Adventures in Historical Tabletweaving

Warp: Lilac silk
Weft: Lilac linen
Brocade: Spun gold + silver (Kreinik jap)
Pattern: Wide Mammen band
Cards: 35
Width: 1.5cm
Length: 2 x 30cm
What's new: 2 different brocades, turning alternating cards

A couple of months ago I came across the Danish National Museum's page on the Mammen textile finds. It lets you zoom right in and look at the detail. The arm bands are gorgeous and I decided I wanted to give them a go. They differ in 2 major ways from any of the bands I've woven previously:

1. The cards aren't all turned at once. Peter Collingwood describes this band as having the cards threaded in 2 holes and turned as a pack but EPAC says they were threaded in 4 holes and the odd and even cards were turned in alternate picks (The edge cards are still turned every pick). I decided to go with EPAC's interpretation since I've already tried the 2-hole thing. Turning the cards half as often means you can get a higher weft density.

2. There are two brocading wefts: sil…

Warp: Purple silk
Weft: White linen
Brocade: Gold strip
Pattern: "Sarre 94" - Kentish pattern
Cards: 9
Width:7mm
Length: Approx. 1.2 metres
What's new: Metal strip brocade, brocade on both sides (in places)

I wanted to do a band using metal strips and the Kentish bands seemed most appropriate. The pattern is one from Þora sharptooth's site (It's also on Ælfflæd's Saxon Rabbit which has a wider variety of Kentish patterns). I altered it slightly to make it symmetrical to my eye. I used a white linen weft because I wanted to see what it looked like- linen was often used as a weft but it probably wasn't dyed to match the warp-not always anyway. The contrasting weft shows up at the edges and looks alright if the weaving is perfect, but is very unforgiving of aberrations.

The metal strip I used was uncoiled Rajmahal Sadi thread. It makes for a very thin strip. I used it double. It didn't seem very annoying to use but I seemed to be going a lot slower than …