue dyes included ³.

Cotton blankets nearly ended the tradition after the 1850s; national romanticism revived it, and Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Liekki was made for the 1900 Paris Exposition ⁴. Compared with an Oriental carpet a ryijy has about a tenth as many knots and much longer pile, and in the 1930s kits spread it to home weavers ⁵.

Norway has its own rya. The boat rya (båtrye) was essential in open boats on the North Sea; one could use a farm’s whole season of wool and weigh over 20 pounds, with twill stripes or squares on the smooth side ⁶.

The numbers

The Ulvila ryijy of 1853 has a doubled linen warp, 10 picks of ground between pile rows set 7 mm apart, and a 4-strand pile 15 mm long ⁷. A classic modern rya sample is set at about 8 ends per inch on high-twist 8/3 linen rug warp with Åsborya wool, “the authentic yarn used for rya and flossa” ⁸.

For a 12-inch square, this module’s design (all estimates):

• Warp: 8/3 linen at 8 ends per inch, 13 inches wide in the reed, about 104 ends plus a doubled end at each edge.
• Knots: each over 2 ends, about 48 to 50 to a row.
• Rows: 6 to 8 plain-weave picks between knot rows, about 2 rows per inch, 24 rows in all: about 1,200 knots.
• Pile yarn: strand length is twice the pile; multiply by strands per knot and knots, and add 20 to 25 percent ⁹. Three strands about 3 inches long per knot gives about 300 yards, so buy 375 to 400.
• Time: at about 150 knots an hour, the rate one studio gives for sewn rya ¹⁰, 8 to 12 hours of knotting.

Yarn and where to buy it

• Warp: Bockens 8/3 linen rug warp, 694 yards per pound, about $58 a tube from Vävstuga ¹¹.
• Pile: Borgs Åsborya 2.5/2 wool, 120 m (131 yd) per 100 g skein, $18 ¹². Buy several shades of each color family; blending needs them.
• Alternative pile: Rauma Ryegarn from The Woolery, a heavier Norwegian rug yarn ¹³.

Try it

Before buying, twist single strands of your candidate colors together in threes and fours and pin them to a card. A ryijy’s color is mixed in the knot, and a card of twisted bundles shows the result better than skeins side by side.