Vesterheim Museum

Last week, my husband and I took a road trip through parts of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Rather than posting one long entry, I am going to divide it into 2 0r 3. Our first stop on a cold, rainy day was in Decorah, Iowa at the Vesterheim Museum, a Norwegian, American Museum documenting the immigration of the Norwegians to America. This is the display of knitted items.

A new book has just been published, Norwegian Handknits-Heirloom Designs from Vesterheim Museum, by Sue Flanders and Janine Kosel. It is a good book based on items from the museum-behind-the-scenes, as they say in the forward as this picture shows just about all that were on display.

The special display when we went was called, Knitting Along the Viking Trail, featuring knitted items by Elsebeth Lavold, famous for her Viking Knits Project. All the Viking Knits patterns are inspired by Viking Age artifacts. Sadly, the display closes October 11. After seeing the display, I HAD to go to the yarn shop in town and got this book. Her fist book is called Knitting Along the Viking Trail, and now three more Viking Knits Collections have been published. I must get the others!

This blanket is made up of some of her swatches, some have been used in her designs. The following pictures are a couple of the sweaters on display. The pictures are not of real good quality because I could not use flash.

This is the inspiration for one of her designs.