Adventures in Historical Tabletweaving

Note: This pattern doesn't match exactly what's in Hansen; you can see an updated version here Warp: White and light green silk Pattern: Kaukola 'S' motif Cards: 15 Width: 1cm Length: 1.1m I wanted to try a non-brocaded pattern at Canterbury Faire and this seemed like a pretty gentle introduction. This is the band from Kaukola mentioned on page 109 of Collingwood. It is from 11th-13th century Finland. It is covered in Hansen, pattern included. This is the first time I've tried to follow a non-brocade pattern out of Hansen. People had warned me that Hansen's patterns are not the clearest but this was my first personal encounter with them (It didn't help that I was working from the Danish version of the book). In the end I abandoned the pattern and just worked it out from the picture of the reconstruction. The pattern is only 7 tablets wide so it wasn't too hard to work out and would have been trivial if I'd done any patterns with Egyptian di...

I finally got some photos of a couple of items I finished long after the tablet weaving for them was complete, and thought I'd share. They are the Kentish band on metal strips on purple silk, which has been turned into the neck and bicep trim in my new day bliaut, and the "Dogs and Flowers" cingulum . The cingulum lay unfinished for a long time because I couldn't work out how to finish it. I wanted it to look like the one below, which is one of the figures from Chartres cathedral. The dangly bits are tied loosely in a reef knot and the length of them seems to have many horizontal lines. I haven't managed to find any theories on how exactly this was achieved. Obviously the resulting dangly bits must be quite heavy for the knot to stay open like that. In the end I just bound the length of the ends in (cheap, synthetic) piping. Obviously the materials are way off, but the look is pretty good I think. The knot stays in place no problem, and the weight also mea...

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 l...

Warp: White wool Weft: DMC linen Brocade: Wool Pattern: Birka 22 Cards: 21 Width: 1.7 Length: Approx. 0.4 metres What's new: Wool Birka 22 is the only pattern from Birka found with both silver and gold brocade (the rest are all silver). Next to the simple 8-card threaded in chevron pattern, it seems to be the most common tablet weaving pattern for re-enactors to follow (at least in this corner of the world). However most people don't seem to do it as a brocade pattern. Þora Sharptooth has created a "recipe" for Birka 22 that uses Egyptian diagonals to create the pattern and it seems to have taken on a life of its own. I doubt all the people that have woven it are aware the original Birka bands were brocaded. No slight intended to Þora Sharptooth, whose website is an excellent resource and who is quite clear on the fact that this isn't actually the original form of the pattern. The wool I used for the warp is from Anna Gratton Ltd . The brocade is wool fr...

Warp: Red silk Weft: DMC Cotton Brocade: Spun gold Pattern: "Dogs and flowers", 13th/14th century cingulum, Halberstadt Cards: 46 Width: 2.5cm Length: Approx. 1.4 metres What's new: higher number of cards. Intermittent brocade. The warp runs left to right in the pattern above. Also, I have stretched it out so it appears about in proportion to the real thing. This pattern is on page 138 of EPAC . I modified it slightly. I removed 4 picks from the flower, so that it turned out circular when I wove it (as usual I can't get my weft density up as high as the original band). The original had the dog's collar in a contrasting thread, which I couldn't be bothered with, so I also altered it to be gold brocade right through. I used gold Kreinik jap #7 for the brocade. For the brocaded regions I used polyester thread for the ground weft so I could make the brocade as dense as possible. Between each dog/flower is a region of 20 picks with no brocade. For these re...

Warp: Blue silk Weft: DMC Cotton Brocade: Spun gold Pattern: "Scrolling vine", 13th century cingulum Cards: 17 Width: 1.3cm Length: Approx. 1.2 metres What's new: Twill Beanie caps are one of the distinctive clothing articles of the Germanic region in the 12th century. They can be small and dishlike (kinda like Jewish skullcaps) or more hemispherical. The pictures on the left are from Katherine Barich's picture gallery which has some really awesome pictures, but they aren't well referenced so I'm not sure of their exact source. I made a beanie cap a while ago but it fit my head pretty poorly so I decided the make another one that was stiff enough to retain its shape when it is worn. This is the first item of clothing I have made specifically to have tablet weaving on it. There are no extant women's beanie caps that I know of but EPAC lists a French 11th/12th century ecclesiastical skullcap with thin tablet-woven bands down the middle of wider bands,...

Warp: Perle cotton Weft: DMC embroidery cotton Brocade: Kreinik jap Pattern: 15ht century chasuble neckine, Braunschweig ( EPAC p. 137 ) Cards: 15 Width: 1.3mm Length: Approx. 40 cm What's new: Cotton ground, Kreinik jap brocade. No reversal of card turn direction. This was just a "filler" project while I waited for the materials for my next plans to arrive. The pouch is of green wool with perle cotton lucet cord strings. Perle cotton is not a period material for brocaded tablet weaving but it is a good stand-in for silk for the cheap of heart (actually, the silk I'm using is cheaper by the metre than the perle cotton, but you have to buy twenty times as much). I used the leftovers from the lucet cord for the warp. I think it is DMC perle cotton #8, which is quite a thick thread. The brocade is Kreinik jap. For most of it I used a double thickness of #5, which is pretty thin, but near the end I ran out and switched to a single thickness of #12, which has a pret...

Warp: Linen W eft: Linen Brocade: Spun silver Pattern: Birka 21 Cards: 17 Width: 1cm Length: Approx. 70cm What's new: Linen warp Coloured linen tunics are pretty iffy for the 12th century, but they're cool, so I wear them anyway. Likewise it's probably a bit early for linen tabletweaving, but I wanted to give weaving with a linen warp a go. I had a light brown linen tunic that was as yet unadorned. The pattern I used was another one from Egon Hansen's Tabletweaving . It is a simplified version of Birka 21. The fylfots are omitted, although honestly I don't think anyone would have noticed if I'd included them, and there are only two scrolly things between each repeat of the tooth motif. The ground warp and weft are both green DMC embroidery linen. The brocade weft is (again) Anchor silver lame. (The pattern doesn't exactly leap out at you on the band but this photo isn't helping) I'd been reliably informed it wouldn't be a pleasant experienc...

Warp: Silk Weft: Silk Brocade: Silk Pattern: 15th century chasuble. Munich ( EPAC p. 144) Cards: 9/21 Width: 6mm/12mm Length: 60cm/60cm For my first band I picked the pattern in E PAC which used the fewest cards. It is from a linen band from a 15th century chasuble. The design is a simple geometric consisting of diamonds and diagonal bars and I think it would not be out of place on 12th century garb. The purpose of this project was to make garters for my dark blue woolen hose. We have extant hose from the 12th century with garters sewn on at either the front or the back of the hose. This is most excellent, since I've had several garters fall off during events without me noticing until it's too late to recover them. Unfortunately I don't know of any garters that were definitely tabletwoven (in pictures they mostly look like ribbons) but it doesn't sound like the most out there idea ever. The warp, ground weft and brocade weft are all of Schappe silk from fibrehol...