Society's future needs regarding health care present challenges to traditional nursing education. Today, the ambition is to create a nursing role that is appropriate to people's health care needs rather than the needs of the health care system. In nursing education, the major subject - nursing care - is central. Accordingly, there is a need for a consistent and clear articulation of this subject as well as the nursing profession. The aim of the present study was to interpret and describe the major subject, its content and structure in the nursing programme at Malardalen University. With a hermeneutic approach an interpretation and application emerged as a metaphor of nursing care - the woven fabric. In this structure concepts function as bridges linking theory and practice, whereby it is possible to integrate different aspects of knowledge in order to think, feel and act nursing care.