Monday, August 2, 2010

Another Diamond Twill Site

Today, I learned of another site that sells diamond twill wool. Here, they are not sold by the yard, but as single pieces the maker refers to as "Oseberg blankets". They come in two sizes:  A "blanket" measures 2 meters long by 1.6 meters wide, which is more than enough cloth for me to make an apron dress for myself, and costs 80 Euros.  A "plaid" is 1 meter by 1.6 meters, and costs 40 Euros.  That is probably enough cloth to make a tube-style apron dress, though I'd have to be careful since I could not afford to waste cloth, at that measurement.

It appears from the site that the "blankets" are solid colored: cream, red, brown, blue, black, green, and gray, while the "plaids" are two-tone.

The cloth looks lovely in the photographs, but I suspect that it may be a bit too fluffy and thick for an apron dress. Still, it's one more possibility to think about.

8 comments:

  1. The cloth looks to be made out of very heavy yarn which makes perfect sense for a blanket. It might also be suitable for a coat, but the lozenge pattern is huge.

    When I weave fabric for the VA costumers in my area, I use a lace weight wool woven at 24 ends per inch. When washed it compresses to about 28-32 ends per inch. They seem happy with the hand of the lighter fabric.

    Do you have any weavers in your area?

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  2. Lara, have you seen one of these? I have no clear idea what the lozenge size is from the photos I remember, but if it is "huge," you're right, it wouldn't do for an apron dress.

    No, I'm afraid I don't know any weavers. In fact, I don't really know any reenactors in this area, and most of the reenactment activity around here is American Civil War and American Revolutionary War, not Viking age.

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  3. I have one of these, grey-green and plaid-sized! It really isn't suitable for making clothing out of (it makes for a very thick, heavy and coarse shawl. But it is warm blanket when camping).

    Looking at it with a ruler, it's 2 threads per cm. The fringes seem to have been made with a tabby-weave-looking selvedge but the long edges have been hemmed with a sewing machine by the looks of it.

    To give a sense of scale, each diamond is about 8cm across and 7cm high.

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  4. I don't have one. My comment was based on comparing the pattern repeat withe size of the guys head. :)

    Are you aware of this weaver?
    http://www.wood-n-woven.com/woven.html

    I've never ordered her fabric but I believe she is the same person who sells handwovens at Estrella.

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  5. Lara: I have heard of Wood-n-Woven. Her stuff seems to be all two-tone and I'm hoping for solid-color diamond twill weave, if I can manage it. I suppose she may do solids as a special order.

    Another thing is that the fabric is narrow--23 to 26 inches. I'd need a minimum of two yards, maybe more like three, which makes the price begin to be a problem.

    Pearl: You've confirmed that the Loricamos stuff is not useful for me. Again, it sounds like a lovely blanket, but period diamond twills were not so thick. Thanks both of you for stopping by!

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  6. Agreed! Especially when the 'coarsest' diamond twill I can find mention of is 20 threads per cm. :(

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  7. Hello Cathy.
    Loricamos are my friends so I know the quality of their blankets are not suitable for an apron :o) However I think that they have contact with someone with lovely, handwoven wool twill made for clothing, just write and ask them!
    Do you know any of these websites? I know them aswell and they have a lot of different qualities of fabrics. I think you can contact them and ask them to send samples (perhaps for a small charge and stamps). To be able to feel the quality with your hands are the best way to find out for sure what kind of fabric you want to invest in!

    http://www.medeltidsmode.se/Tyg.html
    Only in swedish but they have A LOT of great fabric and are very friendly and helpful, and they speak english of course.

    http://www.historiskarum.se/index.htm
    This website is under construction but well worth a visit.

    http://handelsgillet.se/shop/
    This is in english but I think that they have a lot more fabrics than they show on their website so just contact them about that!

    I had similar thoghts about Historiska världars reconstruction of vikingage womens wear so I ended up just sticking to the Haithabu finds when I made the wool over dress, completely clean without any decorations and I must say, I'm very happy with it. My experience has tought me to never trust other peoples reconstructions without looking on the original find myself first! A lot of the times I come to a different conclusion, sometimes a lot different, sometimes just a little but allways different :o). In this case I ended up loaning a lot of books with pictures of the original finds and that was a great help.

    You have a veru interesting blog and you write about a lot of interesting topics but I can't help it...I miss pictures!!! I guess I'm a person that uses my vision a lot. I hope that you have som help from some of the websites, kind regards from me :o)

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  8. Hi, Petra! Thanks for your advice and for the site links.

    I am familiar with Handelsgillet--I've even ordered from them before (not fabric though) and have samples of their diamond twill. I'm looking for one that isn't two-toned, though.

    I hadn't known about the other two sites, though; I'll have to check them out.

    "My experience has tought me to never trust other peoples reconstructions without looking on the original find myself first!"

    I agree with that! It's one reason I started this blog--to help track down sources I've never been able to obtain, and get some feedback on my conjectures.

    I'm glad you like the site. The reason you haven't seem many pictures lately is because I haven't been doing much of anything I could photograph! Hopefully that will change now that I'm actually working on my wrapped fitted apron dress.

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