Embroideries

n an area covering parts of Dalarna, Hälsingland, and Gästrikland, people traditionally embroidered red cross-stitch designs on hanging sheets and pillowcases. These featured rich, bold stars on the pillowcases, and trees of life along with small stars on the long sheets. The embroidery is done using cross-stitch and the so-called igelsöm (hedgehog stitch), which is a type of square satin stitch. It was embroidered with red cotton thread on home-woven linen fabric.

Since people today do not sew long sheets and pillowcases, Hams Gunilla Danielsson has utilized this old treasure trove of patterns to compose these tablecloths and runners. The patterns used have been collected from Svärdsjö and Enviken in Dalarna. New embroidery kits are continuously being developed.

The embroidery kits are complete with a detailed pattern that includes the alphabet and numbers for those who wish to add initials and dates to their embroidery.

The embroidery is done on Skåne linen (skånelinne) of the highest quality using cotton thread, and it is hemmed with lace-making thread.

The Skåne linen has 9 threads/cm, making it slightly coarser than the original embroideries, but fine enough to preserve the character of the embroidery so that it does not become too coarse.

The cotton thread is specially dyed to best match the original color used in the 19th century. The so-called Turkey Red—a wonderfully darker shade of red.

Linen lace thread is included to sew the hemstitch.

All materials are of the highest quality and are both wash-fast and light-fast.