Kerstin, who studied here with us from April to July this year, sent us these beautiful "handdukar (dishcloths)" from Sweden! These were made by her great-grandmother and grandmother. Kerstin also made a tenugui -a Japanese handcloth, here as well.
"This is Stina Ericsson, my 86 year old grandmother, living in Sweden. In Sweden we use special towels for the kitchen to dry up the dishes. Linen towels are particularly useful for finer glass to get them clear and shiny. Nowadays they are usually made of cotton, which has the same quality as Japanese tenugui, but back in the days, we used high quality towels made of linen. My grandmother and mother wove their own towels, and they still use them. And I also do!
It was also common that the bride made towels embroidered with the couples' initials The better she was doing embroidery the more exclusive the techniques were. We also had special linen closets to store the towels, bed linen and textiles."
Kerstin's tenugui, using the kasuri technique.
We would like to thank Kerstin and her family for sharing these precious items with us. Tack så mycket!
