Hardanger: A Norwegian Region

I so wish I could take credit for this post and its awesome title, but I can't. Special thanks to H for the title, and to today's guest crafter, my mom!

Mom does lovely hardanger work, which we discussed last night at Kelly Girls, my regular Wednesday night knitting group. There are crocheters there too, and the girls create a lot of other craftistic projects also. We've got cross-stitchers and stampers and scrapbookers and seamstresses, including J who's sewing her friend's wedding dress! So I mentioned Mom's hardanger, and then had to explain it. Traditionally it's done in white thread on white cloth, but as you can see that's not quite my style. These days it's actually quite common to see colored thread and cloth.

It's worked on evenweave fabric (like the Aida cloth that cross-stitchers use), but the advantage is that you only have to be able to count to four. I've never tried it myself, so I don't know all the terms, but the basic filled-in four-block is a staple of the form, as are 8-pointed stars and the nifty cut-work sections. Yes, you actually cut out certain threads, as you can see in the bottom photo.

To learn more, I recommend you visit my mom's pushers... I mean dealers... I mean the store where she buys a lot of her supplies: Nordic Needle. They've got all sorts of cloth and thread and patterns and instructions and everything else you could possibly want.

Thanks again for this lovely present, Mom!

Oh, and I forget exactly what this is called, but it's meant to go on top of a dresser. Which is what it does.