Icelandic Textile Museum

Textiles carried real weight in old Iceland — wool was clothing, trade goods and often the margin between surviving the winter and not. This is the country's only museum built wholly around them. Opened in 1976, it fills a purpose-built house on the Blanda riverbank in Blönduós, with national costumes of different periods, embroidery and wool work, and a room on Halldóra Bjarnadóttir, a pioneer of Icelandic home crafts. Temporary shows bring in living artists through the seasons.