One of the more fascinating and beautiful pieces of the Blekinge folk costume is the Luvtallrik. It is a piece of headwear that was worn under the scarves, or by itself if you were a youngster. It is said that the bride should put it on on the third day of wedding, but it is not really clear in what way they were actually used.
If you are able to read in Swedish, or comfortable with using Google Translate, I suggest you head over to Blekingelivet and read their post on the Luvtallrik to get even more information as well as a short tutorial on how to put it on. You can find it here.
There are several luvtallrikar preserved in the museum archives, both at Nordiska Museet, the local museum in Karlshamn as well as Blekinge Museum. They basically consist of an embroidered circle of red woolen fabric, quite often decorated with metal lace, sequins and other shiny things. To keep its shape it is most often stabilised with a wooden plate, which could be a reason for the name, as tallrik is the Swedish word for plate (as in plate for food). Sometimes they are seen with bands hanging from the bottom of the piece, and it is thought by some that the bands only were attached when the headpiece was worn by itself. Most often they were covered with a thin white scarf, a scarf that would be a little bit transparent so the bright red would be seen through it. Kerstin shows a couple of ways to tie the scarf over her luvtallrik in the link above.
My luvtallrik is embroidered with silk from DeVere Yarns, which originally was intended for some brick stitch-embroidery, but I’m way happier with this. The addition of the gold thread is based of a luvtallrik at Nordiska Museet that can be seen both in the pictures above and on this page, and the flower in the middle draws inspiration from this piece, also at Nordiska Museet.
I rushed to finish it late at night, on the evening before I went out and took the photos in the snow that I showed in my last post. Here are some of the photos again that show of the luvtallrik a little bit extra!
Recreating History 
How very beautiful. I love the unusual headwear you get with folk costumes and other traditional costumes and this is no exception. It looks fantastic and is also very interesting.
Could you say a bit more about the ribbons? Did you get them from anywhere special? Are the original ones in particular colours or designs?
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Also, as a follow-up, I looked at the link you shared and my brain immediately went in two places:
1) Oh! That’s how you get those kerchief shapes!!!
2) That looks a lot like a wulsthaube.
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Thank you! I love unusual and silly headwear, so I’m all for it! ^_^
The jaquard ribbon on the Luvtallrik, and on the skirt are produced by Papilionaceous Silk in the UK together with the women of Blekingelivet (the linked page) to make ribbons as close to an original they have in a collection. Mine is with white warp, so it is a bit lighter than the original, but there isn’t really anything that would be special about the orignal silk ribbons. They were sold by moving tradesmen, and you can find the same ribbons all over Sweden in different folk costumes. There was a lot of variety in the originals (check out this link to see some https://digitaltmuseum.se/search/?q=livstycke%20blekinge&o=0&n=80 – press “Visa fler träffar” if you have to), and the biggest issue for us today is to find actual silk ribbons, as the ones we mostly find today tend to be made of viscose or something else.
The plain taffeta silk ribbon I bought at my local harberdashery shop here in Gothenburg. Also a pain to get pure silk taffeta ribbon, but I’m lucky to have them close. 🙂
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