Ordets makt: The power of the word

About the Embroiderer

Maria Ehrenberg, a seasoned librarian and researcher of fairy and folk tales, lives in Osby in southern Sweden. Currently leading the culture and library department in Tingsryd municipality, she has devoted her life to cultural heritage. Beyond her professional pursuits, Maria’s passion for textile artistry has become a defining aspect of her creative journey.

Her fascination with textile work encompasses a broad range of crafts, including bobbin lace-making, sewing folk costumes, knitting, and embroidery. Embroidery, in particular, captivates her with its extraordinary richness. Every region, and even every corner of a country, offers interesting traditions and endless possibilities for personal expression. For Maria, embroidery is not merely an art form but a celebration of cultural diversity and human creativity.

While her work often draws from traditional folk art, Maria infuses her interpretations with a personal touch. She deeply admires contemporary Swedish embroidery artists like Britta Marakatt-Labba and Henriette Ousbäck, whose innovative approaches have profoundly inspired her. Her aspirations include exploring similar creative freedom in her own work.

Although Maria considers herself an amateur, her embroidery has made its way into charitable projects and bespoke gifts for friends’ special occasions. With plans to attend a prestigious course at the Royal School of Needlework, she envisions sharing her craft through workshops, where she will teach others using her self-designed embroideries.

Maria’s story is a testament to the enduring appeal of textile artistry as a medium for connecting with tradition and forging new paths of expression. Her work highlights how embroidery continues to thrive as a vibrant and evolving art form in the modern world.

The illustration

The embroidery figure portrays the storyteller: the core of Sagobygden.
Words, as they are spoken, create worlds, both the visible and another possible world. Words hold power. With words you create your world, your future and your history. 
The narrator stands with arms outstretched, emphasising their message while offering the story as a gift to the audience.

The stories are visible in the speech bubble, but what they convey is open to interpretation. It is something for the viewer of the embroidery to decide. Viewers bring their own experiences and stories. Which ones fit into your story? 

The embroiderer to this work chooses to interpret it in the following way: in several folk tales, the princess is a strong and independent person who not infrequently saves her prince herself. Perhaps we see this princess in "Prins Hatt under jorden", a well-known Nordic folk-tale. The fat pig is the “gloson”, a nasty and mythical sow that could attack you in the forest at any time. The goat could be one of the three goats crossing the bridge in "Bockarna Bruse” a well-known folk-tale for children. It also happens to be Maria’s fathers favorite and he often told it to all his children and grandchildren. Or the figures may represent something completely different. 

Choice of Fabric

The first choice of fabric to use for the embroidery work was wool because the idea was to embroider Scanian wool. However, the wool's fuzziness obscured the clarity of the stitches in the embroidery. Inspired by Jacobean Crewel Work, which uses fine linen, Maria then opted for linen instead. Linen fabric also connects to Swedish textile history, as it was commonly used in Swedish folk costumes.

Choice of Yarn

Selecting the yarn was straightforward. When embroidering with wool thread, you want it to be both strong and thin. The Danish Flora yarn is known for its quality and wide colour range. A visit to Copenhagen’s Sommerfuglen store is often the starting point for Maria’s textile projects, and this one was no exception.

Although the illustration’s sections were intended to be monochromatic, Maria introduced various shades of the same colour to create depth and liveliness. She worked with at least three different shades of blue and red. However, she soon noticed that even the fine wool yarn was too thick for delicate details, so she switched to mouliné yarn and added some cotton for the eyes and mouth. Mouliné yarn is a type of thread composed of six loosely twisted strands, commonly used in embroidery and needlework. It is versatile, allowing the strands to be separated to achieve different thicknesses or effects in the project. This flexibility makes it a popular choice for creating detailed and colorful designs. With Gold thread and pearls Maria further elaborated the design. 

Choice of Color

The red and blue tones were given two adjacent shades and one contrasting, adding depth and vibrancy to the embroidery.

Main Technique

It was important for Maria that the technique be tied to storytelling, which led her to choose the Bayeux Tapestry stitches — the oldest form of narrative textile known. After completing a course on this technique, she felt confident incorporating it into her work. Further, Maria also added Scanian Crewel Work because the embroideries made by common people in this technique are usually narratives. Scanian Crewel Work is a traditional form of embroidery that uses wool threads on  wool, sometimes felted. It is characterised by its freehand designs, often featuring intricate floral and natural motifs. This technique allows for a wide variety of stitches and textures, making it a very decorative style of embroidery.

The Stitches

• Laid Work: The Bayeux Tapestry is primarily made using laid stitches, where long horizontal stitches are sewn down with vertical stitches (or vice versa). Sometimes this stitch is called “couching stitch”.
• Split Stitch: A common technique in Scanian Crewel Work.
• Quaker Stitch: A fairly new stitch, a flexible alternative to the more commonly used stem stitch.
• Stem and Back Stitch: These were used for the smaller figures. 

The combination of stitches shows old and new, simple and complicated - just like stories can be. 

Embroidering

• The Dress: Maria created the dress with laid stitches, combining vertical and horizontal stitches in contrasting colours. She also added gold threads, a nod to her favourite tale "Rumpelstiltskin", who spins gold from clay and long straw. 
• The Hat is crafted entirely in split stitches using shades of red and black.
• The Hands and Face were both made using split stitches with outlines in stem stitches.
• The Figures: These tiny figures required finer mouliné yarn (2 strands), and Maria combined backstitches with stem stitches for this. She added pearls to the crown of the  princess, symbolising jewels from the fairytale world. French knots were used for the eyes of the goat and the "gloson"

The Mounting

Assembling or “mounting” an embroidery is a detailed process. Acid-free cardboard is first glued together, then covered with fabric — preferably calico. The embroidery is carefully placed, stretched, and pinned to the surface before being sewn into the backing using herringbone stitches. Maria used very fine damask fabric (half wool and half silk) from Norway for this. 

Maria Ehrenberg’s embroidery, “Ordets makt,” is not only a beautiful piece of craftership but also a reflection of the power of storytelling in textiles, where tradition and personal interpretation intertwine.