Tønder Væveramme. From the book Meta Rosenberg, Vævebog for Sønderborg Garn (Sønderborg: Det Nordiske Kamgarnsspinderi, n.d.)

Rosa Tolnov Clausen details the rediscovery of Meta Rosenberg’s portable Tønder Loom Frame, an enduring tool that keeps the ancient art of hand-weaving perpetually relevant and accessible for modern life.

There is no space for large looms in private homes in our modern times, and thus, with the rigid heddle loom, I hope to give each and every home the opportunity to practice this ancient craft by elevating it so it can maintain its cultural significance. Attentively following the instructions and patterns provided will also allow interested parties without a weaving education a simple, attainable way of teaching themselves to weave on the Tønder Loom Frame, and in doing so to discover a new, beautiful and useful, fun and usable craft. To ease the learning process, special subject-specific expressions have been left out of the various instructions; these would only make them difficult to understand for people without weaving experience.

(Rosenberg, 1935)

For many years, I have owned a rigid-heddle loom with a small metal emblem nailed to it, engraved with the name Tønder Væveramme (“Loom frame”). Since 2017, a very similar rigid-heddle loom model, just newer with the name Lervad – Made in Denmark printed on the wood, has been an essential part of my temporary and mobile Weaving Kiosk project. Yet it was only during a visit when I stood in the town of Skærbæk in Southern Jutland, Denmark, using a Tønder Væveramme that it occurred to me that this loom likely originated from this area, with the city of Tønder being merely 50 km away.

Metal label on Tønder Væveramme

Weaving Kiosk in Helsinki employing a descendant of Rosenbergs Tønder Væveramme produced by Danish loom manufacturer Lervad in the 1970s. Photo Jukka Kiistala.

Shortly after this, I stumbled over the instructive weaving book Vævebog For Væveramme (Weaving Book For Loom Frame) written by a woman by the name of Meta Rosenberg. Sitting in the car after the purchase and leafing through the A4-sized booklet from 1935, I understood that here sat I with the key to the history of the loom that had so long been a central part of my artistic practice.

Cover of Vævebog For Væveramme published in 1935.

Meta Rosenberg

Meta Rosenberg does not figure in any Danish weaving history books or articles. This is despite her being the progenitor of the highly popular, Danish-made rigid heddle loom model Tønder Væveramme, of which, since 1933, thousands have been sold in Denmark and internationally. Tønder Væveramme underwent different redesign processes after Meta Rosenberg’s death in 1958, but stayed in production by the Danish loom production company Lervad until the 1990s under the name Loom no. 11.(Looms for Hand Weaving, 1978)

According to church records, Meta Rosenberg was born in Ballum on May 5th, 1892. Ballum is in the Danish-German border region, which, since 1864, had been considered part of Prussia. Meta Rosenberg was baptised with the name Metha Mikkoline Carlsen. She was educated as a nurse in Flensburg, present-day Germany.

In 1920, the year when the demarcation line between Denmark and Prussia was redrawn following Germany´s defeat in World War I, Metha Mikkoline Carlsen was married to farmer Lars Peter Rosenberg. As Lars passed away only eight years later, Meta continued to run the farm with her stepson for a couple of years.

Tønder Væveramme

In 1933, Rosenberg launched Tønder Væveramme together with Danish loom manufacturer Anders Lervad & Son. The design is a revolution for hand-weaving in Denmark. Although some smaller looms that aimed towards leisure weaving and were more suitable for the smaller, urban homes into which an increasing number of Danes had begun moving during industrialisation had already been introduced in Denmark at the time, (La Cour and Siegumfeldt, 1915, 1915) Tønder Væveramme revolutionised.

For one, the simplicity of the rigid heddle loom frame suddenly made it very easy to take up weaving, even with no prior experience. Secondly, Rosenberg published instructive weaving literature together with the launch of the tool, which was written without specific weaving terminology. A similar development to what happened around other leisure crafts: see Stephen D. Knott, Amateur Craft: History and Theory (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, xiii). Thirdly, the price of the loom put it in reach of a much wider clientele than could afford traditional looms. And lastly and importantly, the lightness of the design unlocked a whole new range of contexts in which hand-weaving could take place, for example, in the garden on a sunny day, as depicted in Rosenberg´s book.

Image from Vævebog for Væveramme under which the caption reads in the author’s translation: “A beautiful summer day in the garden, which allows for both enjoying the summer and sun and fiddling with one’s work on the loom.”

Furthermore, if one was interested in conducting or joining a weaving course, the loom could now be brought along, rather than weavers having to gather where the looms were. To support this, a backpack was designed to conveniently carry Tønder Væveramme.

Tønder Væveramme in an original canvas transportation bag. Year unknown. Owner Flemming Lundholt. Photograph: Kathrine Branstrup.

International influences

Meta Rosenberg was not the first to think of a rigid heddle loom, or of a rigid heddle loomframe – the rigid heddle loom can be traced two thousand years back (Geijer, 1994), and the rigid heddle loom frame is known from Germany from at least the late 1920s, produced there by the loom manufacturer Walter Kirchner Webrahmen (Kircher, 1986).

Another loom produced by NWK Webrahmen in the city of Flensburg, Germany, dates from around the same time. Flensburg, however, is the city where Rosenberg received her education as a nurse. One might thus ask if it is not likely that it was through some encounter in this area, and because of Meta Rosenberg’s ties to Germany, that the idea and design of Tønder Væveramme was born? I wonder whether Rosenberg might have participated in one of the itinerant rigid loom frame weaving courses which Walter Kirchner Webrahmen is known to have offered in the 1920s in Germany (Kircher, 1986)?

New national legislation

Meta Rosenberg´s launch of Tønder Væveramme coincided with the passing of extensive social reforms in Denmark in 1935 in a way that appears to have been congenial (Clausen, 2025).  These reforms laid the foundations of the Danish welfare state as we know it today. The evening school law, which implied that liberal education could be organised by private operators nationwide and receive funding from the state, was part of these reforms. The Danish government put a special emphasis on evening courses that would revive old Danish crafts, including hand-weaving. This meant that many weaving courses were launched across Denmark, courses for which looms were needed. As mentioned earlier, the design of the Tønder Væveramme permitted the students to bring their own looms along to the courses, and thus meet in any suitable perhaps indeed even temporary location, such as a town halls, making these courses independent from permanently established weaving workshop meant a big demand in Tønder Væveramme and the launch of several other small portable loom models by both Lervad and other producers.

The Weaving Kiosk

In 2017, I initiated the project Weaving Kiosk. I wanted to spark an interest in hand-weaving with a younger generation in the Nordic countries. Based on my observations in my design education as well as from visits I had been making to free-time weaving workshops in Denmark, it was my impression that, other than hand-knitting and crocheting, which had begun an arc of flourishing in these years, hand-weaving was not a textile craft that was receiving increased attention from a young audience. I wondered whether this was due to the invisibility of the craft in public space and/or to notions of hand-weaving as an inevitably difficult and time-demanding craft. I wondered what would happen if hand-weaving were made visible and accessible in Nordic urban centres where many young people live.

The Weaving Kiosk is a mobile weaving workshop that can be set up in any temporary space, preferably in empty urban storefronts. Depending on the size of the space, a Weaving Kiosk will offer two to five pre-warped and ready-to-use looms. Together with the looms, weft yarns are available, as well as product design proposals, of which the weaver can make their own version. The looms are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and no fee is charged to work in the Kiosk or use the materials. During opening hours, at least one host is present at all times in the Kiosk (usually me), who will introduce and assist weavers along the weaving and sewing process? But the Weaving Kiosk is not a course, nor is the host a teacher. Weavers can ask for help if they need and want, and they can stay for as long as they would like. My Kiosks are often open in the evening and weekends, outside “normal” working hours.

Kindred spirits across a century

Coming across Vævebog for Væveramme, and since diving deeper into Meta Rosenberg´s life and practice through visits to local Danish archives, I have come to think of Meta Rosenberg as a kindred spirit. I feel a kinship with her indefatigable pursuit to nourish the craft of hand-weaving, to make it more accessible and more attractive for new practitioners in a society that, at her time, was changing as ours today feels to be. That she did not give up on hand-weaving, despite facing the industrialisation of the craft, but rather acknowledged that hand-weaving practice could be practised and take place in a different way and have a different impact from what it had had a century earlier and then explore this potential.

This is exactly what I feel has happened through the Weaving Kiosk project. I changed how and where hand-weaving could be practised, and through the hundreds of visits I have had in the Kiosks, I have understood that there is an interest in, and a place for hand-weaving with young people. I also understood that their motivations are manifold. For some, it is a productive effort of a usable thing like a bag, a scarf or a belt that matters. For others, maybe the experience of making something unique by hand. For others, yet again, the Kiosks have been welcomed expressive valves in an otherwise streamlined, digitalised study or work life. For others, the Weaving Kiosk have provided a soothing space during a period of stress or sick leave.

References

Rosenberg, Meta. Vævebog for Væveramme (København: Nyt Nordisk Forlag – Arnold Busk., 1935), 5. Author´s translation. Original: ”Hvor der i vor moderne Tid ikke er Plads i Hjemmene til store Væve, vil jeg gerne med Rammevæven give ethvert Hjem Lejlighed til gennem Udøvelsen af den gamle Vævekunst at være med til at højne denne, saa den kan faa fortsat kulturel Betydning. Ved nøje at følge de givne Anvisninger og Opskrifter vil ogsaa i k k e – udannnede Interesserede paa en let og overskuelig Maade kunne lære sig selv at væve paa Tønder Væveramme og herigennem finde et nyt, smukt og nyttigt, morsomt og anvendeligt Haandarbejde. For yderliger at lette Tilegnelsen af de forskellige Anvisninger er der i Beskrivelsen udeladt en Del specielle Fagudtryk, der vilde gøre Forstaaelsen besværlig for uindviede.”

Looms for Hand Weaving, UK 1978, 208, 1974-1996 Vævekataloger, A631, Vejen Lokalarkiv, Denmark.

La Cour, Jenny, and Johanne Siegumfeldt. Vævebog for hjemmene

Vejledning i praktisk vævning og kunstvævning. 3 (1915). København: Rom, 1897.

Agnes Geijer, Ur textilkonstens historia, 3., [utök.] uppl. (Stockholm: Tiden, 1994), 50–51.

Clausen, R. (2025). “Weaving spaces in Nordic cities.” PhD dissertation, University of Gothenburg, pp. 117-118.

Kircher, Ursula, Von Hand Gewebt (Marburg, Hessen: Hitzeroth Druck + Medien, 1986), 211.

About Rosa Tolnov Clausen

I hold an MA in textile design and a PhD in Crafts. My creative practice oscillates between the fields of craft and design. I create physical spaces about the practice of hand-weaving, using the craft as a catalyst for physical, social and creative interaction, and a pause in the contemporary urban everyday. I challenge notions about hand-weaving as a necessarily time- and space-consuming craft requiring high technical skill.

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Finland | G41 | Rosa Tolnov Clausen | weaving