Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1995, Page 81

UM HEKL Á ÍSLANDI
85
SUMMARY
Crocheting in lceland up to about 1900
The earliest reference to crochet, hekl (cf. notes 2 and 22), in Iceland appears to tie in with
the first girls' school in operation in Reykjavík from 1851 to 1853, crochet being one of the
handcrafts taught there; other crafts were knitting and needlework (cf. note 11). After that,
very sparse information (cf. note 12) is available about crochet being taught and worked in
Iceland prior to 1874, when another school for young women, this one of a permanent nature,
was established, also in Reykjavík. At this school, Kvennaskólinn í Reykjavík, crochet was also
included in the curriculum, being referred to as heklan and hekling (cf. notes 14 and 15). To cro-
chet, aö hekla, was also included in the planned curriculum for the school presented in 1871 (cf.
note 16). The National Museum of Iceland, Þjóðminjasafn Islands, is in possession of a now
brownish coin purse crocheted in cotton thread (Fig. 1) which belonged to the founder and
first headmistress of the school, Þóra Melsted. The purse is of a type common abroad during
the nineteenth century (cf. notes 19 and 20).
In 1886 the first Icelandic book on needlecraft, written by three young Icelandic women,
was published in Reykjavík (cf. notes 2 and 22), giving very detailed information of the
method of working crochet, something which might indicate, when compared with the almost
complete absence of basic information about knitting - a craft which had then been employed
in the country for several centuries - that crocheting was not then as yet universally known
there (cf. note 23). The book contains fifty designs for crocheting: laces, inserts, doilies and
mats (Fig. 2) but only nineteen for knitting, the latter being mainly items of clothing and
household furnishings (cf. notes 24 and 25). All the designs are of foreign origin.
A few surviving crocheted items of the period (overlapping into the second decade of the
twentieth century) are discussed briefly. None of these are distinctively Icelandic in design.
Two triangular shawls and three knitted petticoats with color crocheted borders, besides a sep-
arate crocheted petticoat border (Fig. 4), were, however, executed in Icelandic woollen yarn
(cf. notes 28-29 and 32-35) and would therefore have been made locally. The crocheted purse
mentioned earlier, chemise trimmings, and lace and corners of a coffee tablecloth, were
worked in cotton thread (Figs. 1, 5 and 6), and wrist warmers were crocheted in woollen yarn
of foreign origin (Fig. 3); of these an Icelandic provenance can only be determined with cer-
tainty for the chemise trimmings.
The crochet hooks used in Iceland were either imported or made locally from metal, wood,
baleen or bone. Occasionally they might have hooks of different sizes at either end (Figs. 7-9
and note 40).