Scandinavian Rhapsody

As a first step in the attempt to recreate some of the well loved family woollies of yesteryear I thought I would have a go at a “brick pattern” jumper which was one of Grandma’s favourites. It was a good way of making odd ends of different coloured wools go a bit further.

I’m wearing one of these in the Down by the Sea photo (front row middle). I think it was probably getting a bit on the tight side by the time the photo was taken. But in those days everything had to last a bit longer.

My sister assures me Grandma used slip stitches rather than Fair Isle knitting. By way of a little research I delved into my recently acquired copy of Odhams Encyclopaedia of Knitting by James Norbury and Margaret Agutter (1956) and came across a very short entry for Bohus knitting which makes particular use of slip stitches to build up multi-colour effects.

It looked quite obscure, but I have since learnt Bohus was very significant. having been developed in a small area near Gothenberg, Sweden during the depression in the 1930’s to help provide an income for families when the local quarries they relied upon closed for business.

Led by Emma Jacobsson the work of the Bohus Stickning produced highly prized, couture quality garments in the finest yarns from the late nineteen thirties up until 1969. (This is going to be another great area to explore...more later)

As a warming up exercise I had a go at an example given by Norbury. I was only using miss-matched scraps of  yarn  - so not really representative of the original, very beautiful thing. But…Voila! my first attempt at “Scandinavian Rhapsody”