You’ve been going on asking for them for long. And now, here they are! They’re the so-called Dansk Blomstergarn, the floss worldwide known as Danish flower Threads: a rainbow including 130 solid, appealingly matt colors, enhancing any kind of embroidery a special, soft and three-dimensional. And it is not by chance that these threads were expressly created as a tribute to the creativeness and the hand of Gerda Bengtsson, who made plants and flowers – this is where their name comes from – the favorite subject of her art.
Their origins date back to the 1930s, when the Danish master dyer Einar Hansen developed them expressly for the Danish Handcraft Guild, which Gerda Bengtsson was an active member of, being not only a great designer and embroiderer, but also an expert dyer and weaver herself.
The result of that great idea is still available for us today: 20-meter skeins, whose colors and texture perfectly mirror the high aim, which they’ve been created for: ensuring a three-dimensional work, with that particular mark that gives vivid deepness to any stitched herbarium, field of flower or wood, turning them into an invitation to be touched, besides being admired :-)
Just think that in the Museum of Applied Art in Copenhagen, there’s till a series of original color cards, sued by Hansen himself to press the plants that he used to extract the natural dyes for this floss. The dyes were the same used by Danish farmers already in the 19th century!
And, in fact, even though the threads are industrially dyed today, they still keep their “ancient charm” , echoing back the rich Danish textile tradition and matching it to the typical issues of the Third Millennium, such the environment and sustainability. As a matter of fact, the Danish Minister of the Environment, Mrs. Karen Ellemann, has recently drawn an agreement, to put on paper the obligation, for Danish companies, to be “green”: and, first of all, for textile companies, which a special protocol has been developed for, highlighting the ideal procedures, to manufacture in the most environmental-friendly way.
Moreover, some samples of “our” Danish Flower Threads, on an original color shade dating back to the 1960s, are kept in the prestigious Victoria & Albert Museum in London.. Just to further underline the preciousness of these skeins!
So, while waiting for the right time to have a trip to Copenhagen or London :-), why don’t you start dreaming with some of this floss?!???
All the best and… Ciao for now!