Do You Know Huck Toweling? The Old-School Swedish Weaving Technique Gains Popularity

June 29th, 2008 in embroidery

Laurel_Tuohy, member

no recommendations

Traditional huck toweling patterns are, well, traditional but once you learn the technique you can take the craft anywhere you like. These projects, from Avery Hill, show the simple beauty of the stitches.

Photo: Courtesy of Avery Hill

Add Comment

Email to a Friend
Print

Huck Toweling, an old-school Nordic weaving or embroidery technique that gained popularity in the 1940s, is making a comeback among young crafters.

Huck Toweling can refer to the fabric used for the craft, most often Monk's Cloth today, or the actual embroidery technique which is also sometimes called Huck Embroidery. The technique, traditionally used to embellish hand towels, curtains and other household fabrics, is a surface embroidery technique that requires "floating" floss. "Floating" yarn or floss means that the fibers are woven under the top layers of the fabric but don't penetrate the back or "wrong" side of the fabric.

Though this sounds like painstaking handwork, many advocates find the precision and detail of the small stitches something that relaxes them and allows them to lose themselves into the craft. Once you get into the rhythm of the stitching, projects can be completed quickly since the floss isn't going through the fabric completely.

Here is a how-to on the craft from eHow and a simple free pattern from Avery Hill that would look great on the edge of a towel for your first project.

posted in: embroidery

Add Comment Email to a Friend

Comments (1)

Omargot writes: I am glad to see some one doing huck embroidery. I used to do it many years ago and thought I should get back. recently I started using the designs in my greeting cards.
It is a dying art. I have a dream of starting an embroidery club and huckk embroidery is one of the the art I would like to introduce. Posted: 4:58 pm on July 12th

You must be logged in to post comments. Click here to login.