Sundborn
‘Var välkommen kära du, till Carl Larsson och hans fru!’ it says above the front door of Lilla Hyttnäs in the Swedish village of Sundborn. ‘Welcome to the house of Carl Larsson and his spouse!’ A warm welcome to the house that Carl and Karin Larsson made into such a special place, Carl with his paintings and Karin with her textiles.
Carl is best known for his watercolours of family life at Lilla Hyttnäs. In the house itself, beside all kinds of other decorations, he also painted his family on walls and doors.
Karin was a painter as well, but after getting married and having children she poured all of her creativity into embroidery and weaving.
Walking through and around the house, I was amazed by everything they achieved while raising eight children. Below, a photograph of their living room from the outside, with a bird decoration by Carl between the windows.
After my first visit, in the early 1980s, I had a postcard of one of Carls paintings on the wall of my 6 m2 student room for a long time. It was the well-known painting of the interior of the Larssons’ living room with one of the girls watering the plants.
In her cardigan book Koftor, knitwear designer Maja Karlsson tells us that she spent some time at Lilla Hyttnäs studying the colours and patterns of Karins textiles, and that this inspired her Sundborn cardigan design. She photographed the cardigan in the same living room, with the model watering the plants just like the girl in Carl’s painting. The stars in the cardigan’s yoke echo the stars along the edges of Karin’s blue-and-white table cloth.
I thought it would be fun to photograph my Sundborn cardigan in the same way. Only in our own living room instead of at Lilla Hyttnäs. The little red wooden Dala horse on the window sill is a souvenir of my second, more recent visit to Sundborn. And now I also have the cardigan to remind me of that wonderful place.
At this point, I’ll say goodbye to the non-knitters among you. I quite understand that you’d rather do something else than read about cutting a pullover open to turn it into a cardigan. See you again next time!
A Hand-Sewn Steek
For those of you who are interested, let’s dive into steeking. In this case, I knit the button bands on first, before cutting the steek.
Instead of machine-sewn steek reinforcements, I wanted to use hand-sewn seams this time, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Fortunately some of you came to the rescue. Helga checked the Swedish version of the pattern book and confirmed that the designer uses machine sewing thread. Angelique said that the seam might become too tight using machine sewing thread. I have never liked the idea of synthetic seams in my woollen sweaters anyway, so that was out. She also suggested trying things out on a swatch first, and that was what I did:
As an experiment, I sewed a back-stitch seam using the same yarn used for the cardigan (Léttlopi) on one side of the centre stitch and on the other using a thinner yarn (Jamieson & Smith 2-ply jumper weight). The Léttlopi was on the bulky side; the thinner yarn worked better, as L. had already predicted, so I used that on the cardigan.
L. also advised ‘piercing every row’s stitches’ and to be on the safe side I did that as well. Then, using my small embroidery scissors and holding my hand between front and back, I cut the steek.
The steek stitches looked fairly stable after cutting. (Below, the blue line through the centre of the pink stitches is one of the hand-sewn seams.)
But I’m glad that I pierced through the yarn of the knit stitches while back-stitching the seams, because at the top end the knit stitches did fray. With the extra strong reinforcements they wouldn’t unravel any further.
Finally, the steek stitches were folded over and stitched into place using whip stitches on the inside. Very neat!
All in all, I’m very happy with this hand-sewn steek reinforcement. It is easy and relaxing to do, and doesn’t stretch the knitted fabric as machine stitching can do. No more machine-reinforced steeks for me from now on. Thank you for your advice Helga, Angelique and L.! And to all of you – thank you for reading on to the end!
Links:
- Maja Karlssons cardigan book Koftor can be found here on Ravelry, and the Sundborn cardigan here. (It has been translated into English, German and Dutch.)
- Lilla Hyttnäs is now a museum called Carl Larsson Gården. Although only Carl’s name is mentioned in the museum’s name, the museum’s website now pays equal attention to Carl and Karin.
Thank you for the tour, the art and the steek success story!
And thank you again for the tips! Hand instead of machine sewing made all the difference to me.
Wonderful to read and what an idyllic place you visit! Not to speak about the beautiful cardigan and the radiant you!
Thank you! It really is a very special place, so if you ever have plans to visit Sweden, definitely put the Larssons’ house on your list of places to visit.
Prachtig! Mooi om de stappen van het inknippen van je vest te zien. Blijft spannend, in je breiwerk knippen.
Idd, ik zie er nog steeds wel tegenop, tegen het doorknippen. Maar eigenlijk viel het deze keer erg mee, volgens mij omdat ik alles helemaal met de hand gedaan had.