Sometimes a busy life collides with my desire to make quilts. As was the case, when I did not have time to prepare the "Wine Quilt" for the trip. Time just ran out, as just a week after my daughters wedding, my husband scheduled our departure for a 2 week trip to the Baltic Sea area. This included a stop in Stockholm Sweden, with a day trip to Norrkoping. I wanted to check out Norrkoping, because my Great-Grandmother was from there. She was a seamstress that immigrated to the USA in 1890. As it turns out, Norrkopping was then a fabric manufacturing town. In the 1960’s the manufacturing business went through a hugh overhaul as things became machine operated, rather than using human manual labor. (One sign said that a machine could do the work of 20 people.) Also, the labor expense was much lower in other countries, so those jobs were exported. This caused whole economies to go through an abrupt evolution.
My husband grew up in Woodbine, NJ where there was also clothing manufacturing factories at that time. It was a thriving community. When the industry closed down in the 60’s, the factories were torn down. In Norrkoping, Sweden however, the factories were not torn down, and have since become educational facilities, museums, and a gymnasium.
In Stockholm we did find a fabric store called Iosef Frank. He was a Jewish designer who came from Ausrtria in the 1930’s. They still reproduce his designs today, as the designs have come to represent the culture, as a form of art.
One of the designs is a simple white elephant repeated over and over on various basic background colors. They say that Iosef Frank was inspired to create the design from a trip to Africa. I suppose the Swedish were in awe of the animal. I got a red apron with white elephants on it for my mother, who is a devoted Republican. The elephant does not seem to have any political meaning in Sweden.
For my own use, I got a meter of Frank’s cotton fabric (shown in the picture). The plants on the fabric are quite large (approx. 6”) and great for an applique quilt. This design was created in 1940.
Fabric is quite expensive in Sweden, with one meter of this fabric costing $100 US dollars. Maybe, that is why quilting is not a popular hobby here, as the cost would be outrageous. However, quilts would be very useful in the climate, as well as blend right in with the Gothic/Barque architecture style.
