Nordiska of Gothenburg, 1967
Designer: Greta Säfve
Name: Flora 7021
Original colour: Green
Orginal product: wall hanging, 35 x 43 cm
It's 2022 and time for Flora, a nature being with five little birds, tussilago farfara and other spring flowers as a crown, to be known again.
She was drawn 55 years ago, in Gothenburg by Nordiska artist Greta Säfve who had a deep interest in arts and culture. The sketches, drawings and paintings shows folk motifs, peculiar other-wordly figures, wildlife and historical stories.
This kit includes:
- A beautiful 100% linen panel, 50 x 50 cm.
The linen is hand cut and hand printed in Sweden, then folded and packed in our studio in Bristol where we also prepare all the linen threads.
- Linen threads in 15 colours. These follow the original colour scheme as closely as possible. Some colours have been out of production since the 1960s, in those cases we chose the nearest suitable shade.
- A card which shows a photograph of the Flora 7021 drawing as it was found in the Nordiska Embroidery Archive, with a brief history of it's origins and named stitches.
- A handy stitch card with the 24 common stitches used by Nordiska in their kits, an exact copy of Nordiska's own presentation, written on a typewriter in Gothenburg in the 1950's.
- A chenille needle size 22, used for linen embroidery.
- A very rare, complete sheet of the original stitch chart.
The stitch chart shows the stamp of the handcraft store that once sold this kit from Nordiska. A long gone shop in Dalecarlia or Dalarna, a historical province in Sweden.
The colour/stitch instruction sheet is an exact copy of the 1960s original, including the 1960's colour numbers.
The stitches used in Spring Flora are clearly marked in the drawing as you can see here in the listing. Satin stitch, stem stitch and the others are drawn out as they are used in the design, and you can make the stitches long or short as you like. You can also change them to your favourite stitch, as long as you consider the thread usage.
Please choose where you like to add your light and dark shades of the threads, to make your own personal version of Greta's much loved design from 1967.
The printed lines are fine, gentle and easy to embroider over, but they won't wash off so cover the lines with the thread, either by stitching around the lines, over the lines, or through. Whatever technique you prefer is the right one!