Norway's Knitted Heritage: The History, Surprises, and Power of Traditional Nordic Sweater Patterns

by Annemor Sundbø

You'll appreciate your favorite Nordic patterns in a new way.

Nordic knitting designs have long enchanted the world. What makes their allure and beauty so timeless? The answer is fascinating, and author Annemor Sundbø, known as "Norway's Sweater Detective," welcomes you on a wild ride to discover it. She's the foremost expert on the subject of these designs' history and evolution and reveals how the centuries of Norway's culture, prehistory, history, myths, and more have created the patterns we love to knit.

Now available in English for the first time, the book won Norway's prestigious Sørlandets literary prize in 2020. More than 800 images take you through the mountains and fjords of Norway with knitting in mind. As Annemor shows us, Norway's knits hold real-life tales of burial customs, royals wearing knits, nation building after the Napoleonic Wars, child labor, female role models and ski fashion, and the sustainability of knitting through history and today. How did folk costumes morph into hiking gear? What messages have the Norwegian myths left in the patterns we knit today?

A pattern bank contains dozens of knitting grids for authentic traditional designs, ready for you to continue their amazing journey with a new appreciation.

Genres: Knitting, Reference, History

400 pages, Hardcover

Published May 28, 2023

Reviews

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete history of knitting sweaters in Norway with charts. Quite a large book.

[Sherry A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for comprehensiveness. Would love to go back to Norway someday.

[Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is huge, and delves into topics like earliest advertisements of Nordic sweaters, examples of woven knitted shirts from the middle ages, blue navy sweaters, sweaters and knitting in illuminated manuscripts, sweaters worn in sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (golf, skiing, etc.), categories of sweater types and motifs, etc., and a section of knitting colour charts in the back.

Though chock full of history with many extant garment shown and antique photos of people wearing their sweaters, this book is pretty disorganized as many chapters could have been condensed together and reordered on a time scale, and it is a bit repetitive - it would have benefited from a (second?) round of editing.

[Valerie Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly comprehensive, although I wish it were a bit more of a linear narrative with the history and mythology. The patterns in the back are super useful; maybe someday I'll be good enough at sweater knitting to be able to piece one of these beautiful things together.