Local crafters bring back the ‘olden days’
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Bonny Ackland holds up a length of “combed top” wool before spinning into yarn during Saturday’s Old Arts & Crafts exhibition at the Nodaway County Historical Society Museum.
Legend has it that old gods die when no one is left to believe in them.
If that’s true, the Nordic mother goddess Frigg, whose divine domain includes weaving and spinning, has nothing to worry about.
There were weavers and spinners and sewers aplenty at Saturday’s Old Arts & Crafts exhibition at the Nodaway County Historical Society Museum.
From ancient times through much of the 19th century, women needed Frigg’s skills to make comfortable homes for their families. They learned crafts like carding, spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting, tatting, rug hooking and embroidering.
Textile crafts naturally drew women together both to work and to share techniques, traditions and stories.
At the museum on Saturday it was apparent that only a couple of things have changed. These days, both women and men master such skills for enjoyment rather than necessity.
Take longtime friends Bonny Ackland of Barnard and Della Owens of Maryville. Both women are knitters, and both have forsaken acrylic yarn and other modern materials. The old ways, they’ve decided, are best.
“When Della took me to an upscale knitting shop, I got hooked on natural colors and all-natural fibers,” said Ackland, who over time has learned how to spin raw wool into the yarn that she transforms into colorful, Scandinavian-themed sweaters, scarves and socks.
“Icelandic sweaters usually have patterns,” she said, “but my mind doesn’t work that way, so I dye the wool to give it the look of a pattern.
“I use professional acid dyes with vinegar to set the colors. Some people use Easter egg dye, but the color fades if you do it that way. I sell my yarn, and I don’t want customers complaining about the dye bleeding.”
It is not a skill set one acquires overnight, and Owens said anyone who starts walking the path toward becoming a master spinner or knitter has to be prepared for some setbacks.
“The first thing I ever made was a sweater for my husband,” she said. “It looked like it would fit on an orangutan. It had long sleeves and a short body. … I unwound it and took it apart.”
Owens doesn’t knit much these days, having moved on to Russian needlepoint.
“It’s similar to rug hooking, but on a smaller scale,” she said. “Right now I’m working on a rabbit to give to my cousin.
“It’s the sort of thing my mother used to do. She liked to draw rabbits. They were the only thing she could draw, and she drew them all the time. I want my cousin to see the sort of thing she did.”
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Izzy Huerta, 7, weaves cloth on a hand loom Saturday at the Nodaway County Historical Society Museum with a little help from veteran weaver Joyce Bollman. Saturday’s Old Arts & Crafts exhibition brought together a number of local craftspeople whose work preserves such centuries-old skills as weaving, spinning, embroidery, quilting, tatting, knitting and chair-seat caning.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
A family admires a display of hand-embroidered quilts during Saturday’s Old Arts & Crafts exhibition at the Nodaway County Historical Society Museum in Maryville.
