Adventures in Historical Tabletweaving

I have finished the first of the 2 bliaut cuffs based on the band from Philipp of Swabia's caligae. Not much more to say from the previous post, although now you can see the small pattern sections that break up the pair of birds. I also include images 1518 and 1519 from Der Dom zu Speyer ( Bildband), Hans Erich Kubach and Walter Haas, of the front and the reverse of the original band. I also used the information in Des Kaisers letzte Kleider: Neue Forschungen zu den organischen Funden aus der Herschergräbern im Dom zu Speyer when planning this band.

Warp: Blue silk (Devere) Weft: Structural weft: blue silk.  Ground brocade: Honkin "real gold". Pattern brocade: Red silk (Devere) Pattern: Band from Philip of Swabia's caligae Cards: 112 pattern + 2x2 border Width: 4.2 cm Length: Aiming for 2x120cm, woven 40cm so far. It's been 4 years since my elevation and the dress I wore is still only embellished with bicep bands.  This year I've finally started weaving the bands for the big  cuffs... although at the rate I'm going it will be next year before I finish! This band is based loosely on a band on Philip of Swabia's caligae (fabric boots). Philip was buried in the early 13th century, but the information I have says the band is probably 11th century Islamic. I would love to know how they made that determination but no details are provided. The end effect of this band is going to be very similar to the bicep bands but the technique is different.  The bicep bands were 3/1 broken twill so th...

Last year I re-wove the Mammen band.  I used exactly the same technique as the previous time but with my super-thin honkin gold rather than the gilt passing thread I used last time for the gold. I used my new favourite, Devere's tight-twist 12 thread, in red for the silk warp and the ground weft (I used 2x6 thread loose twist in pink last time). I still used the same white Bockens sewing linen for the rest of the warp, and spun silver for the silver weft.  For the soumak I used blue 6 thread loose twist silk. This one really popped! I think I can declare victory over this band... until I encounter new research :-)

I spent a lot of time weaving my bicep bands based on the chasuble of St Wolfgang a few years ago, but the end result was very underwhelming.  I used 120 denier loose-spun silk and it really wasn't up to the abrasion it got from the cards. This year I've re-woven it using 240 denier tight-spun silk and the thread came through it without any problems. I also used a better red. The result is so much better! The cards themselves took quite a beating just like they did last time. I think I'll try painting the edges of the cards with nail polish again next time I weave with this type of thread.  Getting enough "real" cards, like wood or bone, for a project with 400+ warp ends would be pretty expensive. I also think that tensioning would be challenging with cards that much thicker since the warp threads on the outside would need to be significantly longer than the ones in the middle.

Goodness it's been a long time since I posted anything.  I've been weaving though!  Here are a couple of photos of the band I wove for the fastening of the new Lochac Laurel Cloak . This is an extrapolation of pattern 69 "Motif from the border of a mitre band, 12th/13th century (p. 186) in EPAC. It has about 100 cards including border.

A particularly intriguing section in Collingwood (page 278 in the 2002 edition) concerns warp transposition (swapping the positions of tablets so their warp threads completely cross over).  It reads: The controlling tablets are lifted from their place, passed over one or more tablets to the right or left and then re-inserted in the pack... the earliest example of the technique is a seal tag from Durham Cathedral, dated between 1189 and 1197 (Henshall, 1964) Henshall, 1964 is 'Five Tablet Woven Seal Tags' in Archaeological Journal , Vol. CXXI.  I finally got my hands on this article last week.  It may blow nobody's mind to learn it details five different tablet woven bands.  They are: Braid in double-faced plain weave with geometric pattern 1194-1215 Thora Sharptooth has written about this band. Braid in double-faced plain weave with chequer pattern 1165-1174 Braid in double-faced diagonal weave with animal patterns 1189-1196 Brocaded band in plain tablet ...

Hi folks, long time no post, I've been having a bit of upheaval in my professional life this year and have been pouring a lot of time into my professional development rather than weaving. I've just started a new job and have a lot to learn there but hopefully things will start to settle down soon.  Anyway, I didn't stop weaving entirely. Here are some photos of some bands I've woven in the last 6 months.  The green one which is a cut-down Anna Neuper pattern was an experiment using the same materials as for the Chasuble of St Wolfgang, seeing if on a simpler band I could manage to use the nice fine silk without it getting eaten to pieces.  Conclusion: no. What a pity, because the effect is lovely. Photograph doesn't really do it justice. The purple one is a Birka 22 I strung up for a talk on Viking tablet weaving to let people have a go, as per usual at these things people wove about a cm and then I went home and finished it myself.  Fibreholics silk and tambo...

I've just got back from Canterbury Faire which is the big SCA event of the year around these parts. During the event I was elevated to the Order of the Laurel.  Since I knew about it in advance I thought it would be nice to plan something to celebrate the occasion- and celebrate tablet weaving at the same time! What I came up with was a band to be woven by the populace, with a brocaded inscription relating to the occasion. Baron Steffan ap Kennydd provided a Latin transcription for the band.  It reads: Populus Lochacis in Mercatu Cantuar. m.f. A.S. XLVII reg. Fel. Evaq. RR. ut induct. Dom. Hon. Amaliae Brisachensis in Ord. Laur. annotet. Which translates roughly as: The people of Lochac at the Canterbury Fair made me in the 47th year of the Society during the reign of Felix the King and Eva the Queen that the induction of the Honorable Lady Amalie of Brisache into the Order of the Laurel might be recorded Of course I never expected we could get through so much weavin...

Almost 2 months since last post and not a lot to report.  I've just started a new project but it's not going to be a quick one.  I'm going to make 12th century "Pontifical shoes" with tablet woven bands on them.  The bands and their layout will be inspired by the shoes of Philipp von Schwaben and the construction of the shoes will be similar to a number of other pairs from around the same time or slightly earlier.  Some of these shoes are pretty bling, with silk coverings, tablet weaving, embroidery (mostly chain stitch and wire embroidery), gilt leather, decorative rivets, precious stones and cutouts (I don't think any of them have *all* of those things but some have most).  Here are some links if you're interested: Photo of shoes of Bishop Bernhard of Hildesheim (d. 1153) Fabulous beasts—leather, silk and gold: recent research on and conservation of 12th century footwear from the episcopal tombs in Trèves Cathedral 2005 article on restoration of one...

  Yes, I have completely given up on naming these things.  Maybe it's a flower?  Anyway, here it is, the last of the 5 motifs. I took the photo below, which unusually for me managed to be in focus, and straight away noticed the knot (centre right, in red).  The knot is gone now but I'm glad nobody but the camera is looking that closely!   Here's another photo I thought I'd share.  When I finished the first of the two bands, the cards were a wreck, and when I swapped them all out for new ones I thought I'd try to improve the situation by making the cards a bit stiffer, so I painted nail polish around the edges of all of them.  Well, that worked, as far as making the cards stiffer went.  Not a one of them gave out. On the other hand, it didn't have a great effect on the warp.  This picture is of what greeted me when I moved the cards down about 10cm into the second band.  Threads dying all over the place.  Over the fo...

 This is the second motif I wove, but the first time I did it it was about 40% longer than this and I wasn't very happy with the outcome.  So here's my second attempt. I don't really have much more to say at this point other than that I'm about ready to finish this project and am very glad to have only about 5cm to go! Oh! and also, I bought brocade for the bliaut these bands will be going on and it is very pretty .

Here's another figure from the Chasuble of St Wolfgang: the candlestick. I assume.  It might be a flower, I guess. This is the first figure after I re-strung all the cards.  Most of the many, many knots I tied in my warp threads are hidden on the back of the cards, but some of them slipped into the front while I wasn't looking. For this figure I tried doing as the original seems to have done and making some of the pattern in the ground colour (the blue parts).  It looks OK here, but from many angles the blue rather fades into the background.

Yesterday, Aldygtha created a new Historic Tablet Weaving Facebook group, and it is already filling up with interesting discussions and beautiful photos of members' work.  If you like historical tablet weaving (and you don't hate Facebook!) you should join!

Well I reached the first milestone in my distracting embroidery, and managed to put it aside.  Got back to the weaving and managed to finish the first bicep band. Half way there!  Things were really going downhill near the end in terms of the integrity of the cards and the warp. So I've decided to re-string everything with new cards.  Woohoo.  That should keep me occupied far another week or so. Anyway, here's a picture of the embroidery  I've been working on.  It's going to be a buskin, based on the ones of Walter de Cantelupe .  The lion is from some manuscript I cunningly didn't write down the name of (Will have to trawl back through the University Library to find it again)

Sorry for the long break between posts, I've had 3 weekends in a row swallowed up by events, and also I may have got a ... little bit ... distracted ... by an embroidery project. OK, so I haven't done any weaving for the last 3 weeks.  And probably won't for another 2 or so, when I finish the first figure in the embroidery and hopefully get it out of my system. Anyway, here's another figure from the Chasuble of St Wolfgang band.  It's actually the 3rd one I wove; the second one doesn't look so great so I'm going to see how it comes out the second time through before posting it.  But this bird looks pretty much like I was hoping.  Here's the link to the photo of the original on Kopert.  Not sure why this bird is holding a boot.

 Right.  Here are some pictures of my lion from the Chasuble of St Wolfgang.  This is the pattern from pages 120-121 of EPAC . The pattern in EPAC is 125 tablets wide, although the description of the band says it has 132 tablets.  Not sure if any "lost" tablets are in the border or the pattern. There's one obvious way that this pattern differs from regular 3/1 broken twill: The vertical (lengthways) cross-sections of the regions where the red is up are not multiples of 2 passes long.  In fact to counteract the difference in warp density and weft density, the lines across the band are usually 1 weft pass wide while the lines down the band are usually 2 tablets (8 warp threads) wide.  When I started, I wasn't sure how to approach this- maybe there should be half turns to bring the red up and down at the right point? Or maybe the red should be brought up early or down late, with the brocade obscuring the jagged edges?  I couldn't tell from the photos ...

Well, it's been a month since my last post, and I've been travelling, and sick, and lazy, so I haven't got around to writing anything up yet.  So here's a somewhat blurry and out-of-date photo of the first couple of centimetres of the St Wolfgang pattern, just to prove I've done something!  There are several mistakes just in this little section of the band but it still manages to look quite pretty. Hopefully I will get  real blog post together soon!

I have a new project.  It is the band on the Chasuble of St Wolfgang (or rather, one of them).  You may have seen the pattern in EPAC on page 120, or plate 179 in Collingwood.  There are photos of the original at Kopert -taken by someone who knows it's useful to show the part of the band where the brocade has worn away!  You can see Nancy's version here but it is not 3/1 broken twill The band is approximately 3cm wide, has over 120 tablets, and is woven in brocaded 3/1 broken twill.  This is the first time I am combining both techniques so it is a bit of an adventure.  To make things even more exciting, I am weaving it using very thin (120 denier) red and blue filament silk from Devere .  For the brocade I am using real gold thread I bought from John Marshall . I'll be weaving on my inkle loom because there's no way I'll be able to keep things neat otherwise. EPAC graphs the first figure from the band, the lion (or aardvark pushing a lion mask,...

Nancy Spies posted the following message to SCA-Card-Weaving yesterday: "I don't mean to do a "business" message here, but I did want to let folks know that I am liquidating all remaining stock of "Anna Neuper's Modelbuch" and "Here Be Drolleries" by the end of April. "Here Be Wyverns" is now out-of-print, but copies of "Ecclesiastical Pomp" will still be available until sold out." Ecclesiastical Pomp and Circumstance is THE book for brocaded tablet weaving and Anna Neuper's Modelbuch is also a great little book.  Get in quick!

Update: I had the shawl incorrectly dated to the 11th century-it's a bit later than that! Maikki Karisto and the Tallinn University Institute of History have given me permission to share some photos she took last year of a shawl from Siksälä and specifically its tablet woven border. This shawl can be found in the Tallinn University Institute of History archaeological collection under the major number AI 5100.  It dates to around the 13th-14th century. The tablet weaving is about 1cm in width.  It is in Baltic two-hole technique, or Hochdorf technique, depending on how you look at it. More information on the finds from Siksälä can be found in the book Siksälä, a community at the frontiers, Iron Age and Medieval by Silvia Laul & Heiki Valk.