Straw Crowns, Himmeli, and What to Buy

This module reconstructs two straw classes. Karin Edlund’s five-day Halmkronor at Sätergläntan in Dalarna, Sweden, starts with small samples, “geometric forms, plaited panels, garlands, and hangers,” then tassels and flowers of paper and cloth, and ends with a crown of your own design, covering composition, sketching, and assembly. All tools, straw, and basic materials are provided ¹. North House Folk School teaches the Finnish himmeli, with students bringing a soaking container for 7-inch straw, towels, scissors, and a ruler ². Neither class plan is published; this follows the sources cited.

Two traditions

Swedish straw crowns (halmkronor, takkronor) were made for festivals such as Christmas and weddings, and are sometimes called oro, unrest, because they move at the slightest draught ¹. In Sollerö and Orsa in Dalarna, crowns and wreaths marked weddings, funerals, midsummer, and Christmas; in winter, straw and birch-bark crowns took the place of summer’s leaf garlands. In Orsa in 1848 a bride hung a straw crown she had made herself above her seat, with silk tassels at every corner ³. One crown in Småland, copied from an old pattern before 1927, is straws 9 to 19 cm long threaded on linen with a red wool tassel at every junction ⁴.

The Finnish himmeli, from Swedish and German himmel, sky or heaven, hangs over the table from Christmas to midsummer: “the larger the himmeli the larger the rye crop” ⁵. Some families kept the best ones in the attic from year to year, and a well-kept himmeli can last a century ⁶. In the Upper Midwest, Finnish Americans keep making them; Alana Maijala of Virginia, Minnesota, says finished himmelis were burned in the midsummer bonfire ⁷.

Getting rye straw

Rye has the longest, sturdiest stems ⁶. Modern wheat is thick-walled and pithy, with a short top section, and good rye is hard to buy ⁸. Your options:

• Buy. The Guild of Straw Craftsmen lists The Straw Shop in Sonora, California, as a US supplier ⁹; call to ask what rye they have.
• Grow. Sow cereal (winter) rye, sold as a cover crop, in the fall, and cut it the next summer. An older, long-strawed variety gives longer tubes than a short modern one.
• Substitute. Maijala notes that long, hollow native grasses can stand in ⁷.

Harvest and prepare

The Guild’s method ⁸:

1. Cut before the grain is fully ripe, at the milky stage, with a little green still at the first joint.
2. Dry the sheaves standing upright in the sun for a couple of days, bringing them in at night. Store them dry and airy in boxes, never in plastic.
3. Use the straw from the head down to the first node. Straws taper, thinner at the head, so sort by diameter.
4. Soak at least 30 minutes in room-temperature water before working, until the butt end bends without cracking, and keep the straw wrapped in a damp towel.

Finnish practice cuts rye about 2 m long, dries it for weeks from green to gold, then cuts it at the joints and sorts it by thickness ⁵. Cleaning straw takes time ⁷; do it in the evenings before the project.

How much

Eija Koski’s traditional himmeli takes 12 tubes of 20 cm, 72 of 10 cm, and 144 of 5 cm, with 1.5 m of thread for each 12-tube form ¹⁰. A crown takes more for its roof and hangers.

Try it

Cut twenty tubes from your straw and sort them into three piles by thickness. If one pile is much bigger, that’s the size to design around: each form should use tubes of one thickness.