Oh the ribbons, the pretty ribbons . . .

Today was the opening day of the Puyallup Fair.  Mrs. Gimlet was most anxious and a bit nervous also to see how the christening gown was judged.

The results?  See for yourself—

First Place, Best in Category, Reserve Grand Champion

Opening day of the Fair can be super crowded, as it was today, hot, also as it was today, long lines, again as it was today, but it was worth it to see those pretty ribbons.  We didn’t get scones because the line was about two blocks long (a very slight exaggeration) but we did get strawberry milk shakes and cow chip cookies (giant chocolate chip cookies) and that was just fine.

Lace open work display

It was difficult to find time to take a photo when there were not lots of people crowded around.  In the picture above you can see one of the open work lace display cabinets with the christening gown at the left near the jams and jellies.  This floor of the exhibition hall has handwork, artwork, jams and jellies, sewing, and other homemade articles.  Handmade quilts are hung from the ceiling.  There are literally hundreds of quilts.  The lacework category included knitted items, tatting, Hardanger, and just about any other kind of open work.  The Puyallup Fair (Western Washington State Fair) is the largest one in Washington State and I think may be one of the largest fairs in all the United States.  To win a prize ribbon here is very hard to do.  Congrats to Mrs. Gimlet! 

Christening gown & prize ribbons

While we were enjoying strawberry milk shakes a couple of flower people walked by on their tall, tall stilts.  Their faces were painted pale green and their arms and legs were covered to look like leaves and stems.  They were graceful and fun to watch as they moved slowly through the huge crowds of people taking time to bend and bow just as real flowers do.

 

 Two flower people on stilts

Flower lady on stilts

Flower people walking through the crowd

We will go back one more time before the Fair closes to look at all the exhibits, get chocolate milk from the Milk Barn and scones.  Today was all about those impressive prize ribbons . . .

One down, one to go

Mrs G’s Hardanger has ribbons for First place, Best of Division, Sweepstake, Class Winner, and Excellence

Last year Mrs. Gimlet submitted a piece of her Hardanger embroidery to the Puyallup Fair (Western Washington State Fair) and received a second place ribbon.  This year she decided to submit items to both the large Puyallup Fair and the smaller Monroe Fair (Evergreen State Fair).  I remembered the Monroe Fair from my teen years when my brother and I would spend time during the summer on a dairy farm not too far from Monroe.  The Sandersons always exhibited animals that they had raised so we looked forward to attending the fair as part of our country summer.  While I do try to get to the Puyallup Fair most years I had not been to the Monroe Fair for a very, very long time. 

Today was the opening day of the Monroe Fair and Mrs. G was anxious to see how her embroidery piece was judged.  As an added bonus if we could get there before noon admission was free (for the first day only).  It is between 45 minutes and an hour to drive from Seattle depending on traffic.  With Thing Two in the back seat as my own personal GPS system, naming off the highway numbers and connecting streets, we made the journey just fine and in plenty of time.  And here shown above is what greeted us at the exhibition hall—

It was a nice outing that included Fisher’s famous scones as well as all those lovely ribbons.  Mrs G noticed, however, that the piece had been mounted for display with the reverse side showing!  I guess that means the back was as beautiful as the front and that is saying quite a bit with embroidery work.  It was stapled to the mounting board and covered with protective plastic so there was no way we could rectify the situation.  It is still absolutely stunning backward or not. 

Anyway, I hope she will put something up on her own Sinister Craftiness blog so watch for it.  Recognizing that some think “pride” is a dirty word, nevertheless, I am a very proud Mama right now.  She did extremely well indeed.  The piece that is going to the Puyallup Fair is the blessing/christening gown that I posted pictures of previously.  It is spectacular too, therefore, we are all hoping that it will garner some ribbons.  The Puyallup Fair opens in September. 

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 24

Little girl in Hardanger bunad, ca 1900s
[Mittet & Co. No 6]

Postcards reached the height of their popularity in the early 1900s when they were a preferred method of sending short messages with the added bonus of a picture. Publishing companies branched out and added postcards to their selections. The company that printed this card, Mittet & Company A/S of Oslo, Norway, was established in 1899 by Ingebrigt Mittet and developed by his two sons Knut and Søren Mittet. They published children’s books and other items but are best known as the most productive postcard publisher in Norway printing a wide variety of cards. The Norwegian National Archives have 265 negatives from this company most on glass plates. Themes for the cards range from the Norwegian royal family, churches, Oslo, Arkerhus fortress, parades on “Help the Children’s Day” in 1906 and others. The glass plates were the basis for the postcards from 1905 to 1930. For more information about Mittet & Co. please see the Norwegian archives site at http://www.arkivverket.no/eng.

Since this card is of a child I did wonder if it might have been associated with the Help the Children’s Day. The postmark on the reverse of the card is not clear enough to read the date but there is a Roman numeral VI in the middle of the stamp. Mrs. Gimlet was delighted to see the detail on this postcard but somewhat horrified to see this little girl with the Hardanger lace in her mouth! And in truth, the reason the card attracted me to it in the first place was the detail of the lace embroidery on the apron as much as the cute little girl. It takes hours and hours of the most painstakingly meticulous work to do this type of embroidery and cutwork. Here is an example of Mrs. Gimlet’s handwork for the baby gown she is currently making for her newest little niece or nephew expected in this month. Curly’s mother and Curly will make the dress itself using the pieces Mrs. Gimlet has embroidered. Then later, in September, Mrs. G hopes to enter the finished product in the needlework competition at the Puyallup Fair. This is an heirloom in the making!

The collar section of the blessing gown
[photo courtesy of Heather Laurence]

I thought I would share a couple of family stories from the Landaas family. This family lived in the Hardanger area of Norway. All the girls had the silver sølje pins and some of them had the local bunad as well. Two examples of the pins are shown below. The pin on the top is modern the small pin on the bottom is old, probably about 125 years old, and is handmade. Both pins are silver with the top pin all silver while the smaller pin has brass spoons. The measuring tape is there to provide an idea of the sizes. The smaller pin would typically have been used on a child’s costume. If you look closely at the postcard you will see that this little girl is wearing a rather large pin that is attached to the blouse but hangs down into the vest.

Sølje

The Landaas family lived most of the year in the city of Bergen where the father, Peder Landaas, worked as a carpenter and woodcarver. I believe he also did some cabinetry work. Peder’s parents lived north of Bergen at a farm called Fiskeset. During the summer months the children and possibly their mother went up to the farm where they could help the grandparents. The two oldest Landaas girls, Mikkeline (Maggie) and Petra usually had the job of tending the sheep and goats up on the mountainside. Maggie loved the outdoors and the farm in general and thought it much better than living in the city. Petra on the other hand preferred living in the city and was not overly fond of going up to the farm. These girls were tiny. Even as an adult Petra never reached 5 feet in height and was quite slender when she was a girl. Taking care of the ewes, lambs, kids and nanny goats wasn’t too bad but there was at least one nasty ram that gave the girls quite a bit of trouble.

One of the stories Petra would tell was about the ram and how he would run at her and her sister and butt them hard enough to send them sprawling on the ground. He was a fearsome creature from her description with huge horns. One day he came at her and instead of walking away after tossing her down on the ground he kept coming back to ram her again and again. She did not know what to do to get away from him but she was on a steep hillside so she rolled up into a ball and went somersaulting down the mountain to escape.

Another memory she had of her summer stays at the farm was the year she had a very bad cold. It sounded almost more like pneumonia or the flu than a cold the way she told it. At any rate her nose was stuffed up for possibly weeks and finally her mother and grandmother had had enough of it and tarred the inside of her nose to get it to stop running and dripping. The cure was effective as far as the drippy nose went but it cost her the sense of smell. She said this happened in early summer and the last thing she recalled being able to smell was ripe strawberries growing on the mountainside. Ever after it was a big inside joke when she was asked what she would like as a gift she would smile and say perfume and then laugh.

Petra and Marjorie Lee with some chickens, ca 1920

I can never remember a time when my grandmother, Petra, was not dressed up so it is almost impossible to think of her on that farm in Norway. Here she is with my mother and some chickens and even then you will notice that she is wearing white shoes and jewelry!

Hardanger embroidery, Norwegian national costumes

When we were cleaning out Mom’s apartment we found some very old Hardanger lace embroidery in the bottom of a cedar chest. As I have mentioned previously, my daughter, Mrs. Gimlet, does this type of embroidery and was quite excited to find these pieces. We think they were inserts for an apron or perhaps a blouse but they could have been practice pieces as well. They were in remarkably good condition for being folded and stored away for probably 70 years or more. We think my grandmother made them or maybe even her mother or grandmother so they have got to be more than 100 years old. There are a few “rust-like” spots that we would like to remove so Mrs. Gimlet has ordered some special soap to wash them in and (maybe before we attempt the cleaning) after the holidays we will go to the Nordic Heritage Museum and see what they can tell us about the pieces and how to take care of them. I’ll try to remember to post “before and after” photos later.

Sample of antique Hardanger lace embroidery, 1

Sample of antique Hardanger lace embroidery, 2

This next picture is of my grandmother, Petra Landaas, on the right, in the national costume for Hardanger. You can see some of the embroidery work on the aprons. I have always thought that the girl on the left was her friend, Bertha Ottesen, who traveled with her from Bergen but looking at it now it might be her sister, Mikkeline (Maggie) instead. There are few pictures of Petra with her hair down like this and no pictures of Maggie with her hair down and that makes the identification a little more difficult. The photograph was taken shortly after Petra arrived in Seattle from Bergen, Norway, in 1893.

Petra Landaas, ca 1893

These next photographs are of a child’s bunad from Telemark. Petra’s husband, I.C. Lee came from Telemark and I’m not completely sure how we got this bunad but I think it originally came from his niece Magda. Her daughter, Ingrid, wore it, I wore it, and here you see Mrs. Gimlet wearing it when she was ten years old. A child's chore was to gather eggs and the apron was supposedly used to hold the eggs.

Mrs. Gimlet, age 10, wearing bunad from Telemark

This little dress or jumper and the blouse are both made completely by hand, no machine stitching anywhere on either piece. The dress is wool, the blouse is linen.

Close up showing the top half of the back of the dress with crewel embroidery.

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 11

Wedding party, Hardanger, Norway, ca 1900

This Axel Eliasson postcard has just about everything going for it. The bride in full regalia including the bridal crown, the men complete with hats, married women wearing aprons and skauts and presumably unmarried women with bare heads or in one case beribboned.

Traditional Hardanger bridal crown from the Bergen area of Norway

This card is dated 14 November 1912 shows the blouse, vest, sølje pins and with an impressive bridal crown. The pins were used as decoration as well as fasteners in lieu of buttons. Many postcards in the early 1900s and even before allowed writing of messages only on the picture side of the card with the reverse side for the address and stamps exclusively. Along the left margin is written "No 69 Eneberettiget 1900" and along the bottom left margin is "Søstrene Persen, Bergen" [Sisters Persen, Bergen]. Above the picture is "Hardangerbrud" [Hardanger Bride].

And finally we have a married woman wearing the skaut headdress and carrying a decorated bucket or pail for milk perhaps?

Woman from Hardanger wearing bunad with skaut and carrying a pail.

This is a John Fredriksons postcard published in Christiania now Oslo, Norway. The A. Eliasson card at the top was published in Stockholm, Sweden. All three cards were tinted photographs that were then mass-produced and printed in color.

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 7

Norwegian Fjord horse and woman from Hardanger, Norway, ca 1900

I have just a few postcards and pictures of these wonderful creatures one of which appeared previously in Postcard Thursday, 6, last week. We have three pictures I have found so far that show our family owned some of these horses.

“Pil” and Lars Stensland at Gåseflå, ca 1905
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

Here we see close ups of the farm hand Lars Stensland holding on to the Fjord horse, 'Pil' and in the picture below, although it is blurry, we see Notto Mikalsen Hornnes in the wagon with the horse hitched up and ready to go to work.*

Notto Mikalsen Hornnes and Fjord horse hitched up, ca 1870
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

Lillejordet farm in near Ulefos, Telemark, Norway with horses in the field, ca 1900

Lillejordet was the farm belonging to I.C. Lee's father, Kristen Rollefsen Lillejordet.** Here we can see the horses working in the field with the farm houses and people in the background. There is even a flagpole and flag. Many of the houses and farms in Norway do display the flag in this manner.

Horse and rider
[photo courtesy of Alf Georg Kjetså]

This cropped version of a picture that previously appeared in the blog is a good example showing the size of the horse in comparison with the rider. I cannot tell for certain if this is a Fjord horse. The color and markings seem correct but it is definitely large enough to be considered a horse not a pony.

Fjord horses were much coveted and used on the farms in Norway and are still used today although mostly to haul tourists around in carts or a bridal couple in a small horse drawn buggy.

Current day postcard showing tourists riding in horse drawn carts near Birksdal glacier.

Norwegian Fjord horses are a special breed and are sometimes referred to as ponies because of their size but they are considered horses even if they are smaller than the normal cutoff for height. They are small but very sturdy and strong, capable of carrying a human and pulling heavy loads.

Most Fjord horses are dun colored although there are five shades that are recognized by the breed registry. The most common color is brown dun but as you can see from the picture, Pil, looks rather darker in color, although that may just be the quality of the photograph. These horses are one of the oldest breeds and have been used for hundreds of years as a farm horse in Norway. It is thought that they have been around since the last ice age and were domesticated over 4,000 years ago. They have a good temperament and can be used with harness and saddle. Although the mane does grow long it is usually trimmed or roached so that it stands up in an attractive manner that also accentuates the horse’s neck. The short mane helps to keep the horse looking well groomed. The ears are small and the eyes are large. Their coat becomes heavy and thick in the winter.

Fjord horses pulling sleds filled with logs, early 1900s, most likely in Telemark

You can see how sturdy they are in this picture as they pull a load of logs through the snow. This next card looks as if the photo was taken at a farmer’s meet or fair where the horses may have been judged, bought and sold.

Fjord horses at farmers fair in Telemark, Norway, early 1900s

In the last card all we can truly see is the shadow and the horse’s legs and hoofs but we also see the back of the wagon and a girl in a Setesdal bunad, light cream colors this time instead of the usual dark colors but still with the traditional bands of brighter colors at the waist and at the hem.

Setesdal girl in cart, ca 1900s

I love the look of these little horses. They remind me of the ponies that the Hobbits used in The Lord of the Rings.

For more information and pictures of Norwegian Fjord horses you may want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord_horse

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Notes:

* Gåseflå is located in Hægeland, Vest Agder, Norway. Lunnen farm is in Hornnes, Aust Agder, Norway.

** Lillejordet, as noted, is near Ulefos, Telemark, Norway. An abbreviated form of the farm name Lia is where I.C. and his brother, A.C. took their American surname of Lee.

The Lees are from my maternal line and the Hornnes/Gåseflå families come from my paternal line.

Hardanger bunad, sølje and Setesdal mangletre

Each area in Norway has its own national costume called a bunad. We are fortunate to have two photographs of Petra Landaas Lee in the Hardanger costume one taken probably about 1893 shortly after she arrived in America and this one taken just before she was married in 1904. Petra was petite, only 4 foot 11 inches tall. In this picture it is possible to see the famous Hardanger cut lace pattern in the apron. The cutwork was all done by hand. No buttons or zippers were used in the wool and linen costume but the blouse and dress were pinned together with little brooches called sølje made especially for that purpose.

The long filigree sølje pin at her neck has become quite fragile and can no longer be worn but has been passed down and framed.