Jane
Patrick fell in love with weaving when she was an exchange student at
the Löngumýri home economics school in Iceland. Textiles have been at
the core of life in Iceland for more than 1,100 years. Icelandic textile
maker Istex
says that “sheep were the key to the nation's survival, providing
generations of Icelanders not only with food but also with wool as
protection from the biting cold of the harsh northern climate.” Brought
from Scandinavia with the first settlers, warp-weighted looms were used
to weave fabric for blankets and heavy woolen garments. In the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, peysuföt, heavy woolen folk costumes, protected Icelandic women from the cold.
In honor of Jane and a millennium of Icelandic weavers, and for your web-surfing pleasure, here’s an Icelandic fairy tale in which the skillful weaver, naturally, lives happily every after.