In sections 1 and 2 of this series we discussed Eighties sweaters inspired by traditional ganseys and Fair Isle patterns. Further north on the map lay another closely related knitting tradition that's voluminous enough to deserve a separate article.
3. Scandinavian
It should be noted that despite the 1980s' fashion focus on sweaters, Scandinavian knitters knitted everything that can possibly be knitted. Some classic Eighties sweater patterns of Scandinavian origin were designed around patterns designers copied from early socks, mittens, slippers, pillows, and underwear.
Searching for patterns for classic Norwegian sweaters shows that this general style of knitting was spread all over the Scandinavian countries and well beyond. It undoubtedly influenced the Fair Isle tradition, and museum pieces show that its influence spread as far south as France. Specific patterns were identified with specific places especially in Norway and Sweden.
What makes a sweater Scandinavian?
Very simple sweaters, made of lightweight wool with patches or bands in two different primary colors, are most often thought of as Scandinavian, although not all of the sweaters traditionally knitted in the Scandinavian countries contained these Hometown Pride two-color motifs. Knitters experimented with shapes as well as stitch patterns, and sometimes they did produce one-color garments with textured motifs instead of two-color patterns. In the twentieth century, as sweaters became fashionable, Swedish and Norwegian traditional styles were copied around the world. The earliest museum pieces contained stars, snowflakes, flowers, diamonds, and leaves. More elaborate picture motifs, like reindeer, became popular in the twentieth century.
One type of textured stitch pattern, called tvaandstickning, seems to have been found only in Sweden before the 1980s. "Two-end stitching" was worked with two ends of yarn from one skein for a uniform color; the two yarns were twisted around each other between stitches to form patterns with scallops of yarn "floating" over the front of the...usually it was the edge of a sock or mitten.
Another interesting, though time-consuming, stitch pattern was entrelac, which can be worked in two colors, in many colors, or in one color. Entrelac sweaters were found in Denmark in the nineteenth century and spread to Britain in the early twentieth. The fabric is divided into diamond shapes, edged with triangle shapes. Each diamond is knitted at right angles to those around it, producing a fabric that looks as if it were knitted of strips woven together on diagonal lines. The illusion is often enhanced by knitting alternating diamonds in colors and even two-color patterns that continue the diagonal strips effect.
London designer Christian de Falbe created several Eighties sweaters made of large entrelac diamonds; this sweater (sold long ago) was a variation on one of his designs.
Then there was the Bohus Cooperative, which specialized in new, unprecedented combinations of color and texture patterns that made unique fashion garments for women in the early twentieth century. Bohus patterns were copyrighted rather than traditional. This did not prevent knitters trying to copy patterns from any Bohus garments they found.
Three other Scandinavian innovations have remained less popular, without being forgotten:
(1) Use of ragg (heathered, tweeded) yarn (alone, or mixed with other yarns).
(2) The "slouch" style of sock tops knitted in horizontal bands. Sturdy calves with bulging muscles were admired, for women as well as men, at the turn of the twentieth century, but slouch-top socks seem to have been intended to stay up out of shoes more than to look stylish.
(3) The cropped top. Sweaters were regarded as long underwear. In Sweden, historians report, women's sweaters developed two parallel forms. Long-waisted sweaters (as worn today) were favored by older women who cared more about warmth than about style. Cropped sweaters were worn by younger women who wanted their layered winter looks not to hide their trim waistlines.
Nevertheless, when we think of Scandinavian sweaters we think of simple two-color designs, either worked as borders or medallions on the upper part of the garment, or worked all over the garment. Many Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian knitters have collected specimens of the most popular of these designs, often still identified with a place; when educated knitters (a.k.a. pattern hoarders) hear the phrase "Bjarbo sweater" we immediately visualize a different type of motif than the phrase "Delsbo sweater" brings to mind--even though the patterns we visualize are likely to be recent English or American designs, rather than Swedish museum pieces.
Early sweaters were knitted in a hurry, often by professionals sometimes called "sweater hags" who peddled their work to people who had more profitable work to do. The wool was not particularly soft but, though museum pieces probably show some shrinkage, knitters tried to use the finest possible yarn and knit the maximum number of tiny stitches into a square inch of fabric. While modern U.S. knitters tend to grow impatient with knitting at 7 stitches per inch, early Scandinavian pieces contain 10 stitches or more to the inch.
Early sweaters show many attempts to economize. Knitted fabric was often cut, not only at an intentionally knitted "steek," but just as if it were woven fabric. Sometimes knitted and woven fabrics were sewn together, more often with knitted sleeves on a woven waist than the other way round. In many old sweaters the waist, which was likely to be tucked into trousers or skirts, was left white while patterns in black, red, or blue were reserved for the top of the sweater. Often bands of two-color patterns followed the neck or shoulder line on an otherwise plain sweater. Sometimes the sweater was knitted in natural white wool with a natural or dyed black pattern at the top, and then the whole thing was overdyed red, blue, or forest green. Most Scandinavian sweaters do not show the shading of several different colors on different rows of a pattern that define the Fair Isle tradition, although a few of the larger traditional motifs were knitted with bands of different colors on a white or black background.
Colors available were usually natural white, natural or dyed black, bright red, indigo blue, dark forest green, and dark brown. Wider selections of colors became available in the 1920s. Bohus sweaters were often elaborate mixes of fashionable shades.
Pattern books to look for:
* Lind, Vibeke. Knitting in the Nordic Tradition. This mid-Eighties title (recently reprinted by Dover, and available for Kindle) is meant to be an attractive sampler of the variety of knitting patterns that can be called Scandinavian. Lots of descriptions of museum pieces, ancient to recent, and just a few complete designs to follow. The complete designs are meant to be accessible to modern knitters; they're not as elaborate or as time-consuming as the original designs would have been.
* Bohn, Annichen Sibbern. Norwegian Knitting Designs. As you can see, what Amazon has for sale, in English, today, is a new edition--not only translated but enhanced with new patterns for garments to help beginners use the patterns Bohn presented for knowledgeable knitters to use. Designer Wenche Roald promises that the new book includes all of the patterns that designers used from the 1920s into the 1990s. In the Eighties only the charts were available.
* Upitis, Lizbeth. Latvian Mittens. Latvia is not a Scandinavian country but, historically, it was part of the Scandinavian knitting tradition. Lizbeth Upitis was one of the best known (and loved) knitters leading the Eighties' reclamation of the craft. Latvian mitten knitting had developed into quite a cultural tradition, Upitis recalled, with a whole collection of traditional songs, many of which developed the theme that the progress of the mittens a young woman was knitting for a young man reflected the progress of the relationship. Mittens were small enough that people like Upitis not only knitted them at 10 stitches per inch, but then embroidered extra colors and motifs onto them afterward, though some of these mittens are knitted with more than two colors on a row. (Mittens were knitted on a handful of four or five tiny double-pointed needles; sections could be worked back and forth on two of these needles, then reintegrated with the rest.)
* Gibson-Roberts, Priscilla. Knitting in the Old Way. Though this book tried to present at least one traditional pattern from each of the folk traditions the author had studied, with about a dozen Scandinavian patterns included, its usefulness is that--for knitters who have learned the craft well enough to follow the author's thought--it explains how to design your own sweaters around any traditional pattern you fancied. Prior to the Eighties most knitting patterns were preserved as dots on little square charts, or at best written sequences like "Multiple of 3 st plus 2: Row 1. K 3, p 2..." and so on. Instructions for incorporating these patterns into garments were sometimes printed in magazines or on skein bands, but knitters did much of their own garment designing.
* Dale Yarns. Knit Your Own Norwegian Sweaters. This 1975 collection, like most knitting pattern books prior to the 1980s, was published by a yarn manufacturer and directed knitters to use only specific yarns produced by that manufacturer. The emphasis was on corporate profit, definitely not on female empowerment or cultural heritage or any such New Age ideas. Anyway, because these more and less traditional designs (some very traditional, some very trendy) were solid designs, this book was used in the 1980s and reprinted in the 1990s. And the almost anonymous designers were real Norwegians.
* And we have a Ringer: Kolstad, Lise, and Tone Takle. Sweaters; More Sweaters; Small Sweaters. These books were printed (in English) in the 1990s, but since they use traditional Norwegian patterns and shapes, only a careful student of knitting history will know they're not real Eighties sweaters. If your idea of Eighties knitting is that "it's all about the excess," these sweaters definitely qualify; the authors proudly proclaimed that they're "a riot of color and technique."
What about Icelandic knitting? Icelandic knitting is a hybrid of two design traditions plus the island's unique ecology. While one of the design traditions that might be called its "parents" is definitely Scandinavian knitting, Icelandic knitting deserves a separate article.
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