Things fell into place! Fabric was bought! Alar and Jorma Friberg (museum researcher, photographer, artist, boat master, etc., all in one person) together came up with and put in order these historical figures. Jorma was in charge of the artistic design. When museum staff Margit and Anu had finished trimming the fabric edges, the work could begin. So, he drew these figures and characters on the fabric, 3 meters at a time (couldn’t do more at once, would have faded away).

We started the work in November 2001—still on Thursdays. At first, we embroidered the outlines so they wouldn’t fade, and then we began filling in where necessary, “growing meat on the bones.”

Alma made the first stitches! And all of us who contributed—Agnete, Aino, and I (Silvi-Astrid), Silvi-Ellen and Sirje. Mrs. Elvi from town joined us (she had seen an article in the paper about rug embroidery and wanted to help). The entire museum staff participated, embroidering every Friday afternoon (everyone was equal). Jorma himself and Aapo, who was an intern at the museum—funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. Alar, with his wife Katrin and their 4-year-old son Johannes (who embroidered a bit of green “grass”). In the spring, Maria Gilbert and Inga Nylander joined us—living in Sweden in the winter and in Estonia in the summer at that time. But soon we realized that things weren’t progressing as quickly as they needed to, so we started going to “work” twice a week!

It still seemed like time was running out. The rug had to be ready by May 5, 2002. We agreed that we would come to embroider whenever someone had time—even every day! And so the rug was completed, two weeks before the presentation date, as needed. The rug still needed to be pressed, mounted on the wall, and framed.

It was a very nice and fun job. Alar played the accordion for us in the background and sometimes played so fast that I had to ask him to slow down, we couldn’t keep up and might prick our fingers with the needle!