Slöjd: The Swedish Art of Wood and Textile Handicrafts
Slöjd: The Swedish Art of Wood and Textile Handicrafts
- Available for pickup at ASI
- Low stock - 5 items left
Slöjd is a book for anyone who craves making something with their hands!
Slöjd is Swedish for handicrafts. But it’s so much more than making things with your hands. In Sweden, slöjd is a compulsory subject taught to all schoolchildren. From a young age, they work with textiles and wood not only to develop their creativity, but also to learn fine motor skills and problem solving—often leading to a lifelong love and appreciation for crafts.
Taking inspiration from this school subject, Kerstin Neumüller has compiled 18 different wood and textile projects that include everything from learning how to sew a cap, dye yarn with birch leaves, carve a peg rail, sew a patchwork quilt, and mend your jeans.
The projects rarely require any big purchases or unusual tools, and readers will be guided with clear step-by-step instructions, pictures, and illustrations. With the attitude “if you think it’s good, it’s good,” Neumüller leaves a lot of room for creativity to flourish, and avoids the worst pitfalls.
This book is suitable both for beginners itching to get started and for those who already know that handicrafts are the most enjoyable hobby you can have!
This first book in English covering the Swedish subject of Slöjd contains a diverse range of projects suitable for beginners and more experienced crafters alike.
Hardcover
Kerstin Neumüller has a degree in men’s tailoring and has spent many years studying handcrafts and the history of textiles. She previously ran the shop Second Sunrise in Stockholm, which produced jeans from scratch under the label Blue Highway Clothing. This resulted in her work in indigo dyeing and mending, which led to her first two books, Indigo: Cultivate, Dye, Create (published in 2017 as En handbook om Indigo: Färgning och projekt in Swedish by Natur & Kultur, English translation 2018 by Pavilion) and Mend & Patch: A Handbook to Repairing Clothing and Textiles (originally published as Lappat och lagat by Natur & Kultur, English translation 2019 by Pavilion, also translated into French). En handbook om Indigo was nominated for the 2017 Swedish Design Prize and the 2017 Publishing Prize. Her most recent book is Simple Weave: väv utan vävstol, published in Swedish in 2021 with a forthcoming English translation spring 2023 with Batsford Books.
Kerstin’s textile work has been regularly featured in Hemslöjd Magazine, and she has taught classes across Scandinavia, including at Sweden’s premier traditional craft school Sätergläntan, Stockholm’s Etnografiska Museum, Kultuhuset Ängeln, Handverket in Stockholm, Hemslöjd Östergotland, the Vävstolsmuseet i Glimåkra, and Skals Folkhöjskole in Denmark. Her work was exhibited at Hemslöjden i Östergötland in 2022. She received the Kerstin Andersson Åhlin Stipend from the National Association of Swedish Handcraft in 2018.
