I took a 5 day trip to Bergen on the Southern coast of Norway on a bus. We took 1.5 days to get there – stopping for a fjord cruise on the Hardanger Fjord and some other sight seeing. I ended up rooming with a retired school principal from near Edmonds. She was great!
Although there was a tour schedule for us in Bergen, I had other things to do. On my list was to visit the Oleana sweater factory, Dale Sweater factory, and the Norwegian Museum of Knitting Industry. Funny thing about Norwegian establishments – their opening days/hours don’t make sense to us Americans. (I have stood in the middle of the road in downtown Oslo on a Friday night at 8:30 pm with it totally silent and no cars on the road. It was spooky.) I could only visit one, so the knitting industry museum it was.
Plenty of people were interested in going with me. However, they had other things they wanted to do first. I was not going to take a chance on that. (Good thing I went then because they got hung up and never made it.) So, off I went to ride the busses in the countryside by myself.
I sucessfully made it to the transfer station. However, on the second bus the display showing the stops wasn’t working and the lady announcing the stops on the loudspeaker was muffled. The directions were written on the pamphlet in English and sometimes the Norwegian doesn’t translate well. On a hunch, I got off the bus at a stop that was not the one listed in the pamphlet. It was a good thing I did. I saw a sign for the museum. However, the next obstacle was the building in the picture on the sign was not evident in any of the surroundings (it is quite a LARGE building, but all I could see were small houses). I found the place after asking a guy who spoke impeccible British english. Once inside, I watched a short movie on a tv in the foyer filmed at the Dale garn factory – showing their dying and color matching process.
I then watched a film about the history of the buiding I was in, told through interviews with former workers. Salhus Tricotagefabric was founded in 1859 and closed in 1989. The Norwegian Museum of Knitting Industry (Norsk Trikotasjemuseet) opened on the premises in 2001. The museum is one of 13 national industrial heritage sites in Norway. It is, basically, a working knitwear factory that is no longer used. All the machines work and are maintained. It’s purpose now is to educate. (You should see the kids program they have – wow!
I was the only one there. Let me reiterate: I was in this HUGE GIGANTIC building, and I was the only visitor there at that time. Yay me!! I got an individualized private tour!! The lady turned on all the machines for me and talked me through each type of machine on each floor. It went all the way from raw wool that was washed, picked, carded, made into pencil roving, spun, plied, dyed, knitted, cut, and sewed. Whew! There were machines of every sort and size you could imagine. It smelled like lanolin and sewing machine oil. One of the interesting things I learned, was after they washed the wool, took the lanolin out of it, and spun it – the single was drawn across a chunk of wax to add moisture back in. Lanolin was not added in case people had a sensitivity to lanolin. There wasn’t much choice back then about the fabrics you could purchase.
Afterwards, I went to the museum store (of course). There was yarn to buy, made in the factory. There were so many beautiful saturated and tweedy colors. However, I realized that a pile of more yarn that had no specific purpose was not what I needed. However, I wanted something from the museum. So I bought a beautiful pillow pattern kit that included yarn made in the factory. I considered buying a patterned wool sweater made there at the factory. However, they were either too big or too small.
This next weekend, I’m going to Bigdøy and the Museum of Culture and History to look at the knitting and textile exhibits. I think this is where Annemore Sunbø’s collection is. BTW, I did make it out to Spinnvilt last week – Oslo’s spinning and weaving shop. More on that another time, after I visit them again.
Hope your summer is going well.
Ha det!
As the Whorl Turns 