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| The Virgin Mary spinning with a free-standing distaff, the Nationl Museum of Hungary, c. 1410, and my sloppy version of her distaff... |
Showing posts with label Wool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wool. Show all posts
Friday, 18 December 2015
Ode to the Distaff II: Bonus picture!
As I kept spinning from my rolled up wad of wool, I eventually came to the point when I hade to re-roll it to make the cloth tighter. When I put it back onto the distaff, I arranged it in the same manner as in the image of the Virgin Mary from the National Museum of Hungary I showed in the previous post. It puts the wool in a really comfortable position for drafting, escpecially when having the distaff standing straight up in a floor stand, so I thought I just post a picture of it. My wool is a lot more untidy than the Virgin's, but it works great for the fluffier and less even weft thread I'm spinning at the moment!
Saturday, 5 December 2015
Ode to the Distaff
Handspinning has
completely taken over my spare time lately. I work full time and
commute for a total of three hours every day, so I need to set goals
for my crafting to actually get things done. If I don't, I will just
collapse on the sofa when I come home in the evening and do nothing.
Sad but true. So a while ago, I decided to try to spin for an
absolute minimum of eight hours per week (with a spindle - wheel
spinning doesn't count). It's not much, but it's something and it has
made a little difference - I'm getting faster for one thing! And
since spinning for me partly consists of collapsing
perching primly on the sofa anyway - see video below! - it's not even
particularly taxing to keep it up.
These days, I almost always spin with a distaff if I have the choice, twirling the spindle with one hand and drafting with the other. It wasn't love at first sight when I started learning this traditional and time-honoured technique, though. I think 'complete and utter frustration' sums up my initial feelings quite accurately. All aspirations of thread control went out the window and it was like starting all over again with only thick-and-thin, useless yarn as the result (useless for my purposes, that is. I don't do art yarn. Not at the moment, anyway). It took a fair amount of practice, but once I got the hang of it, it quickly became my preferred way of spinning. I went from total frustration to 'No more suspended spindling for me, EVER!' in less than 3 months.
The distaff is a fantastic tool - it works as a third hand. Judging from how spinners are depicted in contemporary art, it also seems to be virtually ubiquitous to medieval spindle spinning (there are a few exceptions, of course, like in this early 13th century manuscript, and perhaps this one from the 14th century). Even when more or less suspended spinning is shown - as in this rather rare depiction of a top whorl spindle, for example - the distaff is still there, and the one-hand drafting technique, too:
With a distaff to hold
the fibres, my hands are free to draft and twirl the spindle and it
gives me a much better workning position than suspended spindling
without a distaff does. I also find that it's much easier to control
the amount of twist that goes into the thread this way (which is kind
of important when you spin yarn for historical purposes). In
addition, it completely removes the problem of back-spin - that
annoying phenomenon when your thread has eaten all the momentum of
the turning spindle and it starts going the other way while you're
still busy drafting. Many medieval spindle whorls are small with a
low moment of inertia, which means they spin fast, but stop turning
really quickly and you have to restart them a lot to avoid
back-spin when you're spinning
suspended. And guess what - the distaff/spindle in hand-technique
more or less takes the 'drop' out of 'drop spindle' (a term I've
never really understood anyway - it has no Swedish equivalent; here
we just have 'sländor' (spindles), plain and simple). Now I don't
mind using my precious clay whorls on our hardwood floors at home,
because even if the thread breaks, I don't drop them anymore.
Here's a video of me spinning warp thread for weaving, with a distaff made out of a broom stick. When I've spun a length of thread, I stop drafting and add extra twist to it. As I relax the thread to unhitch the half hitch that keeps it on the spindle, I simultaneously check the twist by feeling the resistance as the thread curls back on itself.
More and more medieval
reenactors use a distaff and hand-held spindle when spinning these
days. It's becoming quite a trend among historical fibre geeks!
Usually, I'm not a huge fan of reenactment fads. Far too often they
are based on scant sources and result in odd over-representations
when suddenly the whole reenactment community is doing the same
thing. And people often end up copying other reenactors rather than
looking at the sources themselves, which is not the way to go in my
opinion. But when it comes to distaffs and spinning, it's a trend
that simply can't go wrong! It's raising the authenticity in
reenactment displays by showing tools and techniques that were
actually common and widespread both geographically and over time.
In art, medieval distaffs appear to be around a metre in length, held under the arm, tucked into the belt, held between the knees while sitting or sometimes mounted on a stand. The Roman or ancient Greek tradition of short, hand-held distaffs doesn't seem to be the way to go for medieval spinning. I've found one medieval image - or rather a sculpture - with what might be a hand-held distaff. It's St Gertrude of Nivelles, a 7th century saint often portrayed spinning and surrounded by rats. However, it might just be that the rest of the distaff has broken off, but I couldn't tell by looking at the statue whether that was the case or not. It's a nice rat, though...
As far as I know, not
a whole lot of finds have been identified by archaeologists as
distaffs. I mean, a lot of the time they would just be plain sticks,
so there's not much to identify really. There's a medieval one from
Schloss Gottorf in northern Germany (see below), though, and several distaff heads have been found at medieval Novgorod in Russia. From
Staraia Ladoga, also in Russia, there are reported finds of distaffs
from as early as the 9th century. Both the ones from Novgorod and
those from Staraia Ladoga seem to be 'bat distaffs' with a top
section shaped like a paddle, a type that remained popular in Russia
well into the 19th century (Sherman 2008). It's not a type that seems
to be depicted in European medieval manuscripts, though, and although
similar distaffs exist here in Sweden from post-medieval times, I've
decided to stick with the straight stick version for now. Although
Novgorod traded a lot with Europe through the Hanseatic League in the
Middle Ages, I'm personally a little wary of using finds from such a
relatively far-off place when my focus is southern
Scandinavia/northern Germany (on the other hand, the huge amount of
well-preserved wooden objects makes it very difficult not to glance
eastwards to Novgorod every once in a while...).
There are many ways of
dressing a distaff. The most commonly depicted versions in medieval
manuscripts appear to fall into two (very!) broad categories:
- the more or less fluffy fibre bundle, often tied in place by a narrow band
- the cone-shaped fibre bundle, either tied with a band or with some sort of cloth (?) cover, or both. More images of medieval distaffs and spinning can be found over at my Pinterest board Medieval Fibre Preparation & Spinning, where I've also tried to add the original source for all the pins.
Basically, it's
perfectly possible to achieve all these different shapes using a
simple straight stick as a distaff. The cone-shaped ones may have
some sort of structure underneath, perhaps like a 'modern' (19th century) cage distaff or something similar, but it's
difficult to tell from the contemporary images exactly what's hiding
under the fibres.
In some cases, it's obvious that the images show flax being spun rather than wool - if the spinner (or monkey, in the case of the illuminated manuscript below) is running the thread through their mouth, it's a pretty good indication of flax (or hemp) spinning, since it's commonly spun wet.
But sometimes people
claim you can tell what fibre is being spun in an image just from the
shape of the fibre bundle on the distaff. I'm not so sure. Medieval
images just aren't detailed enough and most distaff shapes can
actually be created with either wool or flax. It's just a matter of
how you arrange the fibres. Wool can be gathered into long, thick
tops that look very much like flax strick (hackled flax bundles) when
tied to a distaff and flax, on the other hand, can be wrapped like
candy floss around the distaff head. Which ends up looking rather
round and fluffy and wool-like. Long fibres that hang straight down
may of course be flax, but then again, this is what my distaff
looks like when I'm spinning worsted wool:
And this is how I go
about dressing it:
Here's another way of
getting the fibres onto the distaff; this works very well for
industrially prepared tops or for hand-combed wool, but carded rolags
can also be tied to the distaff in this way.
Combed tops (or their
modern counterpart) can also be wound around the distaff, as may be
the case in this image:
Modern carded batts or
hand-carded (or even just teased) wool collected into a big pile can
be rolled into a nice little package like this...
...which looks a lot
like the distaff arrangement in this image...
...and also like the Virgin Mary's fibre bundle in this image (but without the angel):
The package can be
attached to the distaff at a jaunty angle as in the image above, or
simply stuck unceremoniously onto the top of the distaff as it is:
As long as the fibres
aren't too sticky, I've found that almost anything goes when it comes
to dressing a distaff. A great messy tangle is fine - as long as it's
possible to pull the wool off it one-handed, it'll work - but it
will affect the thread. Snags, neps and sticky fibres on the
distaff naturally make a less even thread, while carefully prepared
wool really helps in spinning a smooth thread. Like so many other
things, the end result owes so much to the preparations. I often use
the tie around the bundle to control the flow of fibres, adjusting it
to give me just enough resistance to draft against when I want a
non-fuzzy thread. I personally find it helps with a little bit of
resistance when I want a smooth thread, but for fluffier yarn I just
let twist do most of the drafting for me. At the moment (in between
sessions of spinning for weaving), I trying to learn how to do a
proper woollen long draw, which of course requires yet another
slightly different one-handed drafting technique. I'm starting to get
some usable thread out of it now, and it's good practice for the day
when I finally get myself a great wheel...
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/NovgorodfabricP.html
Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Volym 4: "From Flax to Linen in Medieval Rus Lands" - Heidi M. Sherman, 2008.
Dressing distaffs:
How I Dress My Distaff- A Stitch inTime
So what IS just sogreat about adistaff? - 15th Century Spinning
These days, I almost always spin with a distaff if I have the choice, twirling the spindle with one hand and drafting with the other. It wasn't love at first sight when I started learning this traditional and time-honoured technique, though. I think 'complete and utter frustration' sums up my initial feelings quite accurately. All aspirations of thread control went out the window and it was like starting all over again with only thick-and-thin, useless yarn as the result (useless for my purposes, that is. I don't do art yarn. Not at the moment, anyway). It took a fair amount of practice, but once I got the hang of it, it quickly became my preferred way of spinning. I went from total frustration to 'No more suspended spindling for me, EVER!' in less than 3 months.
The distaff is a fantastic tool - it works as a third hand. Judging from how spinners are depicted in contemporary art, it also seems to be virtually ubiquitous to medieval spindle spinning (there are a few exceptions, of course, like in this early 13th century manuscript, and perhaps this one from the 14th century). Even when more or less suspended spinning is shown - as in this rather rare depiction of a top whorl spindle, for example - the distaff is still there, and the one-hand drafting technique, too:
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| British Library, 'The Rutland Psalter', Add MS 62925 fol. 86r, c. 1260. |
Here's a video of me spinning warp thread for weaving, with a distaff made out of a broom stick. When I've spun a length of thread, I stop drafting and add extra twist to it. As I relax the thread to unhitch the half hitch that keeps it on the spindle, I simultaneously check the twist by feeling the resistance as the thread curls back on itself.
In art, medieval distaffs appear to be around a metre in length, held under the arm, tucked into the belt, held between the knees while sitting or sometimes mounted on a stand. The Roman or ancient Greek tradition of short, hand-held distaffs doesn't seem to be the way to go for medieval spinning. I've found one medieval image - or rather a sculpture - with what might be a hand-held distaff. It's St Gertrude of Nivelles, a 7th century saint often portrayed spinning and surrounded by rats. However, it might just be that the rest of the distaff has broken off, but I couldn't tell by looking at the statue whether that was the case or not. It's a nice rat, though...
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| St. Gertrude of Nivelles, wooden sculpture,1390-1400. Originally from Pfarrkirche St. Michael in Spiringen, Switzerland. Swiss National Museum, Zürich. Pix by Vix. |
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| Medieval distaff (and also spindles and parts of niddy-noddies), Schloss Gottorf, Germany. Pix by Vix. |
- the more or less fluffy fibre bundle, often tied in place by a narrow band
- the cone-shaped fibre bundle, either tied with a band or with some sort of cloth (?) cover, or both. More images of medieval distaffs and spinning can be found over at my Pinterest board Medieval Fibre Preparation & Spinning, where I've also tried to add the original source for all the pins.
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| 'The Holkham Bible', British Library, AddMss 47682, fol. 4v & 6r, 1320-30. |
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| A nun (St. Gertrude?) spinning in the company of a helpful cat. 'Maastricht Hours', British Library, Stowe MS 17, fol. 34r, 1st half of the 14th century. |
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| British Library, MS Royal 10 E IV, fol. 49v, early 14th century. |
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| Another one of those rarely depicted top whorl spindles! 'The Taymouth Hours', British Library, MS Yates Thompson 13, fol. 23v, 2nd quarter of the 14th century. |
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| Could this perhaps be an image showing the elusive practice of spinning dyed wool (see this previous post)? 'Ormesby Psalter', Bodleian Library, MS Douce 366, fol. 71v, c. 1310. |
In some cases, it's obvious that the images show flax being spun rather than wool - if the spinner (or monkey, in the case of the illuminated manuscript below) is running the thread through their mouth, it's a pretty good indication of flax (or hemp) spinning, since it's commonly spun wet.
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| A monkey spinning flax. British Library, Additional 18851 f459, 1480s. |
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| Combed wool from the double-coated Värmland sheep, a Swedish landrace breed. |
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| Top left image: hand-combed tops rolled into little 'bird's nests' for storage. Bottom left image: a wide band of woollen cloth (150x10 cm) with pieces of the tops arranged in layers. Right image: the band and wool rolled around the distaff and secured with a pin and a linen tie. A similar way of doing this can be found at Katrin Kania's blog A Stitchin Time: How I dress my distaff. |
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| 'The Queen Mary Psalter', BL Royal 2 B VII, fol 158, between 1310 and 1320. |
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| 'Speculum humanae salvationis'. GKS 80 2o, fol. 6r, the first half of the 15th century. Det Konglige Bibliotek, Copenhagen, Denmark. |
...and also like the Virgin Mary's fibre bundle in this image (but without the angel):
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| Virgin Mary, pregnant and spinning. Anonymous, c. 1410. Hungarian National Museum, Budapest. |
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| There! Let's start spinning already! |
References:
Textiles tools from
medieval Novgorod:http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/NovgorodfabricP.html
Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Volym 4: "From Flax to Linen in Medieval Rus Lands" - Heidi M. Sherman, 2008.
Dressing distaffs:
How I Dress My Distaff- A Stitch inTime
So what IS just sogreat about adistaff? - 15th Century Spinning
Friday, 18 September 2015
Dyed in the Wool
Lately, I've been spamming Facebook and
Instagram with prettily arranged collages of differently coloured dyed-in-the-wool...wool. I bought it from The Mulberry Dyer at the market during this summer's big reenactment event, the Battle of Azincourt
1415-2015.
I also spoke more French at (yes, at...)
bemused strangers than I've ever done before, which is very unlike me but in A Good
Way. And I really enjoyed the market at the event.
Well, back to the wool. I really like spinning dyed wool, it always puts a smile on my face to look up at the distaff and see a brightly coloured ball of fluff sitting there. The spinning of dyed wool is never shown in medieval artwork, though (not that I know of), but it was done. There are medieval finds of raw wool from Hull, England, that were dyed with an indigotine dye (most likely woad) (Armstrong & Ayers 1987) and according to John Munro, dyeing could take place during any stage of fabric production; as wool, as thread and as finished cloth (Munro 2003). The 15th century English translation of the 13th century manuscript De doctrina cordis - The Doctrine of the Hert - says that cloth that was dyed in the wool never lost is colour, "but þe cloth þat is died in cloth, it wille oft tyme chaunge colour" (Woolgar 2006, 160). The Doctrine of the Hert is a devotional text for nuns, so the statement is probably used allegorically, but it's still an indication of the actual practice of dyeing in the wool and that it was considered to create a good and fast colour.
And here's how I make the big rolags:
I'm not really a big event person - I turn
into a shy, anti-social clam and usually end up with a migraine to boot - but
I'm very happy I went to Azincourt this summer. I mean, a 600-year anniversary
only happens once!
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| Why did the reenactor go to France? To stand slouching forlornly in a muddy field. In the rain. Apparently. Photo: Karolina |
As usual, some of the stuff being sold was mostly
for the tourists, but a great many merchants were there for the reenactors,
which was really nice. As more and more merchants arrived, those of us staying
in the camp could actually say "Let's go down to the market and see what's
new today!" Some of my fellow Swedes went shopping crazy, but I tried to
stick to my (questionable? stupid? vain?) decision to stay away from All That
Fancy Stuff. We don't do personas like they do in the SCA, but I'm quite sure "medieval
me" wouldn't be anywhere near a high status lady. My reenactment group Albrechts
Bössor portrays a company of mercenary gunners and I myself (obviously) have a
strong leaning towards textile crafts like spinning and weaving on a more or
less professional level. So no overly conspicuous consumption for me, as long
as I hang around with mercenaries or do the work of a middle class artisan/craftsperson...
But I did spoil myself with a small, slightly
'out-of-chatacter' item, something I've wanted for a very long time: an ink
pot.
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| The Azincourt Loot. Wool, a wooden mug, the ink pot, thread reels and spindle whorls |
Well, back to the wool. I really like spinning dyed wool, it always puts a smile on my face to look up at the distaff and see a brightly coloured ball of fluff sitting there. The spinning of dyed wool is never shown in medieval artwork, though (not that I know of), but it was done. There are medieval finds of raw wool from Hull, England, that were dyed with an indigotine dye (most likely woad) (Armstrong & Ayers 1987) and according to John Munro, dyeing could take place during any stage of fabric production; as wool, as thread and as finished cloth (Munro 2003). The 15th century English translation of the 13th century manuscript De doctrina cordis - The Doctrine of the Hert - says that cloth that was dyed in the wool never lost is colour, "but þe cloth þat is died in cloth, it wille oft tyme chaunge colour" (Woolgar 2006, 160). The Doctrine of the Hert is a devotional text for nuns, so the statement is probably used allegorically, but it's still an indication of the actual practice of dyeing in the wool and that it was considered to create a good and fast colour.
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| The wool turned into big rolags. IT'S SO FLUFFY!!! |
The wool I bought from the Mulberry Dyer
was dyed with madder (the red and pale pink), woad (the blue) and woad/weld (the
green) on white Shetland wool. She didn't have very much dyed wool to sell at Azincourt, so
I simply picked the shades that I could get more than 10 grams of. My first thought
was to use the yarn as singles to add stripes to a fabric on the Big Loom, but
I eventually decided to make the yarn two-ply instead and use it for tablet
weaving.
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| Spindle and distaff collage. The colours, THE COLOURS! |
Most of the green thread was spun at the 100 Jahre 14tes Jahrhundert event at Ronneburg at the end of August. My distaff
was nicknamed The Muppet, for obvious reasons. Who knew muppets were such a
joy to spin?! ;-)
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| The Muppet (much diminished) and me at Ronneburg. Photo: grafips.de |
The Muppet also forced me to stretch my
meagre skills of speaking German to the limit as it generated quite a few
questions from the visiting public: "Ich spinne. Handspindel. Rocken. Schafwolle.
Gefärbt. Mit Reseda und Waid. Ich mache faden." I also did a bit of wool combing,
but it was too frustrating not being able to quite explain what I was doing (one
member of the public thought I was making a wig!), so I decided to stick to spinning
after a while. The result of the combing will be the focus of a future blog
post though, but for now I'll just post a few more gratuitous pictures of pretty
wool.
Oh, and while I have your attention - check out this insightful blog post about historical threads, written by some friends of mine:
The Crucial Thread (text in both Swedish and English)
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| It's not easy being green. The Muppet: spun, wound onto reels for plying, and plied |
And here's how I make the big rolags:
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The commercially prepared and plant-dyed wool is much too sticky to spin as it is when using a distaff and the one-hand drafting technique seen in medieval depictions of spinners. It needs to run smoothly from the distaff into the thread, so the sticky fibres have to be separated. I do this by drafting the top into a much thinner one. From this top I then pull off shorter lengths of fibres and arrange them next to each other in a big fluffy pile before rolling them up and attaching them to the distaff. Now the fibres will be all mixed up when I draft and that's the way I want it. This particular type of Shetland wool has pretty short fibres and although it's perfectly possible to both comb it and spin it worsted style, it doesn't really make what I think of as a true worsted thread, not in medieval terms (for that I want longer and hairier wool). So I prefer to spin it as a woollen thread.
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References:
Armstrong, P. & Ayers, B. 1987. Excavations in High Street and Blackfriargate. Hull old town report series no. 5. East Riding Archaeologist vol. 8.
Munro, J. 2003. "Wool and Wool-Based Textiles in the West European Economy, c.800 - 1500: Innovations and Traditions in Textile Products, Technology, and Industrial Organisation". In Jenkins, David T. (ed.) 2003. The Cambridge history of western textiles. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Woolgar, C. M. 2006. The Senses in Late Medieval England
Tuesday, 7 July 2015
Weaving Vadmal VI - The Dress
At long last, I'm finally able to post a few pictures of the finished dress made from my hand-woven, fulled and plant-dyed fabric of the previous posts!
I had hoped to get some nice photos of it during Albrechts Bössor's spring march/fighting practice in early May, but it was so cold then that I never removed my overdress during the three day camping-in-the-forest event. It even snowed a little!
This past weekend, however, was the opposite of cold. It was also the re-launch of Medeltidsdagarna at Hallands Kulturhistoriska Museum, an event that Albrechts Bössor have been proud to attend for several years with our living history display. For some reason, the Varberg event always tends to be very, very hot and this year was no exception. It was well over 30 degrees and we had our camp pitched on top of the ramparts with little shade during the day. Needless to say, I didn't have to worry about the overdress this time... So here it is: the (almost) finished dress!
I still have to do the buttons for the sleeves, but other than that, it's done!
Here you can find more pictures from Medeltidsdagarna; Albrechts Bössor are in quite a few of them!
I had hoped to get some nice photos of it during Albrechts Bössor's spring march/fighting practice in early May, but it was so cold then that I never removed my overdress during the three day camping-in-the-forest event. It even snowed a little!
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| But the sun came out for a bit so I could hitch up my overdress without freezing my legs off! |
This past weekend, however, was the opposite of cold. It was also the re-launch of Medeltidsdagarna at Hallands Kulturhistoriska Museum, an event that Albrechts Bössor have been proud to attend for several years with our living history display. For some reason, the Varberg event always tends to be very, very hot and this year was no exception. It was well over 30 degrees and we had our camp pitched on top of the ramparts with little shade during the day. Needless to say, I didn't have to worry about the overdress this time... So here it is: the (almost) finished dress!
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| Staying cool in wool, with a reed hat Picture (cropped) by Sarah |
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| Me talking about medieval textiles during our 'From sheep to hem'-display (Från får till fåll - it sounds a lot catchier in Swedish...). Picture by Karl |
I still have to do the buttons for the sleeves, but other than that, it's done!
Here you can find more pictures from Medeltidsdagarna; Albrechts Bössor are in quite a few of them!
Friday, 27 February 2015
Weaving Vadmal V - The Finished Fabric
In
medieval times, the fulled fabric was stretched on tenterhooks while
still damp to get its final shape (from which we get the English
expression 'to be on tenterhooks'). Not having a tenter around, or
even a wall on which to nail my fabric, I had to make do with the
slightly more modern finishing treatment of rolling it on a plastic
tube instead. And re-rolling it once a day until it was completely
dry. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem. As it happened, me
and boyfriend J-E were leaving to go backpacking in Switzerland the
day after I returned from the fulling mill... No time for the fabric
to dry.
Rolling the fabric (or keeping it stretched out) while it dries is rather important to get a good finish and remove any wobbliness introduced into the fabric by the violent fulling process. Skipping this stage was not something I wanted to do after spending so much time and effort on my fabric... Letting it dry on the plastic tube was not an option either; I didn't want to risk it going mouldy in my abscence! Eventually, I resorted to a kind of speed drying that worked surprisingly well: The house we live in has room for drying laundry in, equipped with a great big hot air fan. I stayed up all night (more or less), re-rolling my fabric every couple of hours, letting it sit on the plastic tube in the drying room in between.
To sum things up:
Rolling the fabric (or keeping it stretched out) while it dries is rather important to get a good finish and remove any wobbliness introduced into the fabric by the violent fulling process. Skipping this stage was not something I wanted to do after spending so much time and effort on my fabric... Letting it dry on the plastic tube was not an option either; I didn't want to risk it going mouldy in my abscence! Eventually, I resorted to a kind of speed drying that worked surprisingly well: The house we live in has room for drying laundry in, equipped with a great big hot air fan. I stayed up all night (more or less), re-rolling my fabric every couple of hours, letting it sit on the plastic tube in the drying room in between.
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| Fabric. On a roll! |
The result
was that, by morning, my fabric was completely dry and
had been stretched and rolled just as many times as it would have
been had I done it the proper way. And it was nice and smooth too.
Success!
After two weeks of trains, medieval churches struck by iconoclasts and quite a few alps and weird biscuits, I was back home and ready to cut my cloth.
After two weeks of trains, medieval churches struck by iconoclasts and quite a few alps and weird biscuits, I was back home and ready to cut my cloth.
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| Swiss Collage: Best train ride ever! - Neuchâtel tomb - Happy Swiss biscuits |
I
used the body block I made for my supportive shift
as a basis for cutting out the pieces. I've made enough dresses of
this rather simple late 14th century style for myself to know how
they work on my body, so these days, I usually do the fitting on
myself with the real fabric, skipping the mock-up stage. I prefer
dresses without back and front seams, so all the tweaking to get the
fit right is done in the side and shoulder seams. Cutting with a
little extra seam allowance in those areas gives me enough room to do
the necessary adjustments. For this dress, I wanted to have lacing
down the front, but I still put all the shaping into the side seams.
I calculated that I could get at least two long-sleeved dresses out
of my fabric, and probably something small like a hood, if I cut it
economically. Eager to get going, I cut.
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| Pattern pieces |
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| The first cut! The brown thread marks one of the three weaving faults in my cloth... |
And
then realised that I should probably have added at least another
centimetre of extra seam allowance since I was going to dye the damn
things too! Mordanting and dyeing the cut pieces would almost
certainly wreak havoc on the raw edges and ruin my precious seam
allowance... Ah, well. I threw them in the dye pot anyway.
I had enough madder left for a weak 14% dye. This wouldn't be the bright red I got on my sample, but I was fine with that. I just didn't want a completely grey dress... Still, I was surprised by how strong the colour ended up – not a muted, watered-down pink like I had expected, but a cheerful orange, only tempered by the dark weft! The edges did fray, but not too badly. The seam allowance on the Herjolfsnes garments is about 7 mm and there was at least twice that left, so I had no reason to complain.
I had enough madder left for a weak 14% dye. This wouldn't be the bright red I got on my sample, but I was fine with that. I just didn't want a completely grey dress... Still, I was surprised by how strong the colour ended up – not a muted, watered-down pink like I had expected, but a cheerful orange, only tempered by the dark weft! The edges did fray, but not too badly. The seam allowance on the Herjolfsnes garments is about 7 mm and there was at least twice that left, so I had no reason to complain.
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| Both the colour and the frayed edges turned out a lot better than expected |
Despite
this vadmal project, spinning was really my main focus last year (I
just realised I've spent almost 5 years just practising spindle
spinning! My blog post from 2010 sounds awfully naive, now!). I finally mastered (well, sort
of) spinning with a distaff, which seemed like a necessary skill to
accquire if I wanted to spin the way it was done in medieval times
(there are practically no medieval depictions of spinners not
using a distaff) and I tried my hand at producing sewing thread.
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| A slightly hairy thread... |
I
could probably make it thinner with more practice (after all, the
2-ply sewing thread from the Herjolfsnes garments is less than 1 mm
in diameter), but it turned out to be a perfect thickness for my
vadmal fabric as it was. My sewing thread has a lot of give in it; I
think this will be a very good thing for a tight dress. The thread
will take a lot more strain before breaking than the 2-ply linen I
usually use for hand sewing.
All that's left now is for me to finish the dress... And decide what to do with the rest of the fabric!
All that's left now is for me to finish the dress... And decide what to do with the rest of the fabric!
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| Felling the shoulder seam à la Herjolfsnes |
To sum things up:
My
version of a medieval vadmal fabric ended up with the following
technical specifications after fulling, drying and dyeing:
Weave type: 2/1 twill
Weave type: 2/1 twill
Warp:
light natural grey 1-ply wool, z-spun, 9
threads/cm
Weft: dark natural grey 1-ply wool, z-spun, 10 threads/cm
It was fulled in cold water for approximately 4 hours, with a total shrinkage of 10% (width)
Weft: dark natural grey 1-ply wool, z-spun, 10 threads/cm
It was fulled in cold water for approximately 4 hours, with a total shrinkage of 10% (width)
Finished
width: 82 cm
Finished length: ca 11 m
Dress pieces dyed with 14% madder.
Next time: Weaving Vadmal VI - The Dress
Finished length: ca 11 m
Dress pieces dyed with 14% madder.
Next time: Weaving Vadmal VI - The Dress
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
Weaving Vadmal III - Interlude: Going to the Hebrides
In early June, most of the vadmal weavers took a break from their looms and went to the Outer Hebrides. Or in my case, just took a break.
I hadn't actually woven anything at this point, other than the sample piece, because work had got in the way of spending time at the loom. The museum I work in re-opened in late May after having been closed for two years. We had moved approximately 35 000 textiles, several hundreds of tons of textile machinery, archival material and assorted museum workers across town into a completely made-over old textile mill to be part of the new Textile Fashion Center.
So spring was mostly spent in a constant state of frustration and stress to get everything ready at the museum for the grand opening, with very little time for anything else. But we opened on time, with most of our sanity intact. Needless to say, the trip to the Outer Hebrides came as a very welcome holiday for me...
The Hebridean adventure was all planned and booked in advance by our wonderful teachers Margareta and Maria, so all I had to do was just to be there. It was just what I needed and it was all pretty magical. Four days of breathtaking landscapes, sheep all over the place and lots of wool. I will go back there for sure.
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| Passing by a Passing place on Lewis |
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| Tweed yarns at Carloway Mill, Lewis |
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| Sheep in the rain |
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| Sunset just outside Carloway |
We also visited Uist Wool at Grimsay, but since I don't have any pictures from there, please check out their Facebook page and blog instead. It's a fantastic project!
Next time: Weaving Vadmal IV - Fulling
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Weaving Vadmal II - SAMPLES!!!
Like I wrote in the previous post, I decided to weave a cloth with a similar number of warp threads/cm to the mid-14th century Bocksten tunic: 8-10 threads/cm. During weaving, the fabric naturally shrinks a little as the weft is introduced and the process of fulling of course shrinks it even further. So my chosen sett of 7 threads/cm in the loom would result in a much closer weave when finished. To get a general idea of what the cloth would be like, I wove a short piece to use for sampling.
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| In the loom. I weave 2/1 twill with the weft-faced side up to avoid raising more threads than necessary for each shed |
The test piece had 8 threads/cm when it came off the loom, which was a bit too loose to keep as it was, but probably perfect for fulling. I cut it in two, pressed the first half while damp to keep as a reference and fulled the second one on a washboard in the bath. After fulling, the piece both looked and felt a lot nicer with a handle I was quite happy with. And it had ended up with 9-9.5 threads/cm, which was pretty much spot on! That meant I didn't need to adjust the sett in the loom and could just go on weaving, knowing that a total shrinkage of 10% was what I was going to aim for at the fulling mill later on.
A couple of threads' difference might not sound like a lot, but it is. It becomes really clear when comparing the samples.
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| Fulled piece at 9-9.5 threads/cm and untreated piece at 8 th/cm |
It didn't take long for me to realise that grey isn't the most exciting of colours. My spools of weft looked like fat little woodlice lined up on my pretty but plain fabric...
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| It's a nice fabric, but...grey... Over 12 metres of grey. |
I already have a natural grey medieval dress, so the idea of dyeing the finished fabric became more and more appealing... While running a madder dye bath with some yarn for a future weaving project, I chucked one of the samples into the pot too to see how the grey yarns would fare. I'm by no means a particularly skilled plant dyer, but madder has never let me down. The colour was amazing and while weaving the rest of my grey fabric, I pictured it bright red like the sample:
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| Madder madness! |
Next time: Weaving Vadmal III - Interlude
Sunday, 7 December 2014
Weaving Vadmal I - Getting started
After years of staring miserably at my empty loom, I finally decided what I needed to get weaving again: set deadlines and external pressure. That might not sound like much fun, but when it comes in the form of a parttime, wool-themed weaving class, it is! At Grebbestad folkhögskola they have such classes and in February this year I enrolled in one called "Vadmal & Tweed".
The purpose of the class was for each participant to weave a woollen fabric, full it together with the rest of the group at a traditional small-scale fulling mill and then sew something wearable out of it. The class also included trip to the Outer Hebrides (hence the "tweed"-part of the title). We all worked at home on our own looms, but met up every other month to share our progress, talk about looms, wool and weaving, and plan the trip to Scotland.
Being me, I naturally decided to weave a medieval style 2/1 twill and use the fulling mill experience to finally get myself a properly finished fabric. And make a late 14th century dress out of it. No surprises there. The yarn was a really lucky find on Tradera (Swedish version of EBay) - 6 kg of high quality weaving wool (yarn number Nm 6/1) for approximately €8/kg!!! Normally, it would have cost at least ten times as much! Having worked with wool of this thickness before, I knew it works rather well for 'medieval' fabrics. I once used it for a fabric with the same thread count as the mid-14th century cloak from Bocksten, but this time I planned for something more along the lines of the cloth used for the Bocksten tunic. The yarn used in the original is spun differently for the warp and weft; the warp is z-spun with a higher twist than the s-spun weft. My industrially spun yarn was all z, but that was OK since not all medieval fabrics have mixed spinning (although it was rather common). Sometimes it's a good idea to add some twist to modern warp yarn to get a more medieval look, but I wanted to get started with the actual weaving and simply decided that my yarn was 'good enough' as it was...
These days, the word vadmal has a rather specific meaning in Swedish. It's considered to be a heavily fulled fabric in which the finishing process has more or less completely obscured the actual weave, usually a tabby. It almost (but not quite) looks like felt, is quite thick and pressed, but not shorn. In medieval times, however, vadmal basically referred to any locally woven woollen fabric, as opposed to the more exclusive imported stuff. Medieval vadmal could be thoroughly fulled like its modern counterpart, just given a light treatment or perhaps none at all. The fabric I wanted to make belonged to the 'lightly fulled' category; a fabric of medium thickness with a nice drape. I made a tiny sample to help decide how many threads/cm I would use...
The whole process of setting up the loom and beaming the warp was rather uneventful. My weaving hiatus may have lasted for six years, but once I got going everything came back to me.
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| Obsessive Sampling Disorder - Yarns: Natural dark grey, natural light grey and burgundy wool yarn, with a nice mix of soft and slightly coarser fibres, especially in the undyed yarn. I chose the light grey yarn for the warp and the darker grey for the weft |
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| Obsessive Sampling Disorder - Sett: Even small samples have their uses. Any sample is a good sample. Did I mention that I love samples? This one has 7 warp threads/cm which also was the sett I chose for my cloth |
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| Warping. I don't own a warping mill. Luckily, I work next door to the Textile School at the University of Borås and can borrow theirs |
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| Using a raddle and water bottles as weights to beam the warp. It's quick and easy, and I can do by myself without assistance. And the warp always ends up completely even! |
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| Heddling with coffee. A slightly risky undertaking. Note to self: get a cup holder for the loom |
Technical details:
Type of weave: 2/1 twill
Yarn: wool Nm 6/1
Sett: 7 threads/cm
Width in loom: 97 cm
Total number of threads: 680
Length of warp: 12.6 metres
Yarn: wool Nm 6/1
Sett: 7 threads/cm
Width in loom: 97 cm
Total number of threads: 680
Length of warp: 12.6 metres
Next time: Weaving Vadmal II - SAMPLES!
Monday, 27 January 2014
And Samples...
So what to do with small amounts of very pretty, handspun wool? Samples, of course!!! Here's what I did with the woad-dyed Finnish Jaala wool from the previous post:
The white yarn is also spun from the Jaala wool Mervi gave me and I thought I'd use it to try out a few stripes in both regular tabby and extended tabby. Medieval fabrics often have stripes in a different weave from the rest of the cloth. Making weft-faced stripes in an otherwise more or less balanced cloth makes the stripes stand out more and the difference can be seen quite clearly in my sample (see Textiles and Clothing, c.1150-1450. Medieval Finds from Excavations in London for examples of actual medieval fabrics with stripes).
This sample isn't woven on a proper loom; I simply put some warp threads between two clamps and used a shed rod and soft heddles for the countershed. Rather sloppily tied heddles, I might add. Well. I should have known better. The one thing about heddles is that they should never ever be sloppy. They are what makes weaving work (among other things), unless you decide to pick each and every shed by hand. Still, I managed to get 30 cm of weaving out of this 4 cm wide set-up before I gave up. It's been a long time since I did any serious weaving like this, with soft heddles and no reed, and I'm really out of practice! It was difficult to keep both the width and the weft even. Next time I'll use my table loom instead, even if it's for a small sample like this. It takes a little longer to set up, but it makes the weaving so much easier...
So, after two weeks of working with this very appropriately coloured Finnish wool, my stash of samples is happy to receive the following additions:
The white and blue balls of yarn in the middle are the ones I used for weaving. The third yarn is a two-ply spun from the leftover fibres from the combs, sorted and teased out by hand. The fourth yarn is also spun from the leftover fibres, but straight from the combs, lumps and all. It's interesting to see what a difference a bit of extra work does to the quality of the thread!
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| Striped tabby sample: Before and after fulling |
This sample isn't woven on a proper loom; I simply put some warp threads between two clamps and used a shed rod and soft heddles for the countershed. Rather sloppily tied heddles, I might add. Well. I should have known better. The one thing about heddles is that they should never ever be sloppy. They are what makes weaving work (among other things), unless you decide to pick each and every shed by hand. Still, I managed to get 30 cm of weaving out of this 4 cm wide set-up before I gave up. It's been a long time since I did any serious weaving like this, with soft heddles and no reed, and I'm really out of practice! It was difficult to keep both the width and the weft even. Next time I'll use my table loom instead, even if it's for a small sample like this. It takes a little longer to set up, but it makes the weaving so much easier...
So, after two weeks of working with this very appropriately coloured Finnish wool, my stash of samples is happy to receive the following additions:
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| Finnish wool, finished |
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