Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1913-04-04
IN QUAINT SWEDEN
Revival of Handicraft is Renew
ing Scandinavian Youth.
SCENES OF CONFINEMENT.
Women Busy Themselves With Lace
making and Basketry, Besides Fash
ioning All the Family Clothes, and
Even Weave Clothes of the Men.

The crusade for handicraftS has been
successful in Sweden rs in no other
land, says the Craftsman. Incidental
ly it has added millions Of dollars an
nually to the economic prosperity Of
the nation. Into one formerly poverty
stricken farming village the revival Of
homemade basketry is bringing $50 900
year; in another, lacemaking adds an
equal amount; in the third parish the
old men, too old for toll in the fields,
earn $4,000 a year by carving furni-
ture.
farm desolation and made it possible
for the peasant population in the face
of industrial competition to remain in
possession Of their ancestral estates.
But more important than external
economic prosperity is the eXuberance
of life and health which their beautiful
toll brings to the workmen in Sweden.
If you doubt it. go into the north, to
Dalecarlia: visit the parish Of Mock
fjerd in summer and see group Of
glad eyed women gathered under the
birch trees about Il table decked with
pillows and bobbnS and piles Of deli
cate lace
Their clothing -kerchief and bodice
and aprOn-embroidered with gay
flower pattern. is in keeping with the
perpetual springtime of their moods.
Or stop by the roadside ~ Nermland
and watch a gay family party. grand.
mother and grandchildren, breaking
and scutching flax amid story telling
and fun and frolic. If you are playful
you will receive a baptism of soft
white chaff showered on You by nimble
hands.
Another evidence Of the return OF
youth to the nation is the revival of
national dress. One Swedish princess
requires peasant costume of all of her
ladies in waiting at her summer court.
The artist Zorn when at home goes
about in the blue knickerboclIers and
white leather apron that are tradition
al to the men of Mora.
1t is not merely fad for the few.
There are villages in Dalecarlia where
on the Sabbath every man, woman
and child goes to church in a costume
into which mother or wife has woven
her own intimate expression Of the
beautiful and which symboliZes for the
wearer the JOY of worship.
A gorgeous spectacle they present on
the road home from church. Each
parish has its own fashion-the cock
ade of Rattvik, the striped apron OF
LeckSand, the red braid in the hair OF
the Mora girl-while the connoisseur
recognizes at once the more subtle
badges which distinguish maid from
mother and wife from widow. The
effect is unlike anything in Europe
more varied than the gala costume or
Brittany, more decorative than the
dress of the Bavarian peasant-almost
Asatic in it's richness.
Yet the total disregard for modern
fashions and Partisan modes does no
impress one as retrograde or ridicu'
louS even in up to date Sweden, where
the telephone service is the. best anu
clearest in the world. The knicker-
bockers Of the men are more comforta-
BILE than trousers, ana cannot the
farmers daughter ring the telephone
and ride her bicycle to market in a
scarlet bodice and a dainty white en-
brOidered kerchief?