Loose Threads: Yet Another Costuming Blog

Do I Really Want To Go "Over and Above"?

2012-01-29T01:29:00.001-05:00

Recently, on The Italian Showcase, a website dedicated to providing information about Italian Renaissance costume and displaying costumers' efforts to recreate Italian Renaissance attire, the site owner, Bella, announced a new event: a costuming mini-challenge.

Bella's last mini-challenge was held in the fall of 2011 and challenged costumers to create an Italian Renaissance hand-held accessory in no more than one month. The theme did not interest me much, so I did not follow the progress of that challenge very closely. However, the upcoming challenge is called "Over and Above". The object of this challenge is to create, starting no earlier than February 1, at least one cloak, robe, overgown or other Italian Renaissance overgarment by the end of February.

Now it just happens that I've wanted to create a giornea to wear over my versatile gown for years. I even went so far to purchase fabric for the project, but bogged down when I realized that I was not certain how to cut a giornea in a manner that would be flattering and would not fall off of me as I walked. Now just might be the time to use that fabric. I expect to have sufficient time available, and Reconstructing History carries a giornea pattern.

So my question to all of you is this; should I take part in the "Over and Above" challenge? There's a prize being offered (a gift certificate to the Internet retailer of the victor's choice), but that's not the main reason I'm interested. The idea of finally completing a giornea to wear with my peach brocade gown is why I'm interested. Which is just as well, because if I do this I will engage in as little handwork as possible. Purchased pattern, minimal handwork--I probably don't have much of a chance to win anything in the contest. But I'd have an overgown!

My velvet--wrong and right sides

The brocade of my gown

However, I'm not really sure whether my fabric--a plain fawn-colored cotton velvet (click for larger image with better resolution), is suitable for the role, even with this gold and pearl trim to adorn it. I thought I had bought lining fabric, but now I can't find it, and I'm not sure I'd want to use the stuff I originally bought (it was a fairly bright orange polyester) even if I found it. I'm also wondering whether I want to pay $30 USD to buy a pattern for a garment I might wear only once (for the photographs necessary for the completion of the challenge!), and I have little confidence in my ability to cut the gown in a flattering and authentic manner using only instructions I can find on the Internet. Finally, if I'm going to sign up I have to do so by the end of the month (Tuesday).

So, do any of you have any thoughts about whether I should sign up? If so, let me know in the comments.

Fitted Wrap-Around Apron Dress--An Update

2012-01-26T22:26:00.001-05:00

Sugar, my cat, on top of a costume project

Remember my plan to make a fitted, wrap-around apron dress with a flared skirt to demonstrate that such a dress need not be a pieced tube like the Hedeby dress?

A few days ago, I picked this project back up and resumed the first task necessary to complete the dress, namely, hemming the open edges. Now that I'm nearly done with that, I'm ripping fabric in preparation for sewing straps, which I will pin in place to find the best locations. After that, I will sew in the skirt gores, hem the bottom, and maybe put some trim on the section of the wrap that will be the top layer between the brooches when the dress is wrapped on me, and it will be done!

You may be wondering why I jumped to working on the straps instead of finishing hemming the sides. The answer is that, before I went to rip the straps, I foolishly laid the folded dress-in-progress down on my futon--and my cat is now sound asleep on top of it. (The blue part is the apron dress-in-progress; the pink part is just one of my bathrobes.) Meet Sugar, my fabric tester and confidante. Yes, I'm another one of those costumers with a feline assistant. :-)

Anyway, it looks like I'm not going to get much farther than the straps tonight, which may be just as well since I'm still recovering from a bad cold. Hopefully, I'll be able to do more sewing, and more blogging, this weekend.

EDIT: You can click the picture to get a larger version. Part of her belly was recently shaved and the fur is just growing back in--Sugar is an elderly (but spry!) cat and recently had an ultrasound done to check the progress of a large benign cyst on her liver. (Prognosis: little growth in cyst, unlikely to cause problems).

There will be diaries....

2012-01-21T07:49:00.001-05:00

The poll is closed and the response of the vast majority of those of you who voted (as well as of those who commented) was that there should be Anti-Dress Diaries! So there will be. I hope to have the first one done by the end of the month.

Thanks for voting! Special thanks to the wonderful person who understood my mischievous impulse and voted for "zucchini." :-)

My guest post is up...

2012-01-18T21:31:00.003-05:00

...over at The Dreamstress. In case you don't get to read it before she updates the blog, the permanent link to it is here.

The Anti-Dress Diaries

2012-01-14T03:32:00.000-05:00

Today's topic is an idea I've been kicking around inside my head for over 10 years--the "anti-dress diary."* To describe what I mean by that term, a little personal history is in order.

Other than my recent posts to this blog I have never kept a "dress diary"--a record of methods used, and problems encountered and solved--for any of my historical projects. Part of the reason for this is that, despite a long personal history as a costumer, I have never enjoyed sewing. As an adolescent, I induced my mother to introduce me to the rudiments of sewing on her elderly electric sewing machine. But I did that purely because I had costumes in mind that, back in 1974, I could not otherwise obtain, not because I had any passion to learn the dressmakers' craft. (Mom was with me on that part, at least. She worked in a dress factory, sewing buttons on garments and being paid by the piece. To her, sewing was her job, not a labor of love.)

"How I Learned...To Love Tudor"

The historical costumes that interested me the most as a girl were the long, flowing, and fitted gowns of the late medieval period. As my knowledge of costume history grew, and my impatience and frustration with the cutting, stitching, and finishing of garments mounted, I began to gravitate toward projects involving earlier periods, where fitting, if sought, was achieved through methods that, to me at least, were simpler and more comprehensible.

The Internet was a real boost to my costuming hobby. Suddenly, I was able to find photograph after photograph of wonderful, beautiful gowns crafted by other people (usually, though not always, women) who shared my love of historical costume! Many of them showcased their work in dress diaries, treating me to the daunting example of costumers who would spend many hours doing blackwork embroidery on an Elizabethan smock, gather yards of fine muslin into minute pleats to finish the neckline of a Renaissance chemise, or would wrestle with 15 yards of brocade and 5 yards of fake fur to make a proper houppelande. I admired these costumers greatly (and still do!), but back in the 1990s I lacked both the time and ambition to hone my skills to the point where such attempts, let alone achievements, might be possible for me. If I had attempted to emulate them, I would have had to give up any efforts at sewing in despair.

So I tried to stick to what I thought I knew--simple, early period tunics, coats and hoods based on simple geometric shapes, and told myself that I wasn't going to attempt any of those fancy, more modern creations.

Unfortunately, the beginning of my acquaintance with the Internet coincided with the flowering of my interest in live action roleplaying games ("LARPs"), a hobby which encourages participants to costume appropriately for their roles. In the 1990s, about the time when I resumed serious reading and study about historic costume, there were a number of LARPs being conducted in my area, many of which were set during historical periods in which fitted, elaborate garments were essential. So I began to plan historical costuming projects around the particular LARPs in which I was enrolled. Since surprisingly few LARPs are set in the Dark Ages, the result was to drive me into attempting historical garments for periods as to which I was much less well acquainted.

Three of these "historical" LARP costumes in particular turned out to be adventures to create, requiring kluge after kluge and gobs of dogged determination to complete them on time for the games in which they were designed to be worn.

The first one of these was a 1530's Tudor dress, complete with a French hood. I still have the records I kept (such as they are) of the cost of materials, since at the time I had little money available for sewing costumes at the time and was doing my best to make everything as cheaply as possible. I made that gown in 1999, a few years before I had acquired decent Internet connection (a factor which limited my ability to do quick research, as well as limiting my ability to find appropriate materials for the gown and headdress itself. So the gown is cotton corduroy (I couldn't afford velveteen), the forepart is a pink cotton-blend furniture store damask that cost way too much and impresses too little, and the headdress is trimmed with a store-bought, crescent-shaped hunk of fake pearls manufactured for a do-it-yourself bridal headdress. I don't have a picture of myself wearing the gown, and I've no idea whether it still fits me, so for now you'll have to be content with a picture of the outfit laid out (more or less) flat; that picture appears above on the left.

"Six Years Before"

"Fear and Loathing"

The second gown I'd like to talk about is actually is the first one of the series that I made. It's a far-from-authentic early 17th century number whipped up hastily in the fall of 1993 after spending long days at the office drafting a killer legal brief. Complicating matters was the fact that I had to come up with a period costume for my husband, who was in the same LARP, while completing my own gown. Nowadays, I could purchase one of several different patterns for such a gown. Back then, I was on my own, with only Katherine Strand Holkebecker's "Patterns for Theatrical Costuming" as a rough guide to adding plausible sleeves to a Folkwear bodice. A picture of the resulting gown, which was taken a few years later when I wore it at an office Christmas party, appears to the right. (Straight bangs, or a fringe, as the British call them, aren't period for the 17th century either, but there were a natural part of my hair at the time, and it was easier just to tie my then shoulder-length pageboy into a ponytail and clip a long curly hairpiece over it than to try to find a combination of wig or hairpieces that would reproduce a true 17th century style.) It appears on the right.

The third gown I have in mind made in 2005 for a LARP set in Venice in the early 16th century. It has been featured in Bella's Italian Showcase and, more recently, as part of the Historical Costume Inspiration Festival. Because I made it relatively recently (and had the Internet to consult for design ideas and for obtaining components) it is better designed and much more solidly sewn, but I took so long in the planning stages that it was, in the end, still a last-minute effort. However, it was still more successful than my actual role in the LARP that inspired it. It appears on the left, directly opposite the "Six Years Before" gown.

All of this is a round-about way of asking; would you be interested in having me write up these "anti" dress diary ideas for this blog? I've been thinking of writing these costumes up so long for the Web that I'm not sure that the final result will be as interesting as what's been going on in my head, but it would at least be different from my standard blog fare, and perhaps more interesting. If you have strong feelings either way (about my writing these up, or not doing so) please either comment on this post, or respond to my poll (see the top left margin), or both.

EDIT: If you read this post this morning, and notice that the last few paragraphs of this post read much differently now, that's because I was making a small typographical correction and lost the original text! The text as it appears now is an attempt to recreate the rough content, of what I originally wrote, but I can't recall the contents well enough to reproduce the exact language. If you have a cached copy of my original post, please paste it in an e-mail and send it to me so I can restore the original language. Thanks.

*By saying "anti" dress diaries I don't mean to say that I'm against dress diaries! Not at all; I love reading them. Nor do I mean any disrespect to the costumers who are skilled enough to write dress diaries that show historical details, or function as mini-tutorials; I respect their patience and skill greatly. I just don't have the patience, or interest, to become one of them. So I mean my proposed essays to be kind of a parody of the diary concept, applied to my early fumbling efforts at advanced historic costumery. The point of publishing such a parody is to show that it's possible for even an ignorant person who loves historic costume to achieve something interesting and worthwhile even having little or no experience, and that reporting about early efforts has merit and can inspire greater, better efforts.

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-13T01:35:00.001-05:00

Happy (belated) New Year!

I have not been blogging here lately partly because I've been busy working on my guest post for The Dreamstress and partly because I've found more inspiration for my historic food blog. Now, the post for The Dreamstress is nearly ready (it should be published next week) and I've hit a lull at work; perfect time to consider the year ahead.Last year, for a bunch of personal reasons I don't want to go into here, I didn't have a lot of energy or inspiration for working on my own costume projects. So they mostly languished, while I continued to think about costuming issues, and collect books and sources, and occasionally to share my thoughts with all of you.

There will be more costume ruminations in 2012, but I hope I'll be able to return to some of my costume projects in progress. And I have ... something different in the pipeline, that I'll probably post in the next few days, that some of you at least may find more interesting than my standard fare.

I have already updated the list of new costume-related books. It includes items that are scheduled for publication in 2012 and items that were published, or at least scheduled for publication, during the last half of 2011. If any of you know of additional costume-related books I have not mentioned here, please comment with as much information about them as you can so I can add them to the list.

Best wishes for a happy, productive, and prosperous 2012.

Where's the Aberration?

2011-12-28T00:41:00.000-05:00

I've been doing more thinking about the information from Nørre Sandegård Vest, particularly the information suggesting that the Scandinavian apron dress of the Vendel and Viking period may have been a kind of uniform reflecting the woman's status and affiliation with a particular "tribe" and not an individual fashion choice.

The picture that is emerging of relative uniformity of apron dress colors and and accompanying jewelry over time reminds me of is late (e.g., 18th through early 20th century) period European folk costume. Dresses and overdresses in this era, such as the bunad, tended to be limited to particular styles and colors among people living in a particular region, and tended to differentiate between married and unmarried marital status. Perhaps the Vendel/Viking apron dress was a garment reflective of married women's status, that varied in style primarily depending upon the region in Scandinavia in which the woman was living. (Tortoise brooches, in contrast, seem to have evolved into standardized patterns that appeared wherever "Viking" women settled.)

The suggestion that Scandinavian women's costume changed little from the Vendel period through to the end of the Viking era raises another question. I've read scholars (names are not coming to mind right now) who suggest that fashion, as we know it--i.e., short-term social trends affecting the appearance of individualized outfits--did not appear in Europe until the 15th century and is not typically found in other parts of the world until after their first contact with Europeans. In other words, what we think of as "folk costume" is typical of clothing changes before the age of "fashion", and the invention of "fashion" is an abrupt aberration from the pattern of slow, status-oriented clothing style change that was the norm for most of recorded history.

All of this idle speculation will be knocked into a cocked hat, of course, if it turns out that the apron dress finds that have been analyzed so far are not "typical." But right now it is easier to assemble a picture of apron-dress wearing Viking women as flaunting a "tribal" affiliation as their descendants would do with later-period folk dress than to match the existing finds to an image of Viking fashion as based primarily upon individual expression, in the manner of Renaissance European clothing. I suspect that we eventually will have enough finds to be able to say, with as much confidence as is possible about the distant past, that Viking women likely wore similar dark blue or brown apron dresses with stylistic differences characteristic of the region in which they lived, or something similar. When that happens, I guess I will have to find another use, or another home, for all of the red, orange, green, and pastel apron dresses I have made.

Christmas Greetings

2011-12-24T23:27:00.000-05:00

Today's Father Christmas

It occurred to me today that I've defined the subject matter of this blog so stringently that technically even a simple "Merry Christmas!" post would be off-topic.

Today's Santa

Then I thought of a way around the problem. If I could come up with a post about costume that relates to Christmas, it would be appropriate to end that post with a Christmas greeting.

What better way to do that with a few words about...Santa Claus! I figured that if I dug up a few public domain pictures showing a bit of the evolution of Santa Claus's costume, I could make a little Christmas costume display that would be a suitably on-topic platform for a Christmas greeting. Who knows, maybe I can do a Christmas costume post each year as a regular feature! (All of the photographs in this post are from Wikimedia Commons; clicking on most of them will give you bigger versions.)

As you may know, the idea of Santa Claus is loosely based on a medieval saint, St. Nicholas, a bishop whose charity in supplying poor virgins with gold for dowries made him a by-word for selfless generosity. (Wikipedia gives a surprisingly detailed version of the Santa Claus origin story.) So it is not surprising to see that depictions of St. Nicholas show him in the miter and robes of a bishop and carrying a crozier, as shown in the modern Dutch image to the left.

Dutch image of St. Nick

Father Christmas from 1686

The 17th century British image I found shows a "Father Christmas" who looks kind of like a bishop in a cassock of the period. He bears a stronger resemblance to the modern British Father Christmas than he does to "Santa Claus." It occurred to me in looking at the pictures that the British Father Christmas bears more than a little resemblance to the Ghost of Christmas Past from Dickens's A Christmas Carol: "It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust." Our modern Father Christmas isn't wearing a bathrobe-like garment that bares his breast, but the resemblance to Dickens's description is obvious.


Voyageur reenactor

Canadian "Pere Noel" from 1875

Nast Santa of 1881

Meanwhile, in the New World, the Father Christmas/Santa figure was coming to look more like a man of action than a saintly prelate. This Canadian image from the mid-1870s looks more like a voyageur, a roving fur trader common in what is now the U.S. and Canada during the 17th and 18th centuries. What persuades me that this is the source of the American-style Santa is the long, floppy hat, as shown by this reenactor. Despite having acquired a silly hat, the Canadian Pere Noel has somehow retained Father Christmas's holly wreath on his head. Thomas Nast's more commercial (and more famous) image features a similar hat-and-wreath combo, showing that voyageur and Father Christmas features are still present.

If so much of my brain wasn't eaten up with early period costume, I might do some serious research into the evolution of Santa's costume--what little I found in putting together this quickie essay suggests that there are some very interesting connections waiting to be explored.

Anyway, I think that I've spent enough time talking about costume to justify some Christmas greetings. Enjoy your Christmas (or other) holiday, everyone!

A Period Wedding Gown

2011-12-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

Since The Dreamstress featured a number of historical wedding gowns lately, I felt that I should respond with one of my own.Sadly, what Viking women wore for their weddings remains a matter for passionate debate (it may even be possible that something like a savanion was involved). So my photograph is of something rather more modern.

My parents' formal wedding photograph--June 13, 1944

The photograph shown with this post (click on it to see it larger) is my parents' formal wedding photograph. Yes, my parents had a military wedding--because my father had just volunteered for the Armed Forces (he had to work at getting into the Army, being a bit too short and too old at the time to be drafted). The time was June 1944. This website describes the characteristics of wedding gowns of the 1940s, and the gown my mother is wearing has a number of them, including a very modest neckline, long sleeves, and a substantial train.

I can't provide you with more information, unfortunately, because I don't have the dress. The reason for that is that it wasn't *her* dress--it was borrowed! Dad was being shipped out so quickly that she didn't have time to get her own gown (even if they had had the money). Instead, she borrowed a gown from one of her future sisters-in-law. The sister-in-law had a more developed bosom than Mom did, so Mom had to wear the dress with a well-stuffed bra in a larger size than she normally wore to make it look as though the gown fit! But she was still a beautiful bride. Don't you agree?

Useful Knowledge From Nørre Sandegård Vest

2011-12-12T21:18:00.001-05:00

In my last post on the problems of researching Vendel costume, I mentioned a book about certain grave finds at a place called Nørre Sandegård Vest. Here is the citation (courtesy of pearl's LiveJournal):

Jørgensen, L. & Nørgård Jørgensen, A. 1997. Nørre Sandegård Vest: a cemetery from the 6th-8th centuries on Bornholm. Det Kongelige Nordiska Oldskriftselskab. Köpenhamn.

Equally piqued by the possibility of obtaining more information, but possessing access to university libraries that is far superior to mine, the plucky pearl located a copy of this book and, like the good friend she is, sent me copies of the sections on jewelry and textile finds. In that 25-page excerpt, there was a gold mine's worth of facts that have completely changed my way of thinking about the subject of women's costume in Scandinavia during the Vendel period.

The disc-on-bow brooches of which I was previously aware were 5th or 6th century finds, mostly from Gotland (an island off the coast of Sweden) and Anglo-Saxon England of the same period. Nørre Sandegård Vest is located on Bornholm, an island in the Baltic Sea that is considered part of Denmark but located quite close to southern Sweden (though still west of Gotland). What makes Nørre Sandegård Vest ("NSV", for the rest of this post) fascinating, and useful, from a costume history perspective is that it contains a number of different women's graves, from different time periods, and the graves contained enough jewelry to preserve a number of textile fragments--approximately 300 of them. In fact, if Ulla Mannering, the author of the section on textiles in the Jørgensen book cited above is correct (and I have no reason to believe that she is not), the lion's share of known textile finds from the Vendel period came from the graves at NSV.

There are a number of conclusions Ms. Mannering and the author of the jewelry section drew from the NSV grave finds, particularly from Ms. Mannering's study of the NSV textiles. Some of these conclusions have stunning implications, not just for Vendel period women's costume, but for Viking era women's costume as well. Let me summarize some of them briefly (not necessarily in order in importance):

1. Apron dresses mostly *were* dark blue or brown. Ms. Mannering found a number of wool diamond twill fragments in the graves, which have characteristics substantially like the wool diamond twill fragments found at Birka--in fact, she refers to them as the "Birka type". Some graves had a different of fine diamond twill than the Birka type, while a third type had a fine wool tabby in the apron dress layer. Ms. Mannering had these diamond twill fragments tested for indigotin and other substances indicative of period dyes, and discovered that virtually all of them contained indigotin--indicating that they once had been dyed blue. Moreover, the tests confirmed that a number of them had been overdyed with brown dyes, which likely was a way of making them a much darker blue--navy, or close to black. One interesting specimen had been overdyed in orange, which Ms. Mannering believes would have made it look purple. The few specimens that were not blue apparently had been dyed brown. This suggests, at least to me, that blue or brown apron dresses were traditional and had been traditional for hundreds of years before the Viking era. A few of the tested textile samples showed traces of other dye colors, but none of the diamond twills did so.

2. Underdresses were of undyed or brown linen, with keyhole necklines. As Erika Svensson reported in her thesis, Ms. Mannering concludes that the diamond twill apron dresses at NSV were worn over linen underdresses. However, this hypothesis is not based solely on brooch-pin size, as I had assumed from the comment in Ms. Svensson's thesis. Ms. Mannering found quite a number of linen textile fragments in the graves also, and they turned out to be either undyed or, if dyed, had been dyed with a brown pigment.

Jørgensen et al., Fig. 46 (beginning of chronology)

Jørgensen et al., p. 59, Fig. 46 (end of chronology)

3. Disc-on-bow brooches were in use only during part of the Vendel Period. Most of the NSV graves are from the Vendel period, but few of them contain disc-on-bow brooches. Many of the graves contain pairs of stickpins, and there are a variety of other brooch combinations and types. When considered together with some of the other Vendel period Danish finds, it is possible to group the brooch collections by approximate time period--suggesting that different assortments were fashionable during different parts of the Vendel and late Roman periods. Granted, a relatively small number of graves have been involved in the authors' assembly of this chronology (about 20 or so I believe), but it at least represents a hypothetical chronology against with future finds can be compared.

The chart to the left, taken from the Jørgensen book, summarizes the authors' conclusions as to this chronological analysis. I have rearranged the chart as it appears in the book so that the brooch phases fall into chronological order, starting at the far left and proceeding forward in time as one reads rightwards. (All dates given on the chart, are years C.E.). The chart indicates that the disc-on-bow brooch fashion is found in an approximately 200-year time span and was proceeded and followed by different combinations of brooches.The type of brooch in favor after the disc-on-bow brooches recede from the archaeological record is a kind of rectangular plate brooch, which comes in small and large sizes. Some finds have three of them, a large one, positioned at the neck, that held a multi-strand loop of beads as well as fastening a neckline, and two smaller ones holding up the overdress--the job that would eventually be relegated to tortoise brooches. The chronologically last finds, like the grave Ms. Svensson mentions in her thesis, features three tortoise brooches--one at the neck, and two holding up the overdress. The chart (as well as a second chart showing the graves of NSV and what jewelry was found in each) suggests that most of the evolutionary phases of the brooch set included at least one pair of stickpins.

So a new possibility for my costume may be to select a slightly later time period and create a three-rectangular-plate brooch costume instead of a disc-on-bow brooch costume. Although I don't know what any of the rectangular plate brooches look like, there is a largish brooch sold by Raymond's Quiet Press and small ones sold by a seller on Etsy that might do until I find out more about the actual brooches found. I'm still thinking about what kind of Vendel costume I want to construct, and whether I want to learn more about the design of the rectangular plate brooches found at NSV before I go ahead and buy even more brooches than I have now.

4. More support for pearl's theory of how shawls really were worn. As I mentioned above, quite a few of the NSV graves contained long stickpins. Like Erika Svensson, Ms. Mannering believes that these stickpins were used to fasten shawls to the woman's other clothing. As they above chart indicates, they appear in graves together with the disc-on-bow brooches, as well as part of ensembles involving different brooch types.

This supports, after a fashion, pearl's theory as to how triangular shawls could match, when worn, the perfectly triangular appearance shown in pendants, guldgubbar figures and other forms of Vendel and Viking era art. pearl's suggestion was that the long points of the triangle were folded over and perhaps sewn down in wear. However, if shawls were pinned to the shoulders with stickpins, instead of being held entirely by a disc-on-bow brooch, it would be simple to fold the corners under and pin the shawl through the folds and onto the rest of the costume, without needing to permanently sew anything.


Fig. 106, Viking Age Ringed Pins from Dublin

One may wonder just how well skinny stickpins would hold a substantial shawl. Ms. Mannering has a suggested answer to this question. She notes that small iron rings also appear in the graves. Accordingly, she suggests that each stickpin may have had one of these loops tied to it with a thong or cord. The pin would be stuck through the cloth, and then the ring would be looped over the end of the pin, securing it. This would work a bit like the ring-headed pins that turn up in male Viking graves, mostly in Dublin near the end of the Viking age--the sketch to the right, from Thomas Fanning's book on Viking ring-headed pins (Fanning, Thomas. Viking Age Ringed Pins From Dublin p. 125 (Royal Irish Academy 1984), illustrates the principle nicely.

If stickpins-plus-rings were stable enough to hold a shawl, that fact addresses my main problem with the idea that shawls were pinned on solely with a large disc-on-bow brooch, namely, how did women avoid being strangled by their own brooches? Folding the shawl into the correct shape and then pinning the fold in place, even if the disc-on-bow brooch also partly supported the shawl, may answer this question; the re-contouring of the shawl with the stick pins into a shape that would make it look more triangular in wear may also have made it possible to support the shawl on the body more comfortably at the neck with the disc-on-bow or other neckline brooch. (I thought that Ms. Mannering said the stickpins fastened the shawl to the rest of the costume, but the jewelry section expressly says otherwise; see quote below.) I think I will obtain a suitable pair of stickpins and experiment.

5. No tablet weaving. This was a surprise to me, and possibly was to Ms. Mannering as well. What does appear in the graves is cord, and it appears in quantities great enough to indicate that it was used as fringe on some of the garments worn by the women in the graves--perhaps on shawls, for example. So much for my idea of using my Norwegian Snartnemo band to decorate a Vendel find based on the graves at NSV! The absence of evidence of tablet-woven bands at NSV, however, is interesting in its own right, even if it throws a monkey-wrench into my planned costume design. :-)

6. Were Vendel and Viking era costume so different? So what do the authors of the Jørgensen book think Vendel women's costume looked like? This quotation from the jewelry section suggests that it did not look that different from Viking era costume, except for the jewelry:

Nørre Sandegård Vest shows that through the course of the Late Germanic Iron Age [i.e., I think this term is equivalent to "Vendel" or perhaps "Migration Period"] "there is a continuous replacement of the female brooch-types. It is clear, however, that the basic set of a neck brooch and 2 breast brooches emerges in this period that that this is manifestly linked to Viking period costume. Only the widespread use of dress pins in the Late Germanic Iron Age distinguishes the combinations of dress accessories of the two periods. .... There is much that indicates that the forerunner of the Viking-period pinafore dress was introduced at this date, as Mannering's textiles studies also imply. (pp. 58-59)

The text proceeds to describe a costume with three basic elements that is very like the elements proposed to be represented by the finds at Birka, though the possibility of additional items being present in the richer graves is expressly emphasized:

Colour analyses show that an often blue twill pinafore dress was fastened below the arms with the aid of the two brooches that sat upon the chest straps of the dress. ...The underdress was of linen and had a slit at the neck to which a de luxe brooch was fastened. The third element of costume was a woollen shawl or cape. The large number of dress pins in the graves, which were not fastened to the pinafore dress or the underdress, were probably used to fasten this shawl. ... This three-part costume is the basic model at Nørre Sandegård Vest. Several of the rich graves, however, contain more types of textile; grave 9, for instance, had no less than 7 different types. ... It is clear that the costumes could consist of more than the three basic elements just described, although the small size of the textile fragments unfortunately prevents any closer identification of these and their function.(p. 59)

This summary ignores Ms. Mannering's suggestion that, in at least some of the graves, the third garment might be an open-fronted robe or caftan. Although the fragments of textiles found in graves throughout Scandinavia for both the Vendel and Viking periods are very small and there is no definitive evidence of such caftans, there is better evidence that they were worn by high-born Frankish women--and the Franks were the dominant power of northern Europe at the time. Moreover, the caftan was also adopted during the Migration Period in the Kentish section of England. Perhaps Inga Hägg was correct in concluding that some of the Birka women wore caftans. Maybe those caftans were the last manifestations of a very old European fashion. As more information about northern European burials between 500 and 1000 C.E. becomes available, it may become possible to confirm this theory. I hope so.

Finally, none of this precludes the possibility that some women wore shawls *over* caftans (the way some wealthy older women wear big shawls or ruanas over winter coats even today). The Frankish Queen Bathilde wore both a caftan AND a shawl to her grave--and the shawl still bears the remains of fringe--reminiscent of the NSV graves.

EDIT: Please note the following correction to my remarks about what garments Queen Bathilde was buried in, courtesy of pearl:"The Frankish finds aren't all from the same person (only that particular source says so)- the coat belonged to Bathilde, but the cloak is associated with Abbess Bertille." e.g., http://www.baladeenpaysbriard.com/article-2801271.html

My Vendel Costume--Barking Up The Wrong Tree?

2011-12-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to pearl's research-fu, I have obtained some additional information about Vendel period costume. Unfortunately, the end result of that increase in information is to increase my doubts about how I should proceed and, specifically, what items of costume I should make, and how they should look. I apologize in advance if this post sounds a bit disjointed, but I'm writing it, in part, to clarify my thoughts, as well as to get feedback from you, my readers, as to what I should do next.

Reconstruction sketch from Erika Svensson's thesis

One of the new pieces of information I have obtained is the following thesis:

Svensson, Erika. 2005. "Spännande djur i vendeltida Uppåkra: En komparativ kontextuell analys av ovala och djurformade skålfibulor från Uppåkra" (Lund University).

Among other information, Ms. Svensson's thesis contains the sketch on the left, which is a reconstruction of a woman's costume from the Vendel era based upon finds from a grave in Norway located at Nørre Sandegård Vest.

What is the problem? you may ask. It's this. My original conception of Vendel costume was based upon the many finds of disc-on-bow brooches, which all date to the Vendel period. But many of those finds are from Gotland or other parts of Sweden, while the Snartemo band that inspired my costume in the first place is a Norwegian find. I had assumed that the disc-on-bow brooch was generally common throughout Scandinavia during the Vendel period, but this may well not be the case, and it appears that there was no such brooch in the Nørre Sandegård Vest find.

In addition, there are other reasons why the Nørre Sandegård Vest find would be a more appealing one for me to replicate. For one thing, I would not need to sew an underdress. Ms. Svensson claims that, in this find, the brooch pins were inserted into the dress, and the fineness of the brooch pins found shows that the underdress had to have been made from linen, not wool. I already have several linen underdresses, one with a keyhole neckline, that I could use for such a costume.

A second reason is that I would not need a large disc-on-bow brooch for a Nørre Sandegård Vest costume either! A small ~~round~~ tortoise (?) brooch and a pair of slightly larger tortoise-shaped brooches would be all I would need. Absent detailed information on the brooch designs, I could make do with plain bronze brooches with added bosses from The Treasury. Although period brooches were cast, not hammered, there were some plain ones found during the Vendel Period, and I could get the hammered ones cheaply. I would also need a few short strands of suitable beads with spreaders, but again spreaders are easy to come by--much easier than disc-on-bow brooches.

As for the shawl, the above sketch indicates that it was pinned to the straps of an apron dress with straight pins. I'm not sure that I believe that to be credible, but then I know almost nothing about the Nørre Sandegård Vest. In any event, finding suitable straight pins (The Treasury sells some of these, also) and pinning a shawl in this manner would be simple and relatively cheap to do.

Lastly, the sketch above assumes a slightly fitted apron dress. However, I greatly doubt that the find supports anything other than a dress with straps, somewhat like my blue tube-shaped dress.

So now I am now interesting in finding more information about the Nørre Sandegård Vest find, in order to decide exactly what sort of costume I want to make, and ornament with the Snartnemo band I've been given. At pearl's suggestion I've tracked down and read the following article:

Malmius, Anita. "Cremation grave textiles: Examples from Vendel upper class in the Vendel and Viking Periods" Jonas 13 (October 2002).

Unfortunately for me, the finds Ms. Malmius discusses in her Jonas article are male graves. Interestingly, these finds are of wool, mostly 2/2 twill, not linen. But that could be due to a number of factors--including the possibility that cremation may destroy linen fabric while preserving traces of wool.

So it seems to me that coming up with a plausibly Vendel costume would require a greater level of research intensity. I'm still wrestling with whether I'm prepared for that as yet, though it still looks as though my white wool and blue wool (both 2/2 twill) are good choices for the project.

Spotted!

2011-12-08T22:19:00.001-05:00

I was pleased to learn this afternoon that Wychwood Warriors just cited this blog on their wiki in the section on the Viking woman's apron dress. Thank you! It's great to be appreciated.

In other minor news, I've just obtained a copy of Margareta Gleba's book, Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy, and am eagerly reading it. I have a number of topics I want to write on but have had little time or energy. However, I have a number of vacation days around Christmas and New Year's, so hopefully I'll be able to do something about that.

Opportunity!

2011-12-03T20:36:00.001-05:00

Good news! I will be doing a guest post for The Dreamstress! She is planning to do a continuing series of posts on definitions of costume/sewing terms from various eras, and she is asking a number of bloggers whose work she enjoys to contribute. My post (unsurprisingly) will be on the Viking "apron dress" and the various names applied to it. Most likely my post will appear on her blog sometime in January; I'll post here when I know the date and will provide a link to it after it's published.

Stay tuned!

Suvia's Letters

2011-11-27T23:27:00.001-05:00

I have been doing more movie-going and housework than anything else this Thanksgiving weekend, but I wanted to bring my readers' attention to a newish little blog called Suvia's Letters. The objective of Suvia's Letters is to collect resources for folk interested in France during the Merovingian period (roughly 450 C.E. to 750 C.E.). So far, Suvia has published a bibliography of sources about Merovingian material culture and some translations of articles about clothing-related archaeological textile finds of the period. More translations are in the offing.

While they were in power, the Merovingian dynasty was the dominant cultural force in Europe. Anyone interested in post-Roman-Empire costume in Europe would be well-advised to become familiar with Merovingian culture, and Suvia's blog is a good place to start. I plan to enjoy reviewing the articles she has translated. (I know some French, but starting with the original text and an existing translation still makes things easier.) Hopefully Suvia's blog will be useful to others as well.

Something To Be Thankful For

2011-11-23T20:07:00.001-05:00

Today is the American holiday, Thanksgiving, where people gather with their families to eat way too much rich food and think about the good things in their lives for which they should be thankful.

Yesterday, I learned about something research-related for which to give thanks. JSTOR, a huge online database of academic articles, decided in September to begin gradually making its collection available freely on line to anyone with Internet access. Formerly, JSTOR articles were only available for free to graduate students and academics whose universities are JSTOR members. The embedded video explains how to use JSTOR's advanced search page to locate material that may be of interest.

At present, general free access is limited to articles published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere in the world, but JSTOR's plan is clearly to expand that base over time.

JSTOR is an incredibly powerful tool as it includes access to the contents of many academic journals. (Many of the most interesting articles pearl has found for me were found through her JSTOR access.) The opportunity to begin to tap that well of knowledge is truly something to be thankful for.

The Hedeby Dress, Revisited

2011-11-20T22:15:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I had occasion to try on my Hedeby apron dress again. As you may recall, at the time I completed that dress it fit like the skin on a rather lumpy banana. However, I've lost some weight since then, and the result is to make the dress much more flattering. I don't have any photos of me in the dress from this weekend, but I'm planning to resurrect a photo-essay project, and will try to sneak a photograph of me in the dress into it.

One thing I discovered is that the rear set of straps have gone from being a bit too long to being way too long, a problem I solved for the moment by tying a knot in each of them, and inserting the pins through the loop above the place where the knot was. I did not think to try crossing the loops to the opposite sides without knotting; I'll have to do that next time I wear it.

The Real Corduroy?

2011-11-13T17:31:00.001-05:00

Between fighting off a cold (and losing) and being preoccupied with other things, I haven't had the energy to post much here lately. However, on Friday I found an interesting tidbit in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal, that was too good not to share.

Friday's Journal included an article about a group that calls itself the Corduroy Appreciation Club, which is a club for people who really like to wear clothing made of corduroy fabric. Most of the article was about the group's meetings and was pretty silly, but the article included this explanation of the origins of corduroy that I'd never heard before:

Corduroy's origins date back to the 1ate 1700s England, not France, as is widely believed, says James Pruden, a research promotion nonprofit headquartered in Cary, N.C. The term corduroy is most likely a combination of the words "cord" and the now obsolete "duroy" or "deroy", meaning a woolen garment, he says. "The thinking is that corduroy is so warm and such an autumnal fabric in the same way that wool is something you wear in cooler months." he says.

I don't know what the support is for this version of corduroy's origins, but it makes better sense to me than the idea that "cor-du-roi" is some kind of king's cloth. Wikipedia points out that there is no expression like cor-du-roi in French (the French term for the fabric is velours côtelé) and the Wikipedia article mentions that duroy or deroy was an old English term for a wool garment. Maybe the original corderoy was woven from wool. It's certainly possible to make velvet out of wool (and it makes a very luxurious and expensive fabric, too).

Hopefully, I will be able to resume one of my projects and have something more interesting to report in my next post; I'm thinking of going back to my fitted wrap-around Viking apron dress next.

For Next Halloween....

2011-11-01T22:57:00.003-04:00

I originally meant to blog this weekend, but an unexpected snow storm took out the cable that pumps the Internet into our house. The result is that I did not have a home Internet connection from Saturday night until this afternoon, so instead of a serious costume post, you're about to get a slightly belated Halloween treat.

While using the Internet at work today I learned of an interesting website, Take Back Halloween. It is aimed at women who are tired of the traditional nurse/witch/vampire costumes, and would like to try dressing as legendary figures or historical persons who were genuinely interesting. It is patently not aimed at historical costumers, for none of the suggestions involve sewing of any kind. The idea is to buy or otherwise obtain costume components that are of better quality than the typical dime-store costumes and supplement them with well-chosen accessories to create a distinctive look that is at least symbolic of the character (though most of the assertions the site makes about actual historical costume are correct, so far as I can tell). Featured characters include Ada Lovelace (thanks to Sydney Padua of 2D Goggles whose Twitter feed brought the site to my attention), Audrey Hepburn, Christine de Pizan, Queen Nzinga, and a host of goddesses, including Athena, Persephone, and Pele.

Costs range from pretty cheap to several hundred dollars. Historical authenticity ranges from Pretty Dreadful to Surprisingly Good, Considering. So this site isn't for everyone. However, it's still a fun read and a potential source of inspiration, at least for Halloween costumes if not for something more ambitious. Enjoy!

More Archaeological News--Third Century Clothing Find in Norway

2011-10-18T23:54:00.000-04:00

This seems to be a week for spectacular archaeological clothing finds.Yesterday, I stumbled across this article about the find of a nearly-complete third century C.E. find in Breheimen National Park, Norway. The article has a reasonably good color photograph of the find, which to me looks a bit like the tunic of approximately the second century C.E. found at Martres-de-Veyre (scroll about two-thirds of the way down to the bottom of this page for better pictures) in France. If I'm understanding the Google Translate version of the article correctly, this tunic, like the one at Martres-le-Veyre, is made from woven wool. Unlike the Martres-le-Veyre find, it is believed to have been worn by a man, but, like the Martres-le-Veyne find, it was worn with a belt. It is part of a number of personal items found at the same site in the mountains, including shoes, textiles, jewelry, hunting gear and tent pegs. Perhaps that type of garment was generally used during the period and not regional, as the name "Gallic coat" given to the Martres-le-Veyre find implies.

Also found recently, at nearby Jotunheimen--a leather shoe, of similar vintage, which is a dead-ringer for the Armenian shoe I mentioned in yesterday's post. Likely that means only that simple sewn leather shoes were used for a long, long time--from prehistory into the Middle Ages. Still, the resemblance is striking.

Site of the Oldest Shoe--Latest News

2011-10-17T00:07:00.001-04:00

Last year, I wrote about an archaeological site in Armenia where archaeologists had found what they believe to be the oldest surviving shoe in Eurasia--nearly 6,000 years old.

Yesterday, I found another article about a new discovery at the same site. The new discovery consists of a woven grass skirt, well-preserved with "amazing" hues. Alas, the article contains no photographs of the find, and I have not been able to locate any so far. I'll be looking forward to future news from Areni-1 Cave, which is the name of the site, to see whether further interesting costume elements or other interesting artifacts are located.

Earliest Spinning Wheel?

2011-10-16T02:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was in a bookstore looking at the craft magazines when the following article from the latest edition of Spin-Off magazine caught my eye:

Farwell-Clay, Julia. "Jonathan Bosworth's Spinning Wheel Time Machine," Spin-Off, vol. XXXV, no. 1, pages 64-66 (Fall 2011).

The article is about the latest project of a man named Jonathan Bosworth, who spins and researches information about historical spinning. A key part of his research consists of building spinning wheels based on historical information, and then teaching himself how to use them. Her has a website here where, among other things, he sells spinning wheels based on earlier research into spinning on the Indian subcontinent, along with hand spindles and other spinning equipment.


From Spin-Off article, page 64.

Mr. Bosworth's latest project is a spinning wheel he constructed based on depictions in rock carvings dated to the Han Dynasty period (206 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.) in China; I have reproduced part of the rock image as shown in the Spin-Off article below. Mr. Bosworth candidly admits that the likely purpose for the device shown in the carving was to wind strands of silk onto bobbins for silk weavers to use, but having built such a device he has subsequently demonstrated that it makes a wonderful spinning wheel as well! That discovery is striking, because the invention of the spinning wheel has typically been dated to the Middle Ages--about a thousand years later.

The YouTube video above was taken during one such demonstration. In the video, he notes that, unlike a typical treadle spinning wheel, the spinner has "absolute control; there are no dead spots." That sounds very attractive for a spinner!

Despite Mr. Bosworth's impressive device, it is by no means clear that the ancient Chinese used such a wheel for spinning. (For a start, the rock carving he has used as inspiration does not seem to have a foot-operated treadle, as his proposed device does.) Still, I find the possibility that such a spinning wheel might have been in use in China by the third century C.E. to be intriguing--and I have yet to attempt any spinning. Those of you who are spinners, or are otherwise interested in the history of spinning, may wish to give Mr. Bosworth's experiments some of your attention.

The Devil's Own Band

2011-10-03T23:11:00.001-04:00

You may remember my hopeful post of a few days ago about the start of my second tablet-woven band using the 4-tablet, 12-strand Lagore Crannog pattern.Sadly, my hopefulness (hope of weaving a tight, consistently-patterned band) did not last long. When I picked up where had I left off, I was entirely unable to continue or resume the pattern shown in my photograph. Instead, all I got was a monotonous, pebbled mush of a pattern...or rather a non-pattern.

After unpicking what I had done several times, I finally realized that the problem was that one of the tablets had gotten flipped to the opposite orientation. I could have sworn that I had never released the cards for long enough, or given them enough room, to flip. But flipped it was.

Unfortunately, even after re-flipping the tablet I could not reestablish the pattern, and the lack of tension in the warp from having had to unpick the weave several times meant that I could not even weave the band with the tightness of my original 9 or so passes. So I cut the monstrosity free, rewarped the loom, and started over.

I still haven't reachieved the pattern shown in the photo in my last post, but at least I have a better idea now how to tell when a tablet gets flipped, and my band is reasonably tightly woven. So far. We'll see what happens next.

The Lagore Crannog Band, Encore

2011-09-29T18:42:00.002-04:00

Last night, I restrung my tablet-weaving loom for the Lagore Crannog band, hoping to do a better job with both keeping the weave even and the correct count for turning the cards. My ultimate objective was to do a better job in order to obtain a band long enough to use as a headband. I considered buying some Shetland wool for this attempt, but decided I should see whether I've improved significantly before I waste money on expensive new wool.

The start of my new band.

To my surprise, the pattern that is forming this time is very different from my first effort. It's more like the description in the article in the Complex Weavers' Medieval Textiles newsletter (Issue 38, December 2003; ISSN: 1530-762X) from which I obtained my information. The article says that the cards should all be threaded "to the right", but I wasn't clear as to which direction that was last time. I'd bet that I'd strung them the other way (I always did tend to mix directions), explaining the difference in pattern.

For those of you who want further information on the Lagore Crannog band, here is the citation from the Complex Weavers' article:

Hencken, Lagore Cranog. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, volume I.III, 1950-51.

In any event, I'm glad I tried this band again! It is interesting seeing how different the pattern is, and the experience in weaving a band that uses open holes in the design will stand me in good stead when I start my Snartnemo band.

EDIT: pearl has supplied me with a full, corrected cite for the Royal Irish Academy article about the Lagore Crannog band:

Hugh Hencken, Liam Price and Laura E. Start. 1950/1951. "Lagore Crannog:An Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 10th Centuries A.D." /Proceedingsof the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies,History, Linguistics, Literature/ Vol. *53*; 1-247.

Jacqui's Orkney Hood

2011-09-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

The other day, I found an interesting article about the Orkney Hood, ~~a roughly Viking era textile~~ found more than 100 years ago in the Orkney Islands. A more detailed web version of the article may be found here. A color photograph of the hood, from the National Museums of Scotland's website, may be seen here.

The article is by Jacqui Wood, a British archaeologist whose primary interest is the prehistoric period. Unlike most finds that old, the Orkney Hood is a complete garment, and Ms. Wood was commissioned to make a replica of the Orkney Hood, and wrote the article to describe what she learned in the process of making the replica. One example is how she learned that the hood was woven with threads of unequal thicknesses:

However when the weaving was complete and I measured the fabric and it was at least 20 cm too long! This was turningout to be a very challenging project. I had to go back to my measurements and re- think where I had gonewrong. It had to be something to do with the thickness of the weft threads as the width was the right measurement. I had wrongly assumed that all the weft threads in the fabric were the same thickness I found when Icalculated the widths of the chevrons to the number of rows that there were in fact four very different thickness of yarn used for the weft. This was very noticeable with hindsight the 42 row band measured 4 cm where-as the 38 row band measured 5 cm. I ascertained that the four distinct yarns were as follows 7 rows per cm, 8rows per cm, 9 rows per cm and 10.5 rows per cm. These different thicknesses of yarn were erratically distributed throughout the fabric.

Ms. Wood notes that the discrepancy of thicknesses is likely due to the fact that four different spinners made the thread used in the hood:

Having had some experience teaching groups of people how to spin on a spindle whorl I have found that people find their own thickness of yarn that they find easy to spin. Most students acquiring spinning skills find that they can easily spin an even yarn at their own personal thickness, some very fine yarn and some much thicker. Whereas a skilled spinner can spin any yarn thickness to order the average spinner tends to spin always at the same thickness. I suggest that therefore that there were four distinct spinners making the yarn for the hood. This would account for the uneven chevrons of the pattern. If a fine thread was added after a thick one this would form a ridge in the weaving and be noticeable, but if one always changed the direction of the chevron when a new yarn was added the difference is unnoticeable, as I found to my cost when making my first replication of the weaving.

I lack the skills at weaving to make these kinds of discoveries myself, so I am all the more impressed when someone who can weave engages in the process and documents what she finds. The rest of Ms. Wood's report contains more discoveries of this type, and I recommend that anyone interested in weaving, or in the clothing of the early Middle Ages read it.

EDIT: Although it was once suggested that the hood might belong to the Viking Age, ingaborg correctly reminded me that the hood has since been carbon-dated to between (roughly) 200 and (roughly) 600 C.E., as Wood's article itself notes. My apologies for the error.

My Lagore Crannog Band--Finished!

2011-09-17T23:06:00.001-04:00

Tonight, I finally finished my Lagore Crannog band. The pictures here show the full band, and close ups of the best section. Once I finally figured out how to consistently get the turning sequence right, I was able to pack the threads properly and complete it quickly.

Top side, as I was weaving.

Back side, as I was weaving.

The band is very short--too short to use as a headband. It is just long enough for the good part to decorate the area between the two brooches of a Viking apron dress--except that the original band was 1) Irish, and 2) pre-Viking age. I may wear it as a bracelet (even though that obscures the best section), or use it to ornament a small bag.

However, I like the pattern; it is elegant, and the band itself is very solid and would be useful, in a longer length, as a belt or a strap for an item. I might make up a longer band in this pattern, sometime, now that I understand how that pattern works. But next, I think I'll start the Snartemo band.

The whole thing.

Saxon Brocaded Tablet Weaving

2011-09-12T20:33:00.001-04:00

It's been hectic around here since my cat was horribly ill with a kidney infection last week (she's finally better, and home), but I've found another interesting link to share anyway.

This page by SCA member Elizabeth Peters contains instructions, and links to specific patterns, that will allow the discerning reader to reproduce the gold brocaded tablet woven bands Sonja Hawkes and Elizabeth Crowfoot wrote about for Medieval Archaeology. A PDF of the 1967 Hawkes and Crowfoot article may be downloaded here. This sounds like a wonderful page to explore after I finish the Lagore Crannog band and my planned Snartemo design.

17th Century Fabric Reproduction

2011-09-10T02:26:00.001-04:00

A day or two ago, I found a link on the h-costume list to this page describing yet another historic fabric that Duran Textiles plans to manufacture for sale by a museum. The last one I wrote about was a reproduction of a fifteenth century textile made for Queen Margareta and preserved in Uppsala Cathedral.

This time, Duran is making a reproduction of an embroidered silk broadcloth used to make a wedding suit for King Gustav II Adolf, who ruled from 1615 to 1632. The reproduction fabric will be sold by the museum shop of the Royal Armouries of Sweden, where the original of the suit now resides. The original was purple colored and embroidered in gold, with genuine gold spangles (i.e., sequins) studding the floral design. The reproduction will be available in two modes; printed in gold on purple or red cotton, or printed on wine-colored or blue silk; the silk version costs 590. SEK per meter and is 145 cm wide (no word on the cost of the cotton version). Also available for the truly wealthy is a limited edition version in hand-embroidered silk that costs 3 200. SEK per meter.

The article has clear enlargeable photographs, both of the original suit and of the reproduction fabrics, and I commend both the photographs and the article in general to the attention of lovers of sumptuous fabric and 17th century costume alike.

The Lagore Crannog Band--The Beginnings of a Pattern

2011-09-07T21:10:00.002-04:00

I have finally woven a sufficiently long proportion of my Lagore Crannog band that I can keep track of which way I have to flip the tablets for each pass.

Top side (while weaving)

Reverse side (while weaving)

A pattern is beginning to form, though I fear I'm having to relearn any skill I had at tablet weaving and even my best sections look amateurish. The attached photographs, which features the best section of the band to date, show the pattern. It's kind of interesting, though I think the other side is more attractive. I have edited the photos slightly to sharpen detail.

The Death of MedCos

2011-08-31T00:30:00.000-04:00

About six or seven years ago, I joined a mailing list called MedCos, founded by Wendi Dunlap, who used an educational software program called Moodle to set it up as a website. As a result, like the Yahoo groups lists, you could post from an e-mail client or at the site through a browser.

But MedCos (the name comes from "Medieval Costuming") was more interesting than the Yahoo lists (many of which I still subscribe to) in many ways. First, it was not focused on a single period but on many different periods, each with its own forum, though members could, and did, subscribe to all the forums. The primary emphasis was on SCA period, but because the site was structured to include multiple forums, forums were added accommodate costuming interests from the 17th century all the way up to modern times.

Second, unlike the Yahoo forums, the software used for MedCos made it possible for members to include photographs *with* posts and have the photographs be visible when reading the list through a browser. This fact made for a friendlier interface for separate areas like costume galleries and reading lists. Each subforum had a moderator (though some moderators were responsible for multiple forums) who were responsible for maintaining the information and picture gallery areas, fostering discussions, and generally keeping the forum well-run. Before I developed the courage to start my own blog, I was the moderator for the "Early Period" section on MedCos. I spent a fair amount of time adding Viking-related sources to the Early Period reference areas and encouraging people to provide pictures of their Viking and other Early Period costumes for the photo gallery.

Unfortunately, as with many good things, MedCos's most interesting features were the source of most of its problems. Because it is based on educational software, a login was always required to see the site. You could log in as "guest" by clicking a button, and accounts were always free, but a login was always required, which made it difficult if one wanted to place a link to a forum discussion or photograph on one's own blog or on another list. Other technical difficulties plagued the site from time to time because of our unusual hosting software.

In addition, the existence of separate forums made it tough to start, and sustain, discussions. MedCos had a lot of members but most were "lurkers" who preferred to read and observe rather than to post, and most of the members preferred later period costume (15th and 16th century). That often made it challenging for me to get discussions on early period costume started, and keep them going.As time went on, various moderators had to resign for different personal reasons. I eventually ended up moderating many of the forums, and the ones I didn't moderate went begging for attention. Fewer and fewer discussions were started. Eventually, I started this blog and spent less and less of my own time checking on MedCos.

Last week, I visited the MedCos site for the first time in months, only to find this message from Wendi dated from May of this year, explaining that she had had to close the site, and why she had needed to do so:

Hello, MedCos folks.You may have noticed that MedCos hasn't been working well lately. For a long time.It appears that we basically broke the site. The software that was hosting this site was never meant to do what we were doing with it, and we kind of overloaded it. I tried to fix it, but was unable to.For that reason, I believe I will have to close MedCos.I do have the content that people posted to MedCos, and might be able to pass it on to someone else if anyone wants to set up another sort of MedCos.I am sorry I wasn't able to fix it!

Unfortunately, I don't have the technical ability to "fix" the MedCos software, or to transfer the site content to another type of software. All I can do is to mourn the passing of MedCos, and hope that someone else with the requisite skills will arrange for its resurrection. For that reason, I have removed MedCos from my lists of favorite web sites, and costume resources, even though it will always have a place in my heart.

The Lagore Crannog Band--It's Working!

2011-08-29T22:16:00.002-04:00

On a whim, I tried to start the Lagore Crannog tablet-weaving again tonight, and this time I have made real progress, as shown in the photograph. The key turned out to be pushing the wefts all the way back to the edge of the frame (which appears at the bottom of the photograph) and keeping my over-sized tablets shoved as far away from the weaving as possible to enlarge the shed. The first six rows or so are obviously too loose, but they can be unraveled and fringed when I'm done, if necessary, to improve the appearance of the finished piece.

I'm not completely sure what I will do with the piece when I do finish it, since I started it to see what kind of product the odd threading pattern would make, not to fulfill a costuming objective. I have only threaded enough warp to make a band about two feet long. I suppose I could use it as a headband, either for period or modern purposes.

EDIT: I've woven about 3 inches and I'm feeling frustrated. Not because the weaving isn't going well, but because I keep forgetting when I need to go forward and when I need to go back. The pattern is 3 turns forward, three back, but it's hard for me to see at the end of a set whether the next turn needs to be forward or back, particularly if I get distracted. So I keep screwing up the pattern (and seeing what the pattern is like was most of the reason why I undertook this project in the first place....)

Though it will probably be embarrassing to do so, I'll post another picture of the finished product. At my current rate of progress, I may be ready to do that in a few days.

Sock-Cutting

2011-08-28T16:44:00.004-04:00

It's common knowledge even among casual historic costumers that, before knitting became established in Europe, most Europeans wore calf-high stockings cut and sewn from cloth, either linen, wool, or, for the very wealthy, silk. This raises a natural question: How does one cut a pattern for such a garment? What sort of patterns will achieve a reasonable fit when fairly inelastic fabric is used? And were those early stockings bias-cut, to enhance their stretchability and fit?

My stockings, hand-sewn from linen

On Friday, in a moment during which I should have been doing something else, I stumbled across the blog of a woman, a fellow historic costumer, who calls her blog Historic Stitcher. She had posted an interesting pattern for cut and sewn hose which she found in an article in Costume, The Journal of the Costume Society of Great Britain. The pattern was derived from research done in Tinn, Telemark, a town in Norway, where people continued to make and wear cut-and-sewn hose into the 1960s. The pattern shows rectangles cut from fabric placed on the bias, though it is far from clear to me from the pattern how the rectangles were seamed together.

Historic Stitcher made a comment about the Telemark pattern that puzzled me. She said, as though it was indisputable, that "straight-cut used more fabric". I'd always thought that bias cut required more fabric, since it required cutting on a line at an angle to the grain, resulting in odd-shaped pieces that would be more difficult to use.

Trying to reason my way out of that conundrum got me thinking about how cut and sewn hose were designed. In particular, I wondered about the Telemark pattern composed mostly of rectangular bias-cut strips, since I know of no examples like it. For instance, early medieval hose, such as this 12th century pair attributed to Saint Desiderius, look like modern Ugg boots, with a U-shaped piece covering the toes mated to a cylindrical shaft and a sole piece. The late medieval hose sketched on Marc Carlson's website do not seem to be made from small rectangular pieces. Instead they are vaguely conical tubes, such as the Bocksten Man's hose, with a point at the top for tying the hose to a waistband and a cup-like structure for covering the rest of the foot.

My stockings, in wear. Sorry about the angle!

Renaissance hose are different in pattern from both the early and late medieval styles. They tend to be in three pieces: one for the sole of the foot, one for the calf, and one to cover the instep and join shaft and sole, according to Katerina of the Purple Files. The shaft is shaped somewhat to the calf, and a triangular gusset at each ankle bone produces a better fit around the foot. The cut and sewn stockings that were still being produced in the 18th century apparently used a two-piece pattern; a shaft piece with a long tongue and flaps to cover the sides of the foot, and a separate piece to cover the parts of the sole that the specially shaped shaft could not reach.

The Medieval Tailor proposes a similar pattern for 14th century stockings, and shows a photo of an actual 14th century pair which had been cut on the straight of the grain; she notes that sometimes, 14th century stockings were fitted along the leg but that other times, they were not. Eighteenth century stockings add an additional refinement to the Renaissance model. The 18th century model consists of only two pieces: a shaft with a tongue-shaped flap to cover the instep and tabs, on either side of the flap, to cover the sides of the foot; and a sole. The two together make a complete covering for the lower leg and foot, more closely fitting than earlier models.

But these are not the only ways to sew a calf-high stocking from cloth. The attached pictures are an old project of mine, a pair of stockings handsewn from gray linen. I didn't use a pattern at all for these stockings. Instead, I draped and pinned them on my feet and legs, first to make a shaft and then shaping a piece to cover the instep and fasten to the sole. Unsurprisingly, they fit very well despite the non-elastic fabric I used, though I believe it unlikely that anyone would have used fabric in such an extravagant manner before the 17th century, at least.

So why is the Telemark pattern so different, both from my draped effort and from early historical examples? Is it a genuine survival from a much earlier time, or a later invention, based on mistaken ideas of historic stocking construction, that became part of the local culture? Seeing what the Telemark stockings look like and the context in which they were worn would help answer that question.

For now, I will settle for having made the point that sewing stockings from fabric is not as simple and straightforward a task as it may appear, and will make a mental note to seek out information about how different cultures balanced the competing concerns of fit and fabric conservation. Any thoughts, additional facts, or different patterns for cut and sewn hose would be welcome.

EDIT: A commenter has drawn my attention to several other examples of cut and sewn hose. One is from Martres de Veyre, from about the second century CE. It appears to be a two-piece construction, with a shaft that covers the part of the sole of the foot closest to the heel, and a front section that wraps around the toes; the join between the two is at an angle. You can see a picture of it here, along with marvelous closeups of the textiles it is made from, and other textiles from the same find.The second site my commenter drew my attention to has pictures of several 11th century CE finds. One is English; I can't tell whether it is of the same cut as the Martres de Veyre hose or whether the shaft has additional flaps; you can see the image here. Another pair, said to have belonged to Pope Clement II, looks a lot like the Martres de Veyre find, though picking out the seam placement is impossible; that picture is here. The stockings from the German regalia (approximately 13th century CE) are here; they appear to have more shaping than the earlier pair, though they also seem to have a front that wraps around the toes. Interesting stuff--maybe a timeline of surviving stockings organized by find location would yield more interesting information?

A Non-Progress Report

2011-08-25T19:27:00.004-04:00

Because of vacation plans, spending more time board gaming with my husband, and new projects at work, I haven't done any work on my costuming projects since about mid-July, and I've done very little reading. Since August is drawing to a close and people may be wondering why I haven't posted to this blog in awhile, I'd like to give a brief progress report on the last few projects I've discussed on this blog:

The wrap-around fitted Viking apron dress. I managed to hem one side before bogging down. Since this is the project I'm most likely to be able to finish quickly, I plan to go back to it this weekend if possible, and see whether I can finish it by the end of this month or, failing that, the end of Labor Day weekend (September 2-5).
The nalbinded mittens. I managed to get the thumb piece nalbinded onto the body of the mitten, but because of exhaustion I was reluctant to push on and perhaps ruin what I'd done. It's next on the list after the apron-dress for resumption.
The Vendel outfit. I had just purchased some Sculpey from which to make a disc-on-bow brooch when pearl posted about an article referencing information about Vendel-era costume that has made me rethink my assumptions. More about the rethinking process soon.
The Lagore Crannog tablet woven band. It's still set up on my loom, mocking me.

I hope things are a bit quieter in September, so I can get back to one or more of these projects.

Interesting Anglo-Saxon Sapphire Ring

2011-08-07T16:54:00.002-04:00

I'm still not home, or prepared to write a long post, but here's a short news article about a large 10th or 11th century CE Anglo-Saxon period gold ring set with a sapphire, that was found by a metal detectorist in Yorkshire. The article includes a nice enlargeable photograph of the ring. The current thinking is that the ring was the episcopal ring of an archbishop of York of the period, a Northumbrian earl, or perhaps a member of the royal family. Enjoy!

Chamber Graves

2011-07-31T21:16:00.006-04:00

While I was thinking about the implications of the fact that there are other chamber graves in Russia that have similar textile and birchbark box fragments to the Pskov find, I found the following article on line. (It is from a German-titled and thus probably mostly German language publication, though the article itself is in English, so I apologize in advance if the name of the publication and the publisher aren't in the correct format.)

Andrzej Janowski, Early medieval chamber graves on the south coast of the Baltic Sea. Beiträge zur Urund Frühgeschichte Mitteleuropas 60, Der Wandel um 1000, pp. 257-267 (Beier & Beran 2011). [Go here for a PDF of the article; you may need to start an account on academia.edu to get to the page, but the account is free even if you're just a random interested person and not an academic or student.]

The main theme of Mr. Janowski's article is that quite a large number of chamber graves have been found, not just in Russia and along the Baltic Sea coast, but in Scandinavia itself. He reports that the academic consensus has been that over the past 100 years the cultural source of this type of grave was deemed to be Russian, but now the source is thought to be Scandinavian.

Mr. Janowski does not discuss any textile finds, and the graves for which he includes sketches of artifacts are male. What he does is discuss a number of finds, made over the past 30 years, in northern Germany and Poland. He states that while the (relatively) newly discovered graves in Poland and Germany bear a strong resemblance to the the Scandinavian chamber graves, in physical structure, most of the artifacts found therein, particularly the female jewelry found in them, are Slavic in style:

All other artifacts discovered in the chamber graves at the Southern Baltic Sea Coast, especially silver female jewelry (temple-rings, ear-rings, “kaptorgi”, i. e. amulet cases suspended on a neck), are typically Slavic. It seems then, that the equipment discovered in the discussed graves, although of luxurious character and proving high social status of the persons or their community, does not prove their foreign origins. Furthermore, while in case of graves from Pień, Kałdus, Sowinki, Dziekanowice or Oldenburg, dated for the 10th – beginning of 11th century Scandinavian attribution of the buried persons would be acceptable, since they come from the period of the highest Scandinavian activity in Eastern and Central Europe (cf. Leciejewicz 1995), graves from Western Pomerania, and Mecklenburg, 100–150 years younger, have no relation to it. (page 265).

So it can't be assumed that an occupant of a chamber grave in, say, Poland for example, was dressed like the Pskov woman, or a Birka woman, unless the jewelry in the grave matches the types found in Pskov and Birka--and even then we can't be sure because the Pskov find was found separately stored and not on a human body. Or it may just be that the Polish and German graves are different for some reason. Clearly, I have to do some more thinking and research on chamber graves, and what appears within them, before I can try to draw defensible conclusions about what they say about women's costume. In the meantime, I commend the article in question to the attention of anyone interested in material culture in early medieval northern Europe.

La Dama de Baza

2011-07-25T23:22:00.008-04:00

While on my vacation, I have managed to read most of the latest issues of the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter, which I received as a result of my purchase of a membership. One of the most intriguing issues in the issue is one of the shortest. Here is the citation:

Demant, Ida. From Stone to Textile: Constructing the Costume of the Dama de Baza. Archaeological Textiles Newsletter, No. 52, pp. 37-40 (Spring 2011).

La Dama de Baza (i.e., The Lady of Baza) is the name given to a statue that is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, Spain. According to Ms. Demant's article, it was originally found in a necropolis near Granada and dates approximately from the 3rd century BCE; Wikipedia indicates that it is one of a number of similar sculptures found on the Iberian peninsula of similar date. A photograph of the statue appears to the left.

La Dama de Baza (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Ms. Demant and Anne Batzer have been engaged for several years in an attempt to use general knowledge of costume of the period and the statue itself to recreate the textile portions of the Lady's costume. Since the statue, like most ancient period statues, had been painted, it was possible to discern the basic color scheme of the costume--namely, blue and red, with blue and red checkered borders. Aware that ancient period costumes often used dyed wools for outer layers and undyed linen for the underlayers, Demant and Batzer used dyed blue wool, with red and blue woven, checkered trim, for the outer portions of the Lady's costume, and plain white linen for her underwear. They concluded that, to best match the draperies visible on the statue with such layering, the Lady's costume likely would be made of four pieces; a long, woolen mantle, which is draped partly over her head, and trimmed with the red and blue checkered pattern; a long outertunic, which they concluded had long, wide sleeves; an undertunic in linen, and an underskirt, also in linen, which peeps out beneath the tunics in front. Their recreation strikes me as a plausible match for the statue (though the reconstructors did not attempt to recreate the Lady's heavy and elaborate jewelry).

However, the Baza reconstruction reminded me of a different reconstruction: the reconstruction of a woman's costume based on the finds from one of the Lønne Hede graves in west Jutland. No linen survived in that grave, but substantial fragments of a blue and red woolen costume did. It has been reconstructed, and appears in the National Museum of Denmark, as a short blouse, worn with a long blue skirt with red and blue checkered trim, and a red and blue plaid shawl. The grave finds included a silver crossbow brooch that is usually shown in the middle of her chest, pinning nothing despite the existence of the shawl. A picture of the Lønne Hede reconstruction can be found here. It is dated to the beginning of the first century CE, or about three hundred years after the Lady of Baza.

Still, I wonder about the similarity of blue costume with blue and red checkered borders. Could the Lønne Hede costume be a distant descendant, as it were, of the Lady of Baza's costume? Did they have anything in common other than being female? Were they both priestesses, or had a similar rank or role in their respective communities? Any such connection is sheer speculation on my part. Even so, I think that I'll keep an eye out for other late Roman statues, and other blue and red textile finds. to see whether any kind of pattern emerges.

Another Plug for ATN

2011-07-10T22:45:00.011-04:00

A couple of months ago, on her blog, Katrin Kania posted on her blog about the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter, or ATN. She urged readers who were interested in seeing ATN continue to sign up for at least a year's membership because ATN needs a "few" more members to be eligible for external funding.

I have read a couple of prior issues of ATN, and knew how useful and interesting its articles could be to the researcher interested in early period costume. So as soon as I was able to pay the 20 Euro membership fee, I bought an annual membership at ATN's website.

Part of the quid pro quo for my membership, namely, the current issue of ATN, arrived on Saturday. I was extremely impressed. It contains a significant number of fascinating articles, such as:

An article about a 13th century female grave of the "Golden Horde" period with enough finds to permit a reconstruction of her entire burial outfit--including the underwear. It includes color photographs of some of the silk brocades that comprise her costume;
An article about a recreation of the costume of a female depicted in a statute found in Spain and dated to the 3rd century BCE that strongly resembles the Lonne Hede costume;
An article about the author's research in Armenia to reconstruct early loom set ups, including the upright loom believed to have been used to weave the Huldremose peplos.

In addition, the books reviewed in this issue include three volumes in which I am fairly strongly interested.

I brought the issue with me despite my busy vacation plans because I am eager to find out more about all of these topics. If I have time, I'll write about them while I'm away. In the meantime, if you haven't yet bought a membership to ATN, reconsider--especially if early period costume fascinates you. I think you'll find that it's worth the price.

EDITED to correct some misapprehensions in the article descriptions above.

SECOND EDIT: At present, only back issues 46-51 (the new issue I discuss above is issue no. 52) can be purchased as back issues (at a price of 10 Euros each). In Issue No. 52, it says that ATN is planning to make earlier back issues available. That's wonderful, because many of the back issues have fascinating articles also. There is a list of contents for all the back issues here (click the link "Issues").

Thinking About Period (Costumed) Dolls

2011-07-07T23:20:00.012-04:00

My mini-Viking

Tonight, I ran across an interesting tutorial for making dolls from cloth. The author based her technique upon a Roman doll found in Egypt, dated 1st-5th century CE, that is now in the British Museum.

Now why should I care about cloth dolls? Because they can be used as models for historic costume, as Heather Rose Jones did here on her "Dig that Doll!" page, featuring dolls dressed in little replicas of costumes from different archaeological sites ranging from the prehistoric to the medieval. My friend pearl dug up these pictures of a doll modeling the costume of the woman from Eura, Finland, c. 1000 CE. Here's a page with pictures of dolls in Viking costume, by a museum in Iceland.

Speaking of dolls in Viking costume, I have my own cloth Viking doll. I bought her at a science-fiction convention, of all places, about 20 years ago, and I've been improving her costume bit by bit ever since. The body, hair, face and dress were done by the woman I bought her from, but the jewelry (the brooches are 18k gold post earrings; the armbands are a pair of silver earrings, somewhat tarnished), belt (a snippet from an old belt of mine) ,and shoes (hand sewn from real leather!) are my additions. Finding the doll tutorial is making me think about whether it would be useful/entertaining for me to make in doll form some of the costumes I've been planning to make for myself, such as my Vendel or Byzantine outfits. It would be quicker than a Cathy-size costume, of course, but more difficult, because cloth made for people clothing is usually too stiff to drape well on the size-scale of a doll's body. But it's something to think about, while work and vacation plans conspire to keep me away from costuming.

On Sunday, I head off to spend two weeks in Michigan, visiting friends and attending Polaris Fellowship of Weapons Study's Summer Weapons Retreat. I don't expect to work on any of my costuming projects, and I probably will blog very little, if at all. I'll return about July 24, hopefully full of renewed vigor and costuming zeal.

The Vendel Brooch

2011-06-19T15:56:00.007-04:00

After carefully reviewing the information I've obtained about disc-on-bow brooches available from vendors, I've decided that I can't afford to pay $40 for the brooch AND nearly $40 for shipping (the best offer I've found to date).

So my new plan is to use the photographs I've found on line to make a brooch for myself from Sculpey. It's possible to buy Sculpey in metallic colors, such as bronze, and that's what I plan to do. I'll buy enough bronze Sculpey to make a suitably-sized brooch (I already have glaze to paint it with to make the piece look more metallic), and a long stickpin to embed in the back for a fastener. Perhaps I can find small glass chips in a craft store to add to the brooch in place of enamel or garnet inlay.

I also need to determine whether the overdress during the Vendel period was likely to be a peplos or some form of strapped apron-dress during the Vendel period. I have an e-mail contact I need to write to on this issue.

Meanwhile, here's a website with gorgeous, detailed color pictures of brooches and other jewelry, ranging from the La Tene culture to the Viking period, many of which are Migration Period. There's a few disc-on-bow brooches, too, of which I had not previously found pictures. Enjoy!

EDIT: I misremembered. The site I was thinking about is charging 29 Euros for the brooch, and 35 Euros to ship it to the USA! At current exchange rates that works out to a total cost of over $92 USD. While I sympathize with the difficulties in dealing with overseas, international shipping, that's no deal for me.

The Bending of the Pleats

2011-06-16T23:55:00.002-04:00

Last week, while I was re-reading Hilde Thunem's essay-in-progress about Viking women's shifts yet another time, I had a revelation about the evidence. Specifically, my revelation was about the fragments of tightly pleated fabric, believed to be from shifts, that were found inside many tortoise brooches at Birka.

Ms. Thunem notes in her essay that the pleated fragments usually bend in one direction or another. She regrets the fact that Hjalmar Stolpe, who originally excavated those graves, did not take note of which brooch was found on which side of the body: "This means that there is no way of identifying the left-hand and right-hand brooches, and consequently no way to learn whether the bending of the pleats always pointed towards the shoulders, always towards the throat or differed from one serk to another."

When I first read the essay, I agreed with her sentiment. But now I wonder whether the fact that the pleats show a bend is sufficient information to allow us to deduce one more element about how those shifts were made.

Neckband pleated shifts

Think of the problem this way. How many different ways are there to pleat a shift? One approach, surely, is to pleat the entire width of the garment to the neckband, as the Pskov shift must have been made. Probably additional work would need to be done to ensure pleats as deep and tight as in the fragments found in the Birka brooches, but the direction of the pleats would at least be determined. As can be seen from the picture to the left from the Adamklissi monument, which depicts a shift pleated to the neckband (though with some puzzling pleats on the short sleeves), the pleats in the area of the upper chest where the tortoise brooches likely appeared would tend to bend toward the centerline of the body, away from the shoulders.

How else might the shifts have been pleated? In theory they could have been pleated horizontally, with the pleats running across the torso, but it's clear that they were not pleated in that manner, because as Ms. Thunem notes, "there seems to be a tendency for the pleats to run in parallel with the needle in the brooch, and then bend towards one side of the brooch." If the shifts were horizontally pleated, that would not be the case--the pleats inside the brooches would be perpendicular to the needles in the brooches instead. So it's clear that the pleats on the Birka shifts ran down the torso of the wearers, instead of across it, a pleating direction I'll refer to in the rest of this essay as "vertical" pleats.

What other ways could the shifts have been pleated, other than to a neckband, that would result in vertical pleats? If those methods would not be likely to result in vertically pleated clumps inside the tortoise brooches, those methods cannot have been used.

I can think of three methods other than the neckband method of pleating a shift. One is simply to pleat the shift, which is cut with a round or keyhole-style neckline, across its entire width. This is the method the Historiska Museet used in its Viking women's costume reconstruction. A variation of this approach would be to pleat the shift from the edges toward the center, starting at the shoulders. However, a tortoise brooch, placed on the relevant upper chest area, would not show any bending of the vertical pleats.

The second possibility is to permanently pleat the body of the shift, perhaps even stitching the pleats down, from a particular point on the torso, such as just above the nipples. In that circumstance, whether any pleats at all would even show would depend upon the point at which the pleats started. With this design, pleats would not appear in the brooches at all unless the line of pleats started at the armpit level; the neckline would make it challenging to start them higher.

Faltenklied tunic/shift

The third possibility is to pleat the shift from the shoulders, as above, but with the pleats running diagonally toward the shoulders and the centerline of the body, like the Faltenklied figure on the Adamklissi monument, shown on the right. Pleats based on this model would accordingly show a bend outward, toward the shoulders.

However, there are other factors that make the Faltenklied type of pleated garment unlikely to have been the model for the finds at Birka. The Faltenklied figures are plainly men, not women; men from the Roman era, not the ninth and tenth centuries CE like the Birka women. On the other hand, the neckline pleated shifts of the Adamklissi women are similar to the Pskov shift remains from the tenth century--remains that are linked by the appearance of tortoise brooches to the Viking world.

So maybe the mere fact that the Birka brooches contain shift fragments with pleats that bend is sufficient evidence to get us a bit closer to a shift design for the Birka women. Although we don't know, and will never know, whether the pleats any of the brooches pointed toward or away from the occupant's shoulders, the Pskov shift evidence makes it a little more likely that any shift with bending pleats was pleated to a neckband, with the pleats bending toward the shoulders.

By the way, the bending of the pleats is fairly strong evidence that Annika Larsson was wrong about Viking women wearing their brooches directly over their nipples. If, for example, the Birka women had worn their brooches in such a manner, the pleated fabric remains would have been straight, and would not have bent in either direction, since in any of the shift models that come close to matching the brooch finds the pleats run straight up and down that far down on the body. This is made clearer by the fact that Larsson uses a shift pleated to a neckband like the Pskov find in her reconstruction costume; the photograph clearly shows that the pleats lie straight over the near-waistline location where the brooches rest.

Vendel Project Update

2011-06-14T22:53:00.006-04:00

After months of dithering about fabric choices, I finally have fabric for both the underdress and the overdress of my planned Vendel outfit. The white fabric will be for the underdress and the blue fabric for the overdress. Both are 100% wool. I will wear one of my wool shawls (both brown) with the outfit--hopefully pinned with a disc-on-bow brooch, if I can get one.

Here is a picture of the two fabrics together. The blue is a little less bright than shown, but the color is otherwise pretty accurate. Click on the image to get a large close-up that really shows the weave of the blue fabric. Now I have to decide where to go next--tunic cutting or tablet weaving.

The Spiral Eye

2011-06-09T23:35:00.003-04:00

At the suggestion of the Dreamstress, I went looking on the Internet a few days ago for information about what sewing needles looked like, and how they were made, after the medieval period.

Alas, I didn't find much detailed information about how sewing needles were manufactured after the Middle Ages, but I did find some interesting facts.

The first of these is that, at least in modern times, there is another eye-shape--the "spiral" eye. The eye on these needles is actually a kind of a hooked shape, like an upside-down question mark, with an opening on the side of the eye over which you slide the thread. That way, you don't have to waste time poking the needle at a narrow eye to thread it. The inventor of this kind of needle, Pam Turner, discusses this innovation, including something of its history, on her website, where you can order her needles, though she has licensed the design and such needles are available elsewhere as well.

I also learned how modern long-eyed needles are made today by machine. (Ms. Turner describes this process on her website too.) As I described before, medieval needles were made in one of two ways; by punching a round hole in one end of a piece of wire to serve as an eye (and sharpening the other end, of course) or by dividing one end of a piece of wire into two parts, and just soldering them together at the top end to make a long eye.

Today's needles are made in pairs. A single piece of wire, the length of two needles together, is sharpened on both ends, and the long eyes are stamped in the middle. The two needles are then separated, cleaned, hardened, tempered, and polished. EnTaCo Ltd., a respected British company which claims to have been making needles since 1730, describes the process here and a video they produced showing the process can be found here. EnTaCo's website also gives a bit of post-medieval needle history (without giving details of the changes in the physical manufacturing process, alas!) here. Interestingly, the points are ground by hand (in groups of about 100, using a special holder, but hand-ground nonetheless). Most of EnTaCo's lines (and probably most other modern needles, for all I know) are nickel-plated steel, but EnTaCo does gold and platinum needles as well, for folk with nickel allergies and for use on delicate fabrics; supposedly the precious metal plated needles glide more smoothly.

I found all of this information interesting, even if it falls short of providing a complete history of the sewing needle. Maybe I'll dig into this topic more sometime.

Another Useful Reference--Rapunzel's Resource

2011-06-04T00:20:00.003-04:00

Once more, I'd like to point out a useful resource, though it's not exactly a costuming site. It's a blog called Rapunzel's Resource, which specializes in providing tutorials for hairstyles for long hair. I consider the site a costuming resource because appropriate hairstyles are important for historic costuming. Some of the styles on the site are 18th, 19th, or early 20th century, but there are many ways to put up the hair in a bun that are appropriate for ancient Rome, and there may be others that are appropriate for other periods as well.

The author occasionally identifies a style as being appropriate for a particular period, but her main interest is to provide a how-to for lots of different styles for long hair. I recommend using the site in this way. After you research the styles that are appropriate for your period of historic costuming interest, head to Rapunzel's styles page, which features thumbnail photographs of all the styles for which she has posted tutorials to date; click on the picture to access the relevant tutorial. Although some of her directions are a bit tricky to follow, there are videos on some of the pages which should help. I plan on checking out some of her styles myself in the near future.

EDIT: The author of Rapunzel's Resource has a penchant for quoting the Bible, and for including observations in her blog posts that are based on her Christian faith. I find her advice interesting and useful despite such comments, not because of them. If such comments bother you, don't use her site.

SECOND EDIT: Is there a particular style you've seen in period art that you'd love to do? Send Rapunzel a picture and ask her to add it to her tutorial list! She takes requests.

Useful References

2011-05-30T23:26:00.003-04:00

I've been gone all weekend, so I don't have the energy to post original thoughts. Instead, I'll pass on some useful links I found recently.

Here is a detailed, illustrated description of how to "self sew" a linen garment, which means to sew the garment with thread drawn from a piece of the fabric used in making the garment. I have yet to attempt this technique, but the description sounds inspiring. The only surprising fact in it is that it's better to use short pieces of thread for such sewing, rather than long ones. (Thanks to the author of the Opus Anglicanum blog, and to the 12thcGarb list on Yahoo, for directing me to this useful essay.)

I also found a free PDF copy of an interesting article entitled, "Immortal Maidens: The Visual Significance of the Colour White in Girls’ Graves on Viking-Age Gotland," by Susanne Thedéen, which appears in a book called Making Sense of Things: Archaeologies of Sensory Perception at pages 103 to 120. Thedéen's article discusses finds of white beads and cowrie shells in female graves in Gotland, and notes that most of these finds involve graves identified as containing females who died between the ages of five and fifteen. It is interesting, both with regard to the sociological and costume-related implications of these finds.

I hope my readers find these articles as interesting as I do.

Another Reflection on Viking Age Lucets

2011-05-26T21:17:00.073-04:00

Over the last few days, another discussion about Viking era lucets has erupted on the Norsefolk_2 mailing list. Though I'm taking a backseat in the current discussion, some of the posts in the discussion--particularly the posts containing links to putative lucets--have reminded me of something interesting I've noticed about the "lucets" identified to date. I'd like to write about that something here, where it's relatively peaceful.

The thing I've noticed is how different in shape all of the putative lucets are. Although all of them have at least two prongs, there is little other similarity between them. Some are decorated, most are not. Some (particularly the bone "lucets" at Coppergate) have pointed ends and sharp-looking edges; other have rounded ends and edges. Some have deep prongs; others do not. Some have a wide distance between the tines while others do not. A few even appear to be shaped a bit like a modern "knitting nancy".

This diversity of form in "lucets" contrasts sharply with the finds of other Viking era textile tools. It doesn't seem terribly significant, to me, that the "lucets" are not decorated. A lot of Viking textile tools (unlike, say, Viking jewelry) are undecorated, or are minimally decorated, such as most spindle whorls and needlecases. But there isn't so much difference in shape among the different classes of textile tools. A needlecase, for example, may be made from bone, or bronze, or even silver, but it will be shaped like a long tube, with a hole in one side of the tube so the case can be suspended from a tortoise brooch. Tablets for tablet weaving, to the extent they have been found, are square with a hole in each of the four corners. Spindle whorls are usually some variation on a disk shape with a hole in the center for a spindle stick. Even the boards believed to have been used for smoothing linen are similar to each other, about the same size with two horses' heads on the top.

Despite their simplicity of function, this similarity of form is not true of the so-called "lucets". The various artifacts termed lucets resemble each other only in that they have two prongs, and a few have more than that. Why all this diversity of form for a simple textile tool?

It might, I suppose, be argued that some of the putative lucets are temporary cord making devices, just as many cords could have been made with a simple forked branch that would have been quickly discarded and not become part of the archaeological record. But if the Vikings were making reusable lucets--i.e., if at least some of the artifacts said to be lucets really were used for cord-making by the Vikings--then there would be little need for lucets of the impromptu kind. On the other hand, if lucets were routinely used by the Vikings, one would expect a uniformity, or at least, a similarity, of form to develop. Neither statement is characteristic of the actual "evidence" of lucets.

In addition, if the Vikings truly did use lucets on a routine basis, one would also expect to see more finds of defensibly lucetted cord. Yes, there is the one Barshalder grave with the cord that looks to be structured like a lucetted cord. But even if it is indisputable that the Barshalder cord was made with a lucet, that fact does not mean the cord was made by Vikings (as opposed, for example, to the possibility that the Barshalder example was imported). Nor can we say that it's been proven that the Barshalder cord was made with any of the artifacts said to be lucets. Moreover, if the Vikings routinely made lucetted cord, they likely would have come up with a standard form for a cord maker, instead of opportunistically using any and every object with two available prongs. If the Vikings commonly made lucetted cord, there would be more "lucets" in the archaeological record, and something closer to uniformity among the "lucets" actually found.

The more I look at the evidence that the Vikings made lucetted cord, the more troublesome and less persuasive it appears. I don't think I'm simply refusing to believe the obvious, or seeing obstacles where there are none. If any of my readers have any other evidence (that hasn't been discussed on the Norsefolk_2 list) I'd appreciate hearing about it.

The Nalbinding Project Changes Once Again...

2011-05-21T16:15:00.000-04:00

As the errors--and holes--pile up on my attempted pair of nalbinding socks and my yarn supply diminishes, I have, once again changed my objective!

The state of the mittens, as of today.

I've decided to go back to making a pair of mittens. The driving factor behind this decision is my difficulty in dealing with increasing and decreasing on the body of the sock--and extrapolating to what it will be like trying to fit heel pieces onto what I've already done.

On the other hand, I think I can pretty easily nalbind separate thumb pieces, and nalbind them onto each piece...ur, sock...that I have. They may not look very nice, but I think I can complete them, and the next pair I attempt will have to be better. Right?

To the left is a picture of the pieces of the project to date. Honestly, don't those look more like mittens than socks to you? Me too. At this point, I just want to finish them as something, and then go on to trying to make a pair of socks with different yarn--probably after buying a book about nalbinding socks (Larry Schmidt's book leaps to mind) first.

Eye of the Needle Revisited

2011-05-15T01:58:00.005-04:00

For many years, I assumed that the design of modern needles--with a long, slit eye on one end--was the epitome of needle design, and that earlier needles had more primitive, round eyes. I also thought that during the Migration Period and the Viking age, most sewing needles were made from bone, and were significantly thicker than modern needles.

Needles from Coppergate, Rogers, p. 1782

As I read more about period costume and period textile implements and techniques, I learned that the first statement was wrong. Although bone needles have been found in Viking sites, many of them likely would have been used for crafts such as nalbinding, and not for sewing ordinary clothes. I also learned, largely from Eva Andersson's Tools for Textile Production from Birka and Hedeby, which describes a large number of Viking era finds from different locations, that most Viking age sewing needles were small, very thin, and made from iron. That's why many of them did not survive--they rusted to powder in the graves. Only the surviving finds of needles inside needle cases, and large collections of needles such as the Roman era find at Magdalensberg , served to give the lie to the "bone needle" myth.

In reading the copy of Penelope Walton Rogers's book Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate that I recently downloaded, I learned that finds of needles with long, slit eyes were eventually displaced, in time by punched, round-eyed needles! Rogers sums up the evidence this way:

There are two types of needle, one with a round eye which has been punched, the other with a long eye made by welding together the tips of a Y-shaped shaft (pp. 542-7, ibid.). The round-eyed needles become increasingly common over the 10th to 11th centuries and have almost ousted the long-eyed needles by the medieval period. It is difficult to establish whether this is a general trend, as relatively few iron needles have been recovered from other sites, but the same two methods of manufacture were noted in twelve iron needles from 8th to 12th century Fishergate, York (pp.1271-2, AY 17/9); only punched eyes were recorded in the iron needles from medieval Eastgate, Beverley (Goodall 1992, 152-3).

Rogers, p. 1781 (emphasis supplied). Copper alloy needles were also found at Coppergate; they too might be made with round or long eyes, and as with the iron needles, round eyes became more common over time. Id. p. 1782. Interestingly, none of the Coppergate needles look as modern as the long-eyed needles from Magdalensberg, but all of them are fine enough to sew with fabric and thread as fine as that commonly used for clothing today. The picture below shows a number of both types of sewing needles found at Coppergate.

It is an interesting question why the eye-manufacturing technique changed. Perhaps there was an increased demand for needles and the welding technique used to make long-eyed needles was too slow and cumbersome to keep up with demand. Whatever the reason, it is not true that long-eyed needles are necessarily the product of a technologically more advanced culture than are round-eyed needles; I'll never make that particular mistake again.

More on Lucets

2011-05-10T00:56:00.004-04:00

In my long essay on lucets, I mentioned the "crudely shaped pieces of bone" found in the Viking levels of Coppergate that some people believe were used as lucets.

Penelope Walton Rogers briefly discusses these finds in Textile Production at Coppergate. Having looked at them and observed that the narrow, sharp-pointed ones resemble the nose bones of cattle, she expresses the opinion that those artifacts likely were not used as lucets. She particularly notes that these finds bear no signs of wear from the rubbing of string, as one would expect from a cord-making device (especially one with thin bone prongs such as most of the Coppergate "lucet" finds):

There are fourteen two-pronged bone objects of the type sometimes identified as lucets for braid-making from Anglo-Scandinavian and medieval levels at Coppergate (A.G. MacGregor et al: AY 17 in prep.). These are the nasal bones of cattle, which have been chopped or broken from the skull (S. O’Connor, pers. comm.). They have little sign of any modification and there is no wear around the prongs to suggest use in braid-making. (p. 1790)

On the other hand, there are two other "lucet" shaped objects at Coppergate; a "Y-shaped tine" which I'm not familiar with, and one which has decorative carving on it, which I think I've seen but cannot find an image of (I'll add a link once I find one). Ms. Rogers observes that the function of these items, which, unlike the pointed bones, were clearly fashioned for some purpose, is unclear. However, she also notes that despite the obvious existence of two-pronged devices that can be used to make cord, there have been no such cord finds in Anglo-Scandinavian graves. and "the use of any of these tools in the textile crafts is far from proven." (Id.)

Although Ms. Rogers herself may be wrong, I am pleased to learn that a scholar who has looked at the so-called Coppergate lucets has presented reasonable arguments against the proposition that the flimsy, sharp bone objects found at Coppergate are lucets. As I've said before, I believe there is a much better case for the tube-shaped two-pronged devices, such as the one found at Barshalder, being a Viking equivalent of a "lucet", but apparently no such items turned up at Coppergate. I wish they had--it would be interesting to see what Ms. Rogers made of them.

Hot News for Medieval Textile Fans

2011-05-04T20:45:00.003-04:00

I was checking out the York Archaeological Trust's website this evening, and discovered that Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate by Penelope Walton Rogers, is now available for free download! This book, like her other book Textiles, Cordage and Raw Fibre from 16-22 Coppergate, has been out of print for a long time. It appears that the Trust has decided to make its out-of-print works available for free download, so I hope to see the other Rogers textile book, eventually. In the meantime, I now have the Textile Production book to read.

The YAT download page is here.

EDIT: (June 5, 2011) Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate isn't on the download page anymore! I don't know what happened (nothing else is missing), though I hope it will be back soon.

Pskov Was Not Unique!

2011-04-30T21:56:00.009-04:00

One of the most challenging aspects of researching Viking era costume is to compare and analyze research from different parts of the Viking world. It's difficult, because relevant articles are written in many different languages and often appear in obscure technical journals. But since there is so little surviving information about Viking clothing, it's essential to do this kind of comparison, and it can lead to useful and surprising results.

I had this kind of insight recently when I re-read an article from Fornvannen that pearl cited in one of her posts about Viking women's shawls (a lovely example of comparing information from different sources in its own right). This was the article, which you can download here:

Advusin, D.A. & Puskina, T.A. "Three chamber graves at Gniozdozo" Fornvannen, 83, pages 20-33 (1988).

This Fornvannen article is about three chambers graves found at Gnezdovo (the authors prefer the non-traditional spelling Gniozdozo as being closer to the actual pronunciation) under mounds that had been assumed to mark cremations. The authors' investigation revealed that, under three of the mounds at least, there were burial chambers underneath the mounds that had not been previously investigated because they were located underneath what appeared to be the remains of funeral pyres. Because of local soil conditions, relatively little of the grave goods survived, but there was enough to ascertain that there were chamber graves under the mounds--lined with boards as though they were underground rooms.

Two of the graves had grave goods of the type associated with women. More importantly as far as my interests are concerned, both graves contained fabric and jewelry remains that were strikingly similar to those of the Pskov grave that was written about in NESAT X and which I have discussed in this blog--even down to containing remains of a birchbark box with which textiles and jewelry were found and in which they most have been stored. One of the finds even included remains of pleated linen, possibly of a shift. Their description of the textile finds bears interesting resemblances to both the Pskov find and some of the women's graves at Birka:

In the bundle of cloth found between the birchbark discs, were the remains of a red gold-worked silk garment, embroidered with tapes of smooth and denser silk and of a goffered linen shirt. An oval bronze brooch was wrapped in the garment. Aside from this, fragments of brown, coarse, woolen cloth and a piece sewn of two ribbons of untinctured blue linen--a fragment of a skirt, and some fragments of silk ribbons of different width were found. The fragments of silk are of Spanish and Byzantine origin. (page 28)

This passage suggests that the Pskov grave represents a Viking fashion that has elements in common with what the women wore in 10th century Birka. If Agnes Geijer was right, that fashion, along with the pleated linen shifts, may well have originated in Russia. If that's true, the Russian and Swedish finds may tell us more about Viking age costume together than either set of finds does separately. I need to think about this subject some more, which is hard when I'm so excited about the implications.

EDIT (5/29/2011): It occurs to me that the previous paragraph, as I wrote it, can be read as saying that the whole Viking apron dress fashion came from Russia. That's unlikely to be correct--the native finds of the period do not have jewelry indicative of apron dresses. On the other hand, it may be that the Pskov and Gnezdovo finds are instances of a Viking fashion from Birka--one that possibly teamed native Scandinavian brooches and apron dresses with a pleated-neck linen shift from Russia. The interesting element is the strong resemblance of the Pskov and Gnezdovo finds--and the striking but less strong resemblances to the Birka finds (if that makes sense).

Medieval Treasure Find

2011-04-23T01:26:00.001-04:00

Tonight, I found an interesting news article on Yahoo about a find of buried treasure in Austria. About four years ago, a man was digging in his back yard when he unearthed an assortment of "more than 200 rings, brooches, ornate belt buckles, gold-plated silver plates and other pieces or fragments, many encrusted with pearls, fossilized coral and other ornaments." However, he only brought them to the attention of the authorities this week.

The jewels are estimated to be about 650 years old, i.e., from the fourteenth century or so. The article includes two pictures; one of a flower-shaped brooch, and one of a striking sapphire ring with four garnets. I commend the article to my readers, some of whom may be interested enough in 14th century costume and culture to wish to follow up on the find.

EDIT: I got the details of the announcement wrong. According to the Yahoo article, it's unclear when the man first told authorities of his find; but the authorities first reported the trove on Friday the 22nd.

Quick Nalbinding Update

2011-04-15T00:03:00.001-04:00

So at this point, I have two proto-socks, which I work on alternately, as Shelagh Lewins suggests on her page about nalbinding socks. What I have, right now, are two curved pieces of nalbinding, each about the size of my (rather small) fist. They still show plenty of holes and missed (or misplaced ) stitches, but they also have plenty of good areas, and are noticeably growing in size. They are also a bit big for my feet, wide though my feet are, but I figure that shrinking them when finished is a more viable option than stretching a too-small sock over my (usually) achy feet.

When they look a bit more sock-like, I may photograph them again for this blog.

Small Nalbinding Victories

2011-04-07T18:48:00.005-04:00

By now, I have re-started my nalbinded socks more times than I care to admit. In the course of all of the redoing, I have learned two things.

The first thing I learned is that kariena was right; you really don't need to "pivot", so long as you are able to connect your stitches back to your "caterpillar" as soon as you have made it as long as you want it--or at least that's the case if you're making a hat or something that starts out with a cylinder (like a sock). The result looks better than a pivoted end, too.

The other problem, and the real reason I've had so many do-overs, is the issue of adding a new piece of yarn to the work. As anyone who has tried it is aware, unlike knitting or crocheting, nalbinding does not use one continuous piece of yarn; it can't, because the working thread has to be pulled completely through for each stitch. So the nalbinder must be able to add a new piece of yarn every time the old one runs out, without ruining the look of the existing work.

There are several ways to do this. One is simply to knot the new piece of yarn to the old one. This method is quick and simple, and depending on how tidy your knots are, can be fairly inobtrusive. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well when your project is a pair of socks, because such knots can often be felt after the project is completed (even if they cannot be seen), and will cause discomfort.

Another common joining method involves fraying both the end of the old piece and the end of the new piece, overlapping them, and then uniting the two, either by wetting the area to be joined with water or saliva and rubbing it (to felt the ends together) and/or twisting the area to be joined in the direction the yarn was spun. This method wasn't working well for me either, because my yarn is thin and rough-surfaced. No matter how solid my spit-join looked, it usually pulled apart as I was making my first post-join stitch.

I've also seen pictures and videos of another method called the "Russian join." This method involves threading your new piece of yarn into a needle small enough to go up into the interior of the old piece. I'm sure it's a wonderful idea if your yarn is thick; however, I suspect any needle narrow enough to go inside a strand of my thin, 2-ply yarn would be too thin to thread with that yarn. A sample video illustrating the technique, using a thick, unplyed yarn, may be found here, but it's possible to find other videos and picture essays on the process, if you're interested.

Finally,I found a method called the "lazy join." This method involves starting your new yarn by running it underneath a number of stitches in the vicinity where your old yarn ran out, and continuing from there. Virginia Miller kindly put this picture page up to illustrate the process.

This method, finally, is working for me. Hopefully, the new sock I started last night will ultimately become a finished sock!

The Viking Bread Costume

2011-04-01T00:52:00.002-04:00

Today, my other blog, Food Through Time, combines my interests in historic food and costume, so I searched for a similarly interesting link that combined costume with food.

Here's what I found: a Viking costume! Made from bread. Well, it's mostly made from bread. And it's not terribly historical, as Viking costumes go. And it fits in with some posts on my other blog that discussed recreating Viking bread. Gee, maybe I could make the costume featured in the link above out of a historical recreation of Viking bread! That would make it authentic, right?

No, it wouldn't. But it's still good fun, in the spirit of the day.* Enjoy!

* If you are wondering why on Earth I chose such an unusual topic, look at the date of this post.

The Lagore Crannog Band--Who Will Win, Me or It?

2011-03-26T20:21:00.010-04:00

I decided to take Chris Laning's advice and rewarped my Lagore Crannog band on larger tablets, ones that are 3 inches square. I also tightened up the warp threads.

Unfortunately, these changes haven't done me a lot of good. The warp is nice and clear *until* I get about two or three turns into the work. Then the warp tends to bind the threads in the middle together, making it nearly impossible to tell where the warp should be. I can stick my hand between the threads, granted; but I can't tell where to put it; I can't figure out whether I've put my hand in the right place or simply have arbitrarily parted the warp threads.

Part of the problem is that this band employs a lot of skip-hole threading. They are threaded "to the right" with the two colors/types of yarn as follows:

Starting position for Lagore Crannog band

My Lagore Crannog band after three turns forward, three back

Card 1 (closest to the viewer)
A=Color 1
B=Color 1
C=Color 1
D=Color 1

Card 2
A=Color 2
B=OPEN HOLE
C=Color 2
D=Color 2

Card 3
A=Color 2
B=Color 2
C=Color 2
D=OPEN HOLE

Card 4
A=Color 2
B=OPEN HOLE
C=Color 2
D=OPEN HOLE

Color 1 is the rust-colored yarn, and Color 2 the off-white. The weft is Color 1. I've included a picture of the starting position in the hopes that it will give someone an idea to ~~correct my incompetence~~ help me out here. Any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated. I'm not very experienced at tablet weaving, but I had no idea that this would turn out to be so difficult.

EDIT: I have added a second picture showing my set-up after I have completed the first three turns forward and three away. It is difficult now to discern a shed--and it will get worse with the next turn of the cards (I tried it, that's how I know). With each turn, I become less and less certain where to put my hand into the strings to try to find (or make) a shed.

Textile Projects Update

2011-03-23T20:02:00.004-04:00

These past few days, I've been making time for my Lagore Crannog tablet weaving and my nalbinded sock project. Though there hasn't been a lot of progress, I have done enough to have an excuse to take a few pictures.

The first sock in progress

The nalbinding is faring pretty well, considering that I was away last weekend and have been busy at work. I finally conquered my problem with pivoting (mostly). However, I don't have much of a cylinder yet. (To give you an idea of the size of what I have, the needle is 3 inches (about 7.6 cm) long. My work-in-progress is about 2 inches/5 cm longer than that. Some people might think that's a bit too wide for a sock, but I have wide feet, want to give my toes plenty of room, and may decide to felt the socks before I wear them.

I ordered a tablet-weaving shuttle from a nice gentleman in Estonia via Etsy; here's a picture of it. I suspect this design isn't period (and for all I know shuttles may not have been used in tablet weaving during the Viking era--at least I don't know of any finds that have been identified as such). It is 9.4 x 4.3 cm (3.7 x 1.7 inches) and a scant 2.5mm (0.1 in) thick. It seems so fragile when you hold it, but in use it's solid enough.

My new shuttle

The new shuttle, unfortunately, is my only success so far with the Lagore Crannog band. My problem is that after the first few passes, I can't discern where the new shed is after I turn the tablets. I undid my work at least 3 times the other night because of that. Part of the problem is undoubtedly the fact that I chose to use small cards (about 3.5 cm, or a bit over 1 inch) in warping the band. I have larger cards, and I could rewarp it using larger cards, which might make it easier to discern the shed. But before I do that, I've tried to analyze which strings should be on top, and which below, the warp for each tablet position. If that works, I'll probably blog about it.

EDIT: I've abandoned the proto-sock in the photo above, in favor of a slightly narrower effort with more even stitching. Meanwhile, I am using my old effort from last year to experiment with methods of making heels. So there is progress on the nalbinding front, at least, even if it's slow.

Second Anniversary

2011-03-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

Today is the second anniversary of this blog.

Writing it, and reading all the comments I have received, and following up on the information I got from the comments, has been even better than I thought it would be when I started. Thanks to all of my readers!

To add just a bit of tangentially relevant content to this post, here is a link to an article from the Irish Times about a 5,000 year old find from Twyford County in Ireland. That find is of a largish fragment of basket. The article refers to it as a "Neolithic handbag" but I suspect it was more of a bag for carrying fruit or vegetables or other foods a Stone Age gatherer might have found. There are two pictures--one of the find itself, and one a reconstruction drawing showing how the original basket might have looked when new. I commend it to my readers' attention, and thank my friend John Desmond for bringing my attention to the article.

Thinking Outside The Box;-Non-Square Weaving Tablets

2011-03-15T00:10:00.007-04:00

Now that I have a frame that will let me tablet weave without having to literally tie myself down, I've been thinking of non-typical forms of tablet weaving. For example, triangular tablets have been found in Scotland, dated to approximately 200 B.C. to 200 C.E. A picture of this find can be seen here.

I've been wondering what types of patterns one can get with triangular tablets. One essay discusses the author's experiment with an early South American pattern involving triangular tablets, but it doesn't give a recipe. The essay, which includes color pictures, can be downloaded here (it's the last essay on the page). The one hint it gives is that weaving with triangular tablets is like weaving with hexagonal tablets but threading only every other hole, which makes sense. I found Bonnie Datta's page of research about tablet weaving with hexagonal tablets, and the PDFs on her page are very informative. But she approaches the use of hexagonal tablets by comparison to the way four-sided tablets work--which doesn't tell me a lot about ratcheting down to three-sided tablets instead.

Phiala's Stringpage Supplies sells triangular tablets. I'm tempted to buy some and experiment, but I'm not sure where to begin. Should I thread the border tablets in one direction and the rest in another? What kind of turning sequence; three forward, three away? I've looked at Phiala's, Shelagh Lewins's, and Linda Hendrickson's pages on tablet weaving, and found nothing about triangular tablets other than that they have been found.

So I ask my readers: Have any of you experimented with triangular tablet weaving tablets? Are there any websites I haven't found that describe interesting patterns? Do you have any advice for me as to good weaving patterns for triangular tablets, or historic examples that were or could be woven with triangular tablets? Or should I just pipe down, buy a bunch of hexagonal tablets, and play with those using Bonnie Datta's research as a guide? Any ideas would be enjoyed, and appreciated.

Relearning Nalbinding

2011-03-13T19:03:00.000-04:00

So after completing a work-related project for work this weekend, I am making a new effort to relearn what I learned previously of nalbinding.

I have succeeded in relearning how to start, and how to do a line of stitching in Mammen stitch (the one I had learned before). I even did an adequate "spit splice"--something I'd never really succeeded at before. But now I'm kind of stuck on pivoting.

At least I have plenty of yarn, and no shame about restarting when necessary.

My New "Weaving" Basket

2011-03-09T22:17:00.001-05:00

Basket and contents, displayed

A few days ago, I ordered a small basket from a seller on Etsy for my tablet weaving cards and miscellaneous fiber-craft tools that don't fit in my birchbox Viking sewing box. The basket arrived today, so as promised I am taking a picture of the basket, along with its intended contents. The white piece is my half-completed nalbound mitten (the one I intend to restart). The caterpillar attached to the antler needle is just a test piece, though I may try to use the remnants of the unplyed wool that I have in that color to make a cap one of these days if I ever get brave enough.

According to the woman from whom I purchased the basket, it stands 3 3/4 inches (9.5 cm) tall with the cover on, 8 inches (20.3 cm) in length, and 6 inches (15.2 cm) across, and my ruler shows that to be just about correct. The content include my three-sizes of wooden tablet-weaving cards, my two nalbinding needles (one bone, one antler) and some lovely wool thread from Phiala's Stringpages. When I find them again, my good scissors will go inside as well. Hopefully, I'll have more motivation to experiment with tablet weaving and nalbinding now that I have a lovely, period-appropriate container to keep my tools in!

I am so pleased with the basket that I can't resist adding a few extra photos, just to show how well everything fits inside.

Basket with contents, open

Basket, closed

Playing with String

2011-03-06T17:57:00.004-05:00

Feeling a bit intimidated by the Snartemo II pattern, I strung my tablet weaving loom for a smaller band--the four-strand Lagore Crannog band--only to find that I'd made my life much more interesting thereby.

The Lagore Crannog band uses only twelve strands of yarn and four 4-hole tablets. Only one of the four tablets has a thread in all four holes. The next two cards have strands in three holes, and the last in only two. the turning pattern is simple--three turns forward, three turns backward.

My source warned that the band would have a tendency to twist, and the cards would have a tendency to slip out of alignment, and I was prepared to deal with both of those things. However, I didn't realize that I would have a hard time figuring out where the shed was! I pulled out the weft and restarted at least three times because of that. I think I'll wait till tomorrow or later this week, to start again. (Partly, this is because my old card-weaving shuttle is tied up on another project, so I've decided to buy another one to have available.)

The good news is that I found the mitten I was nalebinding (see my project list on the far left)! The partial mitten (with my favorite nalebinding needle stuck in it) was in a plastic bag, stuffed inside one of the yarn cones I decided to use for the Lagore Crannog project. However, I think I may just start over with the mittens. Looking at what I'd done so far, it has so many visible knots I'd rather just write it up to experience instead of trying to proceed with what I had completed to date.

There will be pictures of the Lagore Crannog project when I have enough of it finished.

New Project--Snartemo II Band

2011-03-06T11:48:00.003-05:00

Since the band I got from Amalie will only trim the neckline of my proposed Vendel tunic, I have decided to put my new tablet weaving loom to use, weaving a band in the Snartemo II pattern to trim the sleeve-ends. I am using the directions on Shelagh Lewins' website, though I plan to weave the band in dark blue and yellow, with a two-tablet border, using 20/2 wool yarn obtained from Phiala's Stringpages Supplies.

When this project is done, I plan to try a band from an old issue of the newletter of the Complex Weavers' Study Group that was found in Lagore Crannog, Ireland. Like Snartemo II (which is also discussed in the same newsletter), one or more holes are left unthreaded in most of the tablets for the Lagore Crannog band. That band only requires four cards, so it should be quick and easy to weave. I should probably use bigger cards and thicker yarn for that one than the 20/2 wool thread I bought for the Snartemo project. Maybe I'll do the Lagore Crannog band first.

Lund "Embroidery"?

2011-02-28T21:53:00.001-05:00

Here's another minor conundrum. The photograph below is from James Graham-Campbell's book The Vikings. It depicts a textile find from Lund that Graham-Campbell refers to as a "gold-embroidered silk, perhaps from Byzantium, found in Lund."

From "The Vikings," page 55, No. 22

And that's the conundrum. So far as I can tell from the photograph, there is no embroidery on that textile! It looks to me as though it has had gold tablet-woven braids sewn to it. But nothing like modern embroidery (or even Anglo-Saxon embroidery, which was quite common during the period) seems to be present. So I've been wondering: is this the wrong Lund find? Are there traces of embroidery that I simply cannot detect in this particular photograph? Was Graham-Campbell mistaken or misinformed?

This is the only reference I've ever found to the "Lund embroidery." Any additional information (or better photographs) would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: This textile reminds me a bit of the pieces from Mammen, which are now believed to be the surviving ends of long ribbons used to fasten a cloak. I wonder if the Lund piece might have served similar function.

Viking Shifts--The Problem of the Sleeves

2011-02-26T18:58:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Hilde Thunem's updated article on Viking women's shifts, and it reminded me of another issue that perplexes me; the issue of the sleeves.

Here's the problem. At Birka, there are a number of 10th century finds in women's graves of pleated linen undergarments. Most of those finds involve small portions of very finely pleated material, either inside a tortoise brooch, or preserved along the blade of a knife or shears. Thus, scholars, costumers and reenactors have generally assumed that the garment, which likely was a shift, would have been pleated by folding the pleats, basting them in place, wetting the garment, and then allowing it to dry before removing the stitching.

There lies the question. Would the sleeves of these shifts have been pleated as well? If they were, would the sleeves have been pleated in the same direction as the pleats in the body of the garment?

The Historiska Museet's reconstruction shows the sleeves as having been pleated in the same direction as the body of the shift--that is, vertically, down the body of the garment. You can see pictures and their write-up (in Swedish) here.

The Historiska Museet's shift reconstruction, however, assumes that any other garments that were worn over the shift (such as an overtunic and an apron dress) were graduated in length so that the pleated parts of the shift show prettily at the hem and at the sleeve-ends. Though the result is extremely attractive, there is no corroboration whatsoever, either in the art or the period finds, for such a reconstruction. (Though there isn't any evidence that Viking women didn't wear clothes with graduated hems and sleeve ends to show off pleats, either.)

So what is the evidence that the sleeves of the Viking shifts were pleated? As I understand it, there are only three categories of evidence for the arms of Viking sleeves, and all are annoyingly indirect. 1) Some of the Scandinavian graves where tools such as shears were found near the arm of the skeleton have crusted, pleated textile remains on them. 2) The Adamklissi monument shows at least one Slavic woman in a round-necked, pleated shift with pleating down the length of the very short (i.e., modern t-shirt length) sleeves. 3) the pleating fragments found in the Birka tortoise brooches generally bend, in one direction or the other; it's not known which side each brooch was found on, but it's possible the pleats bend toward each shoulder, which may support a pleated sleeve theory.

With regard to the grave find evidence, Ms. Thunem's essay notes that there are four graves at Birka with pleated remains at a level that could indicate that they are sleeves. In one of those graves, the pleats are running perpendicular to the arm--and the position of that fragment in the grave is such that the linen is fairly likely to have come from a sleeve. That makes some sense to me, since it would be easier to pleat a narrow portion of a garment such as a sleeve from the cuff upward (resulting in pleats perpendicular to the arm) than it would to pleat it. parallel to the body. However, only that find appears to indicate perpendicular pleats, and other such finds could be from the body of the garment instead from an arm.


Short sleeved shift

"Faltenklied" shift

The Adamklissi relief sculpture is equally ambiguous. showing Slavic shifts. The one Slavic shift for which I know we have physical evidence, had silk sewn on the flat cuff ends--indicating that the sleeves of that garment were *not* pleated, even though the neckline was, at least, pleated to a band. The Adamklissi monument shows two kinds of sleeves; short tailored sleeves (image on the left courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) and full, draped or "Faltenklied" sleeves (image on the right, original also from Wikimedia Commons).

The sculpted relief showing short-sleeved shift depicts the pleats running over the top of the shoulder, in a manner that suggests that the sculptor was not working from life, or even from a memory of what pleated sleeves look like, but sculpted them that way because he knew the shift was "pleated." This theory is supported by the fact that a pleated sleeve, if made wider than a conventional straight sleeve, would flare outward and would not hug the arm the way the sleeves on the second shift does. On the other hand, if the sleeve was not made wider than a normal short sleeve, the pleats would tend to flatten out and, once exposed to body warmth and pressure, would be gone in no time--assuming that the presence of the pleats didn't make the sleeve too narrow to get the arms through.

I believe there are even more problems with using the "Faltenklied" shift as a potential model for the pleating style of the Birka shifts or other Viking era shifts. First of all, it's clear that the Faltenklied-wearing figure is a man--he has a full beard and a thick mustache. The monument itself suggests that women wore a different garment, for which the Faltenklied figure would not be a model. Second, the Adamklissi monument was built in 109 C.E., when draped clothes were still the predominant dress in Europe. Unlike the woman's short-sleeved shift I've shown above, which is similar to shifts that were worn into later times (i.e., the Pskov shift), there is no evidence that anyone was still wearing draped, sleeveless garments, either as outerwear or otherwise, by the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. (the Viking age). Third, and perhaps more importantly, it's by no means clear from the sculpture that the draping on the arm and the draping over the shoulders were part of the same garment. It could also be that the garment over the shoulders was a sleeveless tunic, of the type men wore in classical times, and the pleating over the arm was part of a cloak or other outer garment that was draped partly over the shoulder and partly down the arm.

As for the pleats inside the brooches, the finds indicate that the portions of the garment inside them were some distance from the arms and much closer to a neckline that may well have featured a neckband stitching pleats in place. Without any indication as to whether the pleats pointed toward or away from the shoulder, it's difficult to make any inferences as to what these pleats say about the nature of the sleeves.
My belief, at this point, is that the pleated shifts generally did not have pleated sleeves, even if the body of the garment was pleated. I've said before, I think the Slavic sleeves were pleated, perhaps very finely, to a neckband, and any pleats in the body radiated from the neckband. However, it's also possible that the only permanent pleats were those sewn to the neckband; owners might have chosen to pleat the remainder of the body by basting in pleats with temporary stitches, pulling the pleats tight, wetting the garment and letting it dry to "set" the pleats before removing the thread. If that was how it was done, the result would be a garment that one could wear with a full set of pleats for special occasions, but it might also be worn without pleating the rest of the garment because the neckline pleats were permanently fixed.

A pleated long-sleeved shift becomes much more practical if one makes the garment with plain, straight sleeves and confines the pleating to the body of the garment. The existing evidence doesn't strongly indicate that the sleeves of the Birka shifts were pleated, and the Pskov shift seems to have had a pleated neckline and straight sleeves (the find included two deep cuffs, red silk on a blue linen similar to the neckline).

Of course, there may be evidence of which I am ignorant, or have overlooked. If that is the case, I hope that one of my readers will enlighten me.

Pre-Viking Bling Question

2011-02-24T23:03:00.005-05:00

Today, I stumbled upon a PDF which contains reproductions of good quality photographs of a number of different specimens of Viking age jewelry, along with bibliographical information as to the books in which the photographs were found. Thinking that this would be useful information, I made a copy of the PDF to read later.

In reading it, I notice that the author of the PDF has also included his own summary of what is known about Viking jewelry. Among those I noticed this intriguing statement:

An odd characteristic of Viking jewelry was its nearly total lack of set stones. Gem-setting had been an extremely popular form of ornament in pre-Viking Scandinavia, during which times it was carried out with great skill. It apparently had stopped appealing to Viking tastes in jewelry, and was abandoned.

The author of the PDF attributes this statement to James Graham-Campbell's book The Vikings (1980 ed.), without a specific page reference. I am wondering what archaeological finds support Graham-Campbell's statement. To be sure, the Vendel (i.e., pre-Viking age Scandinavian) brooches from Gotland of which I've seen pictures are more colorful than the gold, silver, or bronze Viking era jewelry I've seen, but that's primarily due to enameling (though there are a number of such brooches with garnet inlay). Other than those pieces, however, I am unaware of any Vendel period jewelry that uses gemstones at all, much less "set" gemstones. Moreover, I have a copy of Graham-Campbell's book, but I can't find a reference in it to use of gemstones in the Vendel period.

If any of my readers are aware of examples of Vendel period gemstone jewelry, or can pin down a page reference in the Graham-Campbell book, please comment!

Intelligible Beauty

2011-02-08T23:08:00.006-05:00

The copy of Intelligible Beauty: Recent Research Into Byzantine Jewelry that I ordered came today.

As advertised, it contains a number of essays on issues relating to Byzantine jewelry. Happily, most of the essays are illustrated with a wealth of excellent, color photographs. The articles appear mostly to be split between Early Byzantine and Middle Byzantine topics, though there is at least one that discusses Late Byzantine artifacts.

I have not had time to sit down and concentrate on reading any of the essays as yet, but I have paged through the book several times, looking for pictures of brooches. There are surprisingly few. There are dozens of pictures of rings (mostly gold ones, some with jewels), earrings (mostly gold, with enamel and sometimes pearls), bracelets (mostly gold, with elaborate openwork), buckles and belt ends (some gold, but others of humble copper alloys), and temple rings (a form of ornament favored by the Rus). But pictures of brooches are rare. I have only seen pictures of a few gold brooches in the book. On the other hand, all of the brooches are circular, with a central gem or boss and ornaments spaced symmetrically around the edge--like the image of Christ's ancestor by the Winchester scribe, or the brooch from Raymond's Quiet Press.

I am not sorry that I purchased the book, even though it may not be as useful as I had hoped in determining suitable brooch designs for a wealthy Middle Byzantine era peasant. It contains many lovely photographs of interesting jewels that I had never seen before, and discusses jewelry trends from different areas of the Empire:, such as Sicily, Africa, the lands of the Rus. And as I read, I probably will discover at least a few topics interesting enough to discuss in this blog.

Byzantine Brooch Designs

2011-02-05T13:18:00.066-05:00

Although I've been too preoccupied with domestic concerns to do a lot of sewing lately, I have been continuing to track down information relevant to the various projects I've started when I can.

One of those projects is my Middle Byzantine outfit. I have completed the headdress, shift, and cloak. Right now, I'm trying to find out what types of brooches a respectable lower class woman might wear to fasten her cloak. I didn't find much useful information about this subject on the Internet. This page was the most useful page I found; it shows two different examples of bronze enameled brooches which look as though they might have been purchased and worn by ordinary people. However, without more information about where these brooches were found it's hard to say how appropriate it might be to use brooches of these shapes and appearance in my lower-class costume.

Birka Traders used to sell a Byzantine brooch of the correct time period that is based on a Danish find. It might have served, (even though it was smaller than I expected) but I wasn't prepared to pay $60 AUS for a brooch I would only be wearing with one costume. It was a very attractive piece, though; you can see it here.

Qui Fuit Her

My other Internet searches for such items unearthed designs in gold and precious stones--clearly not suitable. In the hopes of finding a broader variety of jewelry finds to examine, I recently purchased a copy of the museum catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition of Middle Byzantine art, called "The Glory of Byzantium--A.D. 843-1261."

The Glory of Byzantium" includes a lot of examples of jewelry, icons, ivory carvings, miniature paintings, mosaics and textiles. Unfortunately for me, most of the jewelry items are not only gold, but they are either earrings or temple rings--nothing to fasten a cloak with! I have found a painting with an interesting image. That painting is one of three "Ancestors of Christ" found in a convent in Spain (the Convent of Santa Maria, in Sigena), and attributed to the same English artist who did the Winchester Psalter, and it is called "Her" (because the inscription below it reads "Qui Fuit Her"). A scan of the image appears to the left of this paragraph. As you can see, it shows a figure wearing a cloak, clasped at the neck with a small brooch. That brooch features a central pearl, with a ring of red enamel around it, and eight other pearls of equal size around the edge. (See image on the left, below.)

Norman brooch from RQP

"Her", portion showing brooch

This brooch looks a bit like a bronze brooch with a modest amount of enameling that is sold by Raymond's Quiet Press as a "Norman" brooch (see right; thanks to Raymond for permission to use the photograph here). Unfortunately, the RQP web site doesn't say what the provenance of this design might be, and I have not seen an artifact that resembles it.

If the Norman attribution of the RQP design is correct, it is at least contemporaneous with the Middle Byzantine period. I probably will purchase the RQP brooch, but in the meantime I am still hoping to obtain more information about Byzantine brooches to see whether I can confirm the appropriateness of the design with a costume that would have been worn in the Near East of the period. To that end, I have succeeded in locating a copy of "Intelligible Beauty" (a recent work of essays about Byzantine jewelry) in my price range, and have ordered it. Perhaps that that work will provide me with additional examples of typical period designs that were used by people other than society's elite.

Philadelphia Area Seminars

2011-01-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

I have been asked to let my readers know that Edward Maeder, former curator of the Department of Costumes and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is going to be giving seminars in the Philadelphia, PA area between February 5 and 20, 2011.

Mr. Maeder's present efforts appear to be largely artistic, not historical, and most of the seminars involve crafting items from found paper. However, one of the seminars is a hat-making workshop (materials provided for the $48 cost of attendance)that might be of interest to some of the readers of this blog.

You can see more information about the seminars here.

Finds from Anglo-Scandinavian York

2011-01-29T22:10:00.001-05:00

I recently learned (again, from a mailing list) that the York Archaeological Trust in Great Britain has placed a number of its out-of-print books here for free download.

The availability of this new resource is interesting to me because the YAT has published numerous books of material culture finds on the Coppergate dig in York. The Coppergate dig is located in the heart of what had been the Danelaw, and the Coppergate finds give insight into Anglo-Scandinavian culture. [N.B. Because these documents are book-length and demand for them has been brisk, it can be challenging getting one of the downloads to complete correctly. Keep trying, and consider obtaining a software package that will accelerate the process.]

However, I have been able to download a copy of Finds from Anglo-Scandinavian York by Ailsa Mainman and Nicola Rogers. This volume includes an interesting variety of small finds, from jewelry to buckles to game pieces to nails to fragments from jars and other storage containers, and more. Some of the more interesting tidbits of information I have gleaned from skimming through the manuscript include the following:

A lot of portable sharpening stones, for sharpening needles and small blades (the book refers to them as "hones") were found. Some of them were pierced on the end and could be hung, and at least one has a copper ring through the perforation, suggesting that it may have been worn as a pendant. Most of them were made from schist.
Amber (of a type that comes from the Baltic) beads and amber waste material were found, suggesting that Baltic amber was imported raw and worked into beads and other artifacts at the Coppergate site.
243 sewing needles were found in the Viking age stratum of the site. 89% of the needles were made of iron. There were a very few needles made of bone or copper alloy.
A very small number of buckles and strap-ends were found.
The few brooches that were found were made from an assortment of non-precious metals: "Coppergate produced a total of nine disc brooches, of which one was made of copper alloy (10428), two of copper alloy and iron (10429–30),four of pewter (10600–3), and one of lead alloy with possible silvering on the front (10604). The ninth brooch was found during the watching brief at Coppergate (10629) and is made of lead alloy." (p. 2571).
A substantial number of straight pins used in dress were recovered; they included some like the ring-headed pins found in the Viking age digs in Dublin, but included lighter pins with different ornamental details including polygons, trapezoids and spirals. (See p. 2579 for illustrations).
There were also finds of glass rings, which I can't find the reference for right now.

In short, this volume provides some interesting small details about ornament in Anglo-Scandinavian York. More importantly, the fact that YAT has made this and other books free suggests that other out-of-print volumes may show up on the site in the future. There are two out of print YAT volumes by Penelope Walton Rogers (back when she was just Penelope Walton) that address textile finds in the Viking age stratum at Coppergate. Those are not available for free download now, but I'm hoping that they will be soon.

Medieval Garments Reconstructed--Has Arrived!

2011-01-22T02:40:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago, using an Amazon gift card I received as a quid pro quo for taking a survey, I ordered a copy of the English language version of Medieval Garments Reconstructed, the new book by Else Østergård, Anna Norgard and Lilli Fransen describing the construction and replication of the more intact Herjolfsnæs finds.

It arrived on Thursday, and I have been eagerly looking through it. What I didn't realize when I ordered the book is that the authors not only recreated the cutting and stitching of the original garments, but they also spun the thread and wove the cloth to period specifications. Each item reproduced is shown in a color photograph, along with a color photograph of the reproduction, and a scale-drawing of the pattern for the garment discovered by the researchers. The authors indicate in a forward that the book was inspired by the fact that readers of Ms. Østergård's book, Woven Into The Earth, "desired additional pattern drawings, with instructions on how to produce a garment either as an exact reconstruction [i.e., as the authors did] or as an adapted reconstruction [i.e., from ready-made cloth but using the same pattern and types of stitches]." (p. 9).

Other interesting surprises include:

A photograph of buttons made for one of the garments from the same wadmal used to make the clothes. They are described as nearly flat, and crafted so the top surface is smooth while the gathering needed to make the button shape is all concentrated on the bottom. (p. 14)
A color photograph of tablets for tablet weaving found at the site. They are made from bone, and etched with simple designs. (p. 13)
An odd circlet, crafted from human hair using two twisted strands of hair. (p. 11)
A willow basket with a handle found on the site. (p. 10)

Because my personal costume interests lie earlier in time than the medieval period, I do not expect to make any of the garments in the near future. But later on, I may. It is fascinating, and impressive to me, to have in one slender volume enough information to reproduce actual items of everyday medieval clothing.

If I find any other surprising facts as I continue to read the book, I will of course blog about them.

EDIT: I have finished my first read of the book. It turns out that the authors did not use period techniques in the sewing of the garments. The cloth (a 2/2 twill in white and brown, used for all the reconstructions regardless of color of the original) was woven on a modern horizontal loom, and the reconstructions were stitched with a modern lockstitch sewing machine. Finishing was a combination of modern and period techniques, as follows:

The necklines and some of the sleeve hems are finished with a matching cotton bias binding, sewn on first by machine and afterwards blind-stitched by hand. The bottom hems of the garments have been blind-stitched by hand. There is therefore no visible stitch on the right side of the garment. (p. 42)

I assume the authors were precluded from making their reproductions entirely with period techniques by time considerations. Nothing, of course, need stop the reader from using period techniques throughout.

Indirect Evidence of Clothing

2011-01-19T22:22:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons that I have become increasingly interested in archaeology is the amount of information it can provide to us about clothing during time periods where other information is virtually non-existent. However, other disciplines can also assist the clothing historian when even archaeology fails.

Such as genetics.

I learned from David Beard's Archaeology in Europe blog that biologists have recently established that humans started to wear clothes on a regular basis about 170,000 years ago. They did so with the help of lice. How's that?

Beard's blog pointed to this article from Medical News Today, which described a University of Florida study of lice DNA. It appears that human body lice are extremely well-adapted, not just to living on humans, but to living on humans who are wearing clothing. By tracing when the DNA of body lice began to diverge from the DNA of head lice, researchers could tell when clothing had become well enough established that a different variety of lice had evolved to live in the conditions it created. Apparently clothing started to be worn on a regular basis when humans moved out of Africa and started crafting and wearing garments to survive in colder climates.

I really liked this article because it confirms what I have come to believe over the past 20 years, namely, that we will only be able to piece together a complete history of costume by using information gleaned from multiple disciplines. Archaeology is important, but the lice study shows that the sciences can provide necessary information too.

Interesting Underwear

2011-01-16T01:55:00.002-05:00

Katrin Kania blogged Thursday about some fascinating archaeological finds at a site in Austria. During renovations of a historic castle, substantial number of different artifacts, ranging in estimated date from the 12th through 18th centuries, were found in the fillings of one of the spandrels of the building's vaulted ceiling.

Scan of photo by Beatrix Nutz

The finds include, not merely textiles, but actual garments, some nearly intact. The most interesting garment, to me, is a woman's undergarment, dated to approximately the 15th century. This article by Beatrix Nutz includes a picture of the undergarment and discusses it and some of the other finds; I have made a scan of a black-and-white printout of just the image of the undergarment, which appears beside this paragraph.

A subligar I made for myself

Why am I so certain that the picture shows a woman's garment? Because the garment is nearly identical to a woman's garment, known from archaeological finds as well as artwork, called a subligar. A subligar is a bikini-style underpant that ties on the sides, and they are known to have been worn by women in ancient Rome. Beside this paragraph is a picture of a subligar I made for myself from white linen. I think the resemblance is interesting.

Ms. Nutz's article is in German, which I don't read, but Google Translate allowed me to pick out some interesting details about this undergarment from the article. The undergarment found in the castle, like mine, is made from linen, but with "three layers" instead of one. It was dated to sometime after 1440, based upon the age of the castle and the other findings, and confirmed by carbon-14 dating.

Why do I find this garment so fascinating? Because it suggests that perhaps the Roman style of underwear--consisting of a subligar for the lower body and a mammillare, or supporting band, for the breasts--not only became used in Northern Europe, but may have continued in use throughout the Middle Ages. Who knows? Perhaps Viking women used similar underwear. As I have mentioned previously in this blog, at least one Birka find includes a small scrap of plain linen beneath what appears to be a pleated linen shift. Perhaps that plain scrap was part of a breastband.

For now, I can only hope that some future find turns up a subligar in a Viking context.

First Post of the New Year

2011-01-06T21:44:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! I tried to post this last night, but was having problems with Blogger for some reason.

I hope to start writing some serious posts about Viking costume shortly, but tonight I just want to pass along two interesting links by Heather Rose Jones.

One is to her Surviving Garments Database, a searchable database of information about surviving garments from surviving garments from Europe and the Mediterranean area dating from the earliest times until approximately 1500 C.E. As you'll see from the page, Ms. Jones is also interested in obtaining information to add to the database, so bear that in mind if you decide to check it out.

The other link is to a set of notes and rough sketches Ms. Jones made while viewing an exhibition of textile finds from the Tarim Basin called "Secrets of the Silk Road" at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California. The notes and sketches, though rough, are quite informative, though they make me wish for photographs of the finds!

Hopefully, I will get to write some more interesting posts this weekend.

Christmas Update

2010-12-26T16:57:00.011-05:00

Happy Holidays, one and all!

Today, I am recovering from a bout of what was either a bad stomach virus or food poisoning (yes, sadly, I was sick over Christmas, alas). So while I am taking it easy, I'm updating my list of new costume-related books for 2011. This year, it seems as though all of the costume-related books to be scheduled for publication in 2010 actually published within the year, except maybe Else Østergård's Medieval Garments Reconstructed, but since I know of some folks who have received a copy of that book already, I am going to omit it from the 2011 list. If any of you know of a good costume-related book that's in the works and scheduled for publication in 2011, please send me the information and I'll post it here--even if it's not in English.

My new tablet weaving "loom"

As for Christmas presents, I got a number of fun things, most of which were not related to costume at all. The only costume-related item is this one. What's this? Well, it's a simple "loom" for doing tablet-weaving, which my thoughtful sister-in-law selected from my Universal Wish List on Amazon and purchased from Lynn the Weaver. I learned of this simple but useful item from Arachne's Blog; thanks, Arachne!

Elizabethan Face Mask

2010-12-20T19:09:00.002-05:00

Those of my readers who are familiar with Elizabethan costume may know that there was a fashion for women to cover their faces with black velvet masks in public.

A correspondent from one of the costuming lists that I frequent posted a link to this article, which reports on an archaeological find of such a face mask during renovation of a 16th century stone building in Northamptonshire. The article, from ArchNews, describes the find as follows:

Oval in plan at 195mm in length, 170mm in width. The eyes are lentoid in shape, at 30mm wide and 15mm high. The mouth is 48mm wide, widening in the centre to make a gap for the nose. The nose area is strengthened to stand out and form a case around the wearer's nose. The mask weighs 32.4g (although this weight is inaccurate as a true weight due to the amount of soil and straw adhering to one side). The outer fabric is black velvet. The lining is silk. The inside is strengthened by a pressed-paper inner. The three layers are stitched together by a black cotton thread. On the lining, just below the centre of the mouth, is a loose thread of white cotton. This cotton would have held the black glass bead (found in association with the mask).

The bead is 10mm in diameter and weighs 1.42g. There is some wear at the hole, which is 3mm in diameter. The black glass bead was used to hold the mask in place. With a lack of holes to allow string or elastic to be put around the head, the mask would have instead been held in place by the wearer holding the black bead in her mouth.

I commend any interested readers to follow the link to the article, which has a good picture of the mask.

Thoughts About Birka Grave 735

2010-12-19T22:50:00.008-05:00

There's a textile find in Birka Grave 735 that includes several pieces of silver-brocaded tablet weaving with enough of the fabric to which they were attached that it's clear that the original garment was decorated with multiple, horizontal pieces of the tablet-woven trim. Below is a picture of this part of the actual find, taken from Inga Hägg's article, "Viking Women's Dress at Birka," in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe.

As Professor Hägg's caption indicates, she believes that this piece is evidence that the fabric with the tablet woven strips on it were part of a fitted garment. Thor Ewing and Hilde Thunem think that might have been the case too; both speculate as to whether the textile pieces with multiple strips of metal-brocaded tablet weaving were part of a shorter apron dress, worn over a plain one for decorative effect.

The fabric fragments with these decorative strips certainly could have been part of a fitted overgarment (whether an apron dress, tunic, or something else), but I wonder whether the garment to which they belonged necessarily was fitted. It seems likely that it was pieced, with the plain strips of tablet weaving hiding vertical seams before the metal-brocaded strips were applied. But the fact that there was a seam along the side (about halfway between the side of the body and the centerline, if Hägg's belief about where the decorated portions rested on the body is correct), though perfectly consistent with a garment fitted in the torso, doesn't rule out other possibilities. The fragment could even belong to a coat-like garment, if the front panels were sufficiently pieced, though it appears that the caftans of the east that this Viking fashion presumably was based upon do not appear to have a seam in the correct location. Examples of caftans that illustrate the point may be found here and here. However, these examples are of limited value because we don't know to what extent these caftan designs (the earliest of which are medieval) were contemporary with the Viking era.

In an article she wrote for Fornvännen in 1971, Hägg presented a different theory about the grave 735 find. She suggested variable length pieces of tablet weaving might have been used purely for decorative reasons on a caftan that was not a fitted garment. That is another possible explanation for the grave 735 finds, and it's one that I find attractive. I've applied it to a caftan I made for myself (picture forthcoming) to good effect.

In short, I find the grave 735 fragments frustrating because they do not provide enough information to rule out some of these possibilities. That's good reason to continue to speculate, but it's important not to become too attached to a particular theory about the garments involved without more definite evidence.

Apron Dresses--More of the Blues

2010-12-11T02:38:00.004-05:00

At the suggestion of Hilde Thunem, I re-read an article about dye testing of Scandinavian archaeological textiles that I'd obtained and read years ago. The article is:

Penelope Walton: "Dyes and Wools in Iron Age Textiles from Norway and Denmark," 7 Journal of Danish Archaeology pp. 144-158 (1988).

In the article, Walton was interested both in analyzing specimens for dyes used and for wool types, in order to try to draw conclusions about the possible origins of the fabrics involved. She drew samples from Norway, Denmark, and Germany, ranging in period from the Roman era to the Viking Age. Consequently, only about a third of the samples analyzed were from the Viking Age, and none of the samples were categorized as to the type of garment from which they might have originated.

Walton extracted dyes from the samples with solvents and examined with at U-V/visible spectrophotometer; paper and thin-layer chromatography were used to confirm positive results for dye. Unfortunately, the dye results for most of these do not unambiguously appear in the results table in the article. However, Walton makes some interesting comments in the text about dye results for a few of the Viking age specimens, even though the main thrust of the article was how the differences in wool type could pinpoint whether particular textiles had been made in Scandinavia. In particular, Walton's results indicate that the "Birka-type" diamond twills--the type of fabric that was associated with the apron dress layer in the Birka finds--were most often blue, and blue was the most common color in general:

The most common dye to be identified was the blue indigotin (fig 3) which at this time almost certainly derived from the woad plant, Isatis tinctoria L. (the other possible source being the sub-tropical Indigofera tinctoria L.) Although woad is not a native of northern Europe, archaeological finds of its seeds suggest that it had reached Scandinavia by the Roman Period.

Indigotin was identified in fine and coarse textiles of all periods. In several of the Norwegian finds it seems to have been used for particularly dark shades: at Evebø/Eide it formed a rich, deep stripe on a red or orange ground; in some of the Veka-type textiles only the warp had been dyed, so that the diagonal lines of twill would have stood out as dark blue on white; and in the Birka-type diamond twills, the dye was so dense that it was almost black. Since woad is an especially difficult dye with which to work and the deeper shades of blue require repeated dyeings, this is yet more evidence that the makers of the Birka-types possessed considerable skills.

Page 153-54 (emphasis supplied).

One Viking age specimen was found to have been dyed with lichen purple, but it's not possible to identify from the article the type of garment from which this specimen may have come, and lichen-purple appears to have been rarely used in Scandinavia according to Walton:

Another rare dye of some significance is the lichen-derived purple found in textiles from Thorsbjerg in northern Germany and Fløjstrup in Denmark. This dye may be obtained from a range of lichens including some which are native to Scandinavia. However, although the dye was available in the north, knowledge of its use seems to have been rather limited.

(Page 156) (emphasis mine).

We don't know what kind of garments or other textile items these Viking era specimens might have been. However, at Birka itself, the fine diamond twills are believed to have been from the apron dress layer, judging by where they were found in the graves. If that is also true of the "Birka-type" diamond twills Walton discusses in her article, it is interesting that these twills are also dark blue--in fact they are "so dense that it was almost black." It is also striking that, of the various Scandinavian textiles that tested positive for dye (as opposed to natural wool pigment, which Walton distinguishes in her test results), most were found to contain indigotin--i.e., blue.

Though there may have been things I missed because of my difficulties in interpreting the tables in which Walton reported her results, it appears that Walton's survey showed that blue was the most common dye in Scandinavian prehistory--including the Viking period. That makes it a bit more likely that apron dresses were dyed dark blue--if they were dyed at all.

Apron Dresses--Getting The Blues...

2010-12-04T16:33:00.006-05:00

Most people who make Viking era costumes are aware that wool is an easy fiber to dye with natural vegetable dyes. They, therefore usually choose to wear wool dyed (either by vegetable or modern chemical means) in various vibrant shades that can be achieved with natural dyes: reds, blues, yellows, greens, oranges, even purples. I have done so myself.

But proof that our forebears could have done something in a particular way is by no means proof that they did things in that way. As I learn more archaeological textile evidence comes in from Scandinavia, and from northern Europe in general, I wonder whether clothing colors weren't more stereotyped than most costumers and reenactors would like to believe.

Consider:

The two largest apron dress fragments known (i.e., the pleated fragment from Køstrup, and the folded one from Pskov) were both the same color--blue. (The fragment appears lighter today; apparently the chemical process by which woad dyes fabric partially reverses itself when the fabric is buried under the right conditions, as noted in this post and one of the articles referenced in it.)
The next largest fragment, from Hedeby (though not so definitively identified as part of an apron dress), was dyed brown.
To the extent she could identify color in the Birka textiles, Inga Hägg found only two colors: brown and dark blue (as discussed in Hilde Thunem's article in progress about the evidence for Viking apron dresses).
Viking age finds made in the Baltic areas (Latvia, Lithuania) show a pattern; white undergarments (shirts, women's shifts) over which clothes are worn in...dark blue and brown. This is particularly true of Latvia, where testing has revealed that overdresses and tunics were dark blue and other garments were either made from unbleached linen or from undyed wools. Colors other than white, dark blue, or the browns and grays of undyed wools (red, yellow, green) appear only as accents, e.g.,, as stripes and other motifs found in woven belts.
Most of the apron dress loops that survive are of undyed linen (whether or not any other surviving portions of the garment were also of linen).

Not all of these textiles have been analyzed for the presence of dye, but some have, tending to confirm the trend.

There are certainly archaeological textiles that were dyed in other colors, such as the reds of the Evebo find. But it is striking that all of the finds that are likely to have come from apron dresses or similar overdresses seem to have been either blue or brown. This restriction may be due to the limitations of our samples and other information, but it might reflect genuine information about such garments. Were apron dresses blue or brown because they were *supposed* to be--just as Victorian men's suits were typically black? Maybe Viking women didn't wear red? Maybe green was too difficult to get right, or yellow insufficiently high-status to use in such a garment?

There's certainly food for thought here, and I will be keeping this evidence in mind the next time I make an apron dress--or wear one of the bright, non-blue apron dresses I already have.

EDIT: I am currently re-reading one of the articles Hilde Thunem mentioned in her comment on this post. It has enough material of potential, if indirect, interest that I will be devoting another post to it.

Early Denim?

2010-11-28T00:25:00.004-05:00

A fellow member of the historic costume mailing list passed along this link to a news story about an exhibition of paintings, done by a 17th century northern Italian artist, that depict poor people wearing old, ragged garments that look as though they are made out of denim. Not simply a heavy cotton twill, but "blue jeans" material--a heavy cotton twill dyed with indigo. The anonymous artist has been nicknamed the "Master of the Blue Jeans" by modern scholars. The news article contains pictures of three of the paintings, and they do look as though they are depicting denim garments: a ripped and faded apron; a boy's long jacket; and a woman's skirt.

I think this is an interesting piece of evidence, not just for the early use of denim, but for poor people's clothing in period, and I'm glad I learned about it.

The Lithuanian Costume Calendar--A Closer Look

2010-11-14T01:36:00.009-05:00

As I continue to peruse my Lithuanian costume calendar, I find it presents me with more questions than answers, despite the plenitude of gorgeous, full-color recreations of costume.

Most of my previous information on Lithuanian early period and medieval costume came from a book by Regina Volkaitė-Kulikauskienė called Senovės lietuvių drabužiai ir jų papuošalai, published in 1987, which also addressed Lithuanian costume between the first and sixteenth centuries CE. Although there are differences between the late medieval costumes shown in the calendar and in Ms. Volkaitė-Kulikauskienė's book, I'm more interested in early period costume, and thus have focused on the differences in the way early period costume has been presented in each.

In general, the calendar's reconstructions agree well with those in Ms. Volkaitė-Kulikauskienė's book with regard to types of textiles used, colors used (i.e. undyed linen and woolen overgarments in brown or dark blue), footwear, and headwear. Both clearly show the circlets made from bronze coils that I've come to think of as characteristic of Lithuanian early period costume. Some of these differences may be the result of increased information since 1987, but others strike me as puzzling.

The early period reconstructions show tunics over shifts instead of wrapped skirts over shifts, and the Viking age costume shows many bronze plaques sewn to the openings of the tunic (sleeves and hem) in addition to tablet-woven bands. The earliest period tunic is shown as being split down the sides from about knee-level to the hem, with the edges of the split trimmed with tablet-woven bands. I'd love to know the find or finds that supported that reconstruction.
There are no paired stick pins united by multiple draped chains, which I also associate with early period Lithuanian costume, and few stick pins in general (one is being worn to hold the man's rectangular cloak shut in the I-IV CE costume).
One motif that appears in a number of finds (and that shows up in a number of photographs and drawings in Ms. Volkaitė-Kulikauskienė's book) are bronze pendants shaped like maple seeds. They appear as dangling ornaments on circlets and caps, hung from the chains between the big stick pins used to anchor shawls, and as heads of stick pins. None of those pendants are shown here, however.

I suppose the likeliest possibility is that Volkaitė-Kulikauskienė discussed finds from one section of the country and the calendar's costumes are based on finds from a different area. I don't know Lithuanian geography at all, so I don't really know where any of the finds are located relative to other finds just from reading the names of the find areas. However, the text of the calendar discusses each costume as though it is representative of the country as a whole--which is misleading if there truly are distinct regional trends.

As pearl has already noted in her blog, the text on the calendar as well as the reconstructions is the work of archaeologist Daiva Steponavičienė, who is associated with the Castle Research Center „Lietuvos pilys“.and was apparently involved in the reconstruction of the Palace of the Rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Vilnius. Danutė Keturakienė is credited as the "costume designer" of the "archaeological costumes", which I assume means the early period costumes where the reconstruction is based upon archaeological finds. Although Dr. Steponavičienė's interests appear to center upon the late Middle Ages, Ms. Keturakienė's work appears to be relevant to my period of interest. It will be interesting if her name turns up any articles that might be useful.

EDIT: Ms. Danutė Keturakienė is also a weaver, apparently. She's involved with a site called "Ethnic Art" that gives some information about historic costume and other crafts and sells reproductions of historic Lithuanian textiles, jewelry, ceramics, etc. The site may be found here.

A Vendel Brooch!

2010-11-12T23:54:00.002-05:00

It appears that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has at least one Vendel period disc-on-bow brooch that may have been made in Norway. It is about 20 cm long and looks as though it contained enameled plates, though those are now missing. Information about this brooch can be found here. But there seem to be more examples found in Gotland (or at least more examples of which there is information on the Internet) than in Norway. Still, this information provides food for thought.

Another Vendel Update

2010-11-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

Today, Amalie's band arrived. Except for the edges (which will be hidden, given the way I plan to stitch it onto the tunic I will make) I think it's beautiful.

I have decided to go with an off-white wool for the tunic and, more tentatively, with a dark blue for the overdress. The white wool is on its way to me. I haven't ordered the dark blue yet, partly because of financial considerations and partly because I may yet find information that supports a different color choice. I do want a dark color because, if I were going to wash the white wool, I would have needed to order more than 2 yards and I wanted to limit the amount of fabric I needed for the tunic to 2 yards to minimize the cost of the costume. So I do not plan to wash this tunic but intend to allow the overdress to serve as protection for all of that whiteness.

There will be more updates as I make more progress.

Vendel Garb Update

2010-11-10T21:35:00.008-05:00

While I wait for Amalie's Snartemo band to reach me from New Zealand, I have been considering an appropriate tunic pattern for a Vendel-period Norwegian outfit, starting with the tunic. I've concluded that it should have a simple round neck, without a slit (because no brooches seem to have been found that would be suitable to close such a slit, in that period). Based on that information, I figure that I can make the tunic from as little as 2 yards of wool flannel, provided that it's 60 inches wide. My current idea is to go with off-white wool, which an EBay vendor is selling here for a good price.

In addition, I will clearly need some kind of overdress, and a shawl. Both are simple--likely my overdress will be a simple peplos. I'm thinking of dark blue herringbone wool, such as that sold here (it's the color at the very bottom of the picture) by The Wool Connection; at 60 inches wide, I can get by with only one yard. And I know where to find plain, smallish tortoise brooches. But as I learned from pearl during her discussion of shawls, I will also need a button or disc-on-bow brooch to fasten the shawl, and I know of no vendor that sells such an item.

I could save up to commission one from a vendor, I suppose (Raymond's Quiet Press will do such commissions, for example), but to do that I need to have a better idea of how big such brooches really were. This article by Johan Callmer makes them appear to be huge! Even if I stick with a design from early in the Vendel period (when such brooches were smaller), it appears that I'd still need a brooch that was at least 4 or 5 inches (roughly 10-14 cm) long. Is that right? It's certainly going to make it expensive, even if I don't opt for any enameling.

So now I'm hunting down articles about disc-on-bow brooches, partly to see if I can find one that identifies the size of any relevant brooch finds and partly to learn more about them in general. Any information that my readers might have would, as always, be appreciated.

Medieval Garments Reconstructed--A Preview

2010-11-06T21:09:00.004-04:00

The Oxbow Books/David Brown Book Company website has posted images of sample pages from Else Østergård's soon-to-be published book, Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns. You can find the images here. Each pattern page includes a photograph of the garment from which the reconstruction pattern was taken and a photograph of a garment reconstructed from the proposed pattern. Moreover, each image is zoomable, so that you can read the sample pages and examine the photographs and pattern diagrams on them in detail.

It looks like a very informative and useful design. I can't wait to see the book.

My Lithuanian Costume

2010-11-06T17:41:00.031-04:00

I've previously mentioned in this blog that I've been making a tenth century CE Lithuanian costume. Actually, most of it has been made for a long while, but I got stuck on the shawl. However, I realized recently that I've made enough progress that it's worth trying the entire costume on (something I hadn't done before now!) and getting a few pictures taken of it to amuse or impress my readers.

Illus. from R. Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book

The costume is based largely upon what I was able to pick up from Compleat Anachronist #59 about Regina Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book on ancient Lithuanian costume; I've included the relevant picture from Ms. Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book here for reference. (My costume is based upon the standing figure.). Some ~~confessions~~ explanations about costume details follow for the curious.

First of all, the shawl is still incomplete; I need to sew trim on the short edges to conceal the fact that the fringe just consists of pieces of heavy yarn stitched on, and fasten some bronze rings to the shawl for decoration. I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea of red and white fringe for the shawl, but having read the recent article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles 6 I see that the shawl is more Latvian than Lithuanian. Having looked at Ms. Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's picture again, I will probably just make some copper coils, string them on some cord, stitch the cord on parallel to the short ends, and call it good. The pin set is from Raymond's Quiet Press after a find shown in Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book. They would double as weapons of war; the pins are heavy and long as knitting needles. I gather that the actual pins were just as long, but thinner and lighter (and sharper) than these. I strung chains between them myself.

The skirt is 100% wool. It is made as a closed tube with a casing for a drawstring. The drawstring has bronze beads dangling from the ends. I had no support for this type of construction,. However, at the time I made it I had no information of any kind about how the skirt might have been made, and I did know that the early Danes used a closed tube skirt with a cord threaded through the fabric. This seemed like a period-plausible technique. My fabric was on the thin side; hence, the drawstring. The result produced a skirt that looks a lot like Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's picture above. I have since learned that the experts believe that the early Baltic skirts were just wrapped fabric, like a modern-day sarong.. I'm not sure I would have used a wrapped skirt for this costume even if I was aware of the theory at the time. I've always had trouble with wrapped skirts; they usually look ugly on me and tend to unwrap themselves while I'm wearing them (Smallish waist + big hips = problems with wrapping rectangular fabric). The stitching effect at the bottom of the skirt is the selvedge of the fabric; I think it looks attractive and thus didn't remove or hide it.

The shift is linen and is handsewn. It's style is generally based on pictures I've seen in Ms. Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book. I still have no idea why she believes women's shifts had a collar, but I've seen another Lithuanian reproduction costume on the Internet with a similarly collared shift, and I thought it was possible that there was a neckring find with textile impressions inside the ring that I'd never heard of to support the interpretation, so I made the shift that way. I purchased the neckring from an Internet dealer; it looks a lot like the ones I've seen in reconstruction pictures, including the reconstruction pictures on my Lithuanian costume calendar.

The apron is a very light wool gabardine, and is belted on in the manner in which the Eura apron is believed to have been worn, again because I had no better clue how the apron might have been worn. The belt is a "folk" Latvian design, purchased from BalticShop.com largely because I thought it would fit in with the other costume components and knew that it would have taken me much longer to tablet weave something vaguely appropriate myself. The shoes are also from BalticShop.com. I've made linen stockings, which I was planning to wear with the costume, but I couldn't find the pair I made for myself (they fit much better than these!) so I'm wearing a pair I bought from Historic Enterprises. (I haven't made myself any cut-and-sewn stockings from wool--yet.)

I made two different headdresses to wear with this costume: 1) a circlet, made from bronze beads (based on a sketch from CA #59 that I may have misinterpreted and don't know the provenance of) strung on elastic cord (I couldn't figure out how better to fasten it, though the originals must have tied) and stitched to a leather band, with a series of hanging chains fastened to the back, each with a bell on the end, and 2) a veil and wimple, pinned with a "maple leaf" headed pin that I made myself of craft bronze. (You don't want to see it close-up, believe me; it's pretty crude.) The veil is wool challis; light, warm, nicely draping. It was somewhere close to $20 USD a yard; fortunately that quantity was all I needed for a veil and wimple. Please excuse the sloppy draping of the wimple, but I wanted to get the photographs taken outside before dark, and because we're heading toward winter we lose the sunlight fairly early in the afternoon now. I folded the veil (which is nearly square) into a triangle to wear it, largely because I think triangular veils look better. The recreations featured in the Lithuanian costume calendar use rectangular veils, which always look ugly to me and don't particularly seem to match any of the artistic depictions with which I'm familiar from the eras when veils were commonly worn.

I can't say this costume is based on especially rigorous research. But I did learn a lot about working with natural materials, and about handsewing, in assembling it, and I've also learned more about early medieval Baltic costume over the period I've been assembling it. So although I don't think this costume qualifies as a recreation, the process of making it has taught me about period costume in general, and about Baltic area costume of the period in particular. Also, I think this costume does convey at least a bit of the flavor of Lithuanian costume of the period and how Lithuanian costume differed from the costume of the other Baltic areas.

One final observation: except for the shawl and veil, the costume is quite comfortable; I wore it while typing in the first draft of this post.

Kudos to my husband for taking the photographs you see here. (I've eliminated the ones with dopey expressions or other major problems.) I will probably post a photograph of the costume once more, after I've finally finished the shawl--and at that point, I'll make sure to take more care with my headgear.

New Project--Vendel Garb!

2010-11-03T23:38:00.004-04:00

Amalie, who is responsible for the wonderful blog Adventures in Tablet Weaving, recently wove a band based on Snartemo V as part of a demonstration of use of continuous warp technique. The band did not meet her exacting standards, and she said in her blog:

I don't really know what I'm going to do with this band. It has quite a few mistakes in it in the section I did first. I don't know if it's known what the Snartemo V fragments or any of the related finds were used for. If anyone out there can convince me that they're making 7th century Norwegian Viking garb, you can have it.

Since my tablet weaving is nowhere near as skillful as hers, I commented on Amalie's blog, saying that though I've never made 7th century Norwegian garb before, I've made plenty of Viking era garb, and I'd be willing to take a crack at making a 7th century outfit if I had the band. So she agreed to send it to me! (Thanks again, Amalie!)

Now I'm looking forward to seeing a wonderful band, woven of wool in a period design, and thinking about what to do with it. The band is about 60 cm long, enough to trim the neckline and sleeves of a tunic, so I will make a wool tunic (I think it needs to be wool, since the band is wool) as the foundation of my outfit. For the past few days, I've been thinking about what color of wool I should use for the tunic. I can buy periwinkle blue wool flannel (a web company I've patronized has some on sale right now) but that color doesn't seem appropriate. I see this tunic as a best tunic for a noble of not quite royal quality, so in my opinion a deep or vibrant color is called for. I can also get yellow or deep orange wool flannel on sale, but I don't look good in yellow and orange also doesn't seem right (especially because the band has true red in it.) I have some dark blue wool that I've been saving for my (proposed) Birka outfit, but I don't want the two tunics to be of the same fabric even if I have enough of the blue for both. I can also obtain light gray flannel, but am wondering whether that color would be special enough for this project. Maybe it would be a reasonable compromise.

In addition to the tunic, I think there is justification for an overdress. Martin Rundkvist's article indicates that tortoise-shaped brooches were already worn in the Vendel period, though they tended to be smaller and either plain or featured incised decoration, often in the form of a crouching animal. His article does not say whether any textile fragments (loops or otherwise) were associated with any of the Vendel era brooches, but I can contact him through his blog and see whether he will answer that question for me. If no loops or fragments were found, I could wear the new tunic with a simple peplos and fasten that peplos with featureless tortoise brooches--I know of two metal workers who sell such items. That, with simple turnshoes (my existing ones are sufficiently generic that they would do) and a shawl (ditto) would complete the costume.

Yes, I know that I have a ton of non-progressing projects already, but this idea is more exciting! I will of course report on my progress.

EDIT: I have since learned that a sword was found in Snartemo grave V, suggesting that the bits of tablet weaving found in that grave belonged to a man's clothing. No matter. It seems likely that high-ranking women used similar bands on their clothing.

Mordovian Costume

2010-10-26T22:08:00.006-04:00

I have been browsing through Julia Stepanova's wonderful site, looking at reconstruction drawings based upon Russian archaeological finds. The site is in Russian, but there are a lot of photographs and illustrations, and Google Translate seems to have done a pretty good job translating the text.

I found, to my delight, that one of the drawings is of a female Mordovian costume from the eighth-ninth centuries CE! (The Mordovians, you may recall, used a lot of small omega-shaped brooches in their costume, which I blogged about here and here). The image is sufficiently striking, and different from other tenth century Northern European costumes that I decided to show the image here, instead of simply linking to it. I think the brooches fastening the chain on her chest may be omega brooches, but the style of the drawing is such that I'm not quite sure.

I can't tell who drew the sketch from the information on Ms. Stepanova's site, but you can find the sketch in context on this page. (It's picture number 4.) Over on this page are some reconstructions of Mordovian headresses; they resemble the circlets of the Lithuanians and Latvians, unsurprisingly.

There is an extensive bibliography of Russian and Baltic area costume resources on Ms. Stepanova's site. If you read Russian, I heartily recommend looking through it and making notes of sources to ILL. I've been looking through it with the aid of Google Translate, and I don't read Russian. I doubt I could read the reference texts referenced there, but it's good to know that a list of relevant information exists.

Lithuanian Costume Calendar--Photos!

2010-10-23T21:25:00.040-04:00

I still haven't gotten to sit down and admire my new Lithuanian Costume Calendar. Instead, I hurried outside so that I could take some representative photographs of a few interesting pages before dusk (I can't take good photographs of them indoors because the flash creates reflections that obliterate some of the detail in the images). The images may not appear to be perfectly rectangular because the calendar was mailed rolled-up in a box, and it's still flattening back out.

Viking era costume, full length

Viking era costume, back of page

The full-length photograph, for May, is a Viking period costume. On the back of the page are a series of inset photographs showing portions of the costume in more detail. There is also a summary page that shows smaller images of both the male and female costumes for each era, with commentary in both Lithuanian and English. I have provided a photograph of that entire page, plus a photograph of the part of the page with the Viking period costumes, for easier readability.

Summary page, Viking and Early Medieval sections

Summary page from calendar

If only the calendar gave bibliographic references, it would be perfect. It does give credits for who made the costume recreations. I shall have to look at that information in greater detail.

The photographs should be clickable for size, but that's not working for some reason (it's not working right for photographs I posted earlier on other blog entries either). I apologize for that. Here is a link you can use to see these photos zoomed up a bit; that will make most of the text readable.

I'm finding these images fascinating, though none of them bear a great resemblance to the images from Regina Volkaite-Kulikauskiene's book (or the costume I was trying to make based on that book). I expect I'll finish the costume anyway--costume recreation is a moving target, after all. I have a post planned about that costume, when I get a bit farther along on my work on the shawl for it.

Note: The text background on all of these pages should be white, not blue; the color is probably caused by the fact that these photos were taken near the end of the day when the sunlight was starting to fade.

My Lithuanian Costume Calendar Came Today!

2010-10-23T13:50:00.003-04:00

Of course, I finally did break down and order the Lithuanian Costume Calendar from BalticShop.com.

The webpage does warn that the calendar measures 28" by 10" (70 cm by 30 cm), but I hadn't realized how large that is--it's huge! So huge that they shipped it rolled up, in a box. But I'm sure I can flatten it back out again--I do own a copy of the full Brittanica encyclopedia in hard copy. :-)

As a calendar, it's a bit of a failure, because the section where the actual dates appear is small and narrow (about 4 inches tall--and each month includes the dates for both 2010 and 2011). But that means the costume photographs are HUGE--they take up most of the rest of each page. Better still, on the back of each month's page is a bit of descriptive text in English, with captioned photographs of various details of the featured costume.

I plan to try to photograph some of the back of the pages later, to give an idea of how much they have packed into this calendar. (Though, unfortunately, there are no citations to sources.) Given that's it's a two-year calendar as well, it's worth the money I paid for it.

More Eye Candy

2010-10-03T21:48:00.004-04:00

I just found this soon-to-be-published book on Amazon:

100 Dresses: The Costume Institute / The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yale University Press (Nov. 1, 2010).

As the title implies, the book is dedicated to presenting photographs (presumably color) of 100 dresses in the Met's collection. The official product description on the Amazon page for the book notes:

Ranging from the buttoned-up gowns of the late 17th century to the cutting-edge designs of the early 21st, the dresses reflect the sensibilities and excesses of each era while providing a vivid picture of how styles have changed—sometimes radically—over the years. A late 1600s wool dress with a surprising splash of silver thread; a large-bustled red satin dress from the 1800s; a short, shimmery 1920s dancing dress; a glamorous 1950s cocktail dress; and a 1960s minidress—each tells a story about its period and serves as a testament to the enduring ingenuity of the fashion designer’s art.

If these clothing periods appeal to you, you may want to consider picking up a copy. The Amazon book is a paperback edition and is being sold for a modest price (less than $20 USD).

Minor Mystery 2

2010-10-02T23:46:00.004-04:00

While re-reading Thor Ewing's Viking Clothing last night, I came across a passage discussing a couple of the Birka grave finds that I had never focused upon before. The passage, which I will quote here, discusses large penannular brooches found in a few of the female graves--specifically, graves that contained tortoise brooches.

Larger [i.e., than 2.5 cm or 1 inch in diameter, such as those found at the neck in certain graves] penannular brooches can be worn on the side of the body and always below the height of the twin brooches. Perhaps the most typical position was at the elbow on the outside of the arm, in such a way that the cloak would have constricted movement in the upper part of both arms; this is most clearly the case in [graves] Bj.605A and Bj.860A. It seems that the larger form of penannular brooch might not have been worn without tortoise brooches; if the brooched dress is worn only by married women, then perhaps the typically male penannular brooch might have a special value in women's costume, either symbolic or sentimental, representing the woman's husband. In Bj. 981A a penannular brooch is apparently used in the place of one of the oval brooches. (p. 62) (emphasis mine).

I cannot imagine why anyone would wear a largish penannular brooch on the *outside* of the elbow, since there are warm ways to wear any kind of cloak that do not constrict the arms that much, but I can think of several reasons why a gravefind might contain a brooch at that location:

The brooch was used to fasten a blanket or shroud around the body, and was not part of the dress worn while the woman was living.
The brooch fastened a rectangular cloak at the shoulder, and slipped down to land near the elbow while the body decayed. This might not be very likely if the woman was buried lying on her back, but there were Viking burials of people sitting up; in that case, such an outcome might be very likely. This possibility strikes me as the most interesting, since it suggests that women--or at least some women--wore rectangular cloaks on occasion instead of shawls or coatlike garments. Ewing's speculation that such brooches were worn by married women as "symbolic" of their husbands is interesting. Perhaps rectangular cloaks were worn by widows who were, in effect, the head of house?
The brooch was not part of the woman's clothing at all, but was simply laid in the grave at her side, for reasons either "symbolic or sentimental", as Ewing remarks. It would be useful to know whether textile remains were found around the pins of the penannular brooches in Bj. 605A and 860A; if that was the case, it would tend to rule out this possibility.

The grave find where a penannular brooch was found as an apparent substitute for a tortoise brooch strikes me as a reminder that even the wealthy folk of Viking times were not as wealthy in possessions as most of us today. Ewing also takes note of this. He mentions a wealthy Viking age burial of a woman in Orkney whose grave included paired tortoise brooches "and a very fine Celtic cross, among other jewelry." But her spine showed that "she had spent her life carrying heavy loads on her back," something wealthy women do not typically do today. (p. 43) It seems to me important to keep this type of fact in mind when we look to create any aspect of life in the Viking age.

A Minor Mystery

2010-09-30T23:59:00.003-04:00

In my few spare moments, I sometimes re-read sources on Viking costume in the hope of having an inspiration that will enlighten me about an issue, or that will motivate me to embark on a new area of research. So far, I haven't had much in the way of inspiration, but I have stumbled across a question or two.

Tonight, my question involves Birka grave 597. I can best explain it by recourse to pictures. The first picture, taken from Inga Hägg's article in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe about the Birka finds, is a reproduction of Hjalmar Stolpe's sketch of Grave 597 when it was excavated. Note that the iron scissors are shown, blade tips pointing downwards, between the two tortoise brooches.

The picture to the right, which is from the same article, shows "iron fragments from the scissors" found in grave 597. They are covered by linen fragments. The pleats referenced in the caption appear to extend down the long axis of the fragment. However, it's difficult to tell how wide the large fragment shown in this picture is, or what part of the shears the fragment was associated with. That makes it difficult to discern whether the pleats run in vertical rows, parallel to the length of the shears, as most people believe the shifts in the Birka graves were pleated.

The last picture, still from the same article, shows a textile fragment on iron scissors. Again, the scale of the fragment is not given. Hägg's article suggests that this fragment is also from Grave 597; indeed, it could be a larger picture of the fragment shown on the left in the photograph above. The pleats are clear, and run perpendicular to the long dimension of the fragment.

Here's where the mystery lies. If the linen shift worn by the woman in Grave 597 was pleated so that the pleats ran parallel to her height, any fabric fragments caught on the iron scissors should run parallel with the length of the scissor blades, since the scissors were found with their tips pointing down toward the woman's feet, parallel to her torso. Yet the fragments look as though they may have covered the entire length of the scissors--or at least their blades. If that is the case, the pleats may have run perpendicular to the length of the scissors, which would mean the dress was pleated horizontally.

So is it too strange to consider that at least one of the Birka shifts may have been horizontally pleated? Or is it more likely that the fragment shown in figure 17.35 from the Hägg article was small, only about as wide as the iron scissors? In that case, the pleats really are running in the expected direction.

Fabrican

2010-09-19T20:29:00.001-04:00

I couldn't resist posting this link to the website of a company called Fabrican, which has invented a way to put fibers into an aerosol can, so that spraying the contents on a dress form, or a naked human body, creates literal spray-on clothing. Though I suspect that hospitals will find this technology more practical and useful, there are interesting fashion possibilities for it too. Explore the website--it's interesting.

Three Interesting Pieces of Evidence About Apron Dress Construction

2010-09-16T21:40:00.007-04:00

It occurs to me that, over the past few weeks, I've run across information that has changed my thinking about what apron dresses really may have been like. Since part of the function of this blog, for me, is to summarize interesting things I learn in the study of costume, I'm jotting down those ideas for my own reference.

1. Evidence of decoration. Until I read Hilde Thunem's summary of Inga Hagg's research, I didn't realize that the research could be read as showing not merely that apron dresses might be decorated, but that it may have been more common to decorate them than to not decorate them. Granted, the decoration does not appear to be as elaborate as some reenactors would like to make it (no embroidery or metal-brocaded tablet weaving seems to have been found on an apron dress, for example), but a number of the Birka fragments, which include bits of the apron dress layer at the top of the dress show that either silk strips or colored cord were sewn down along the top of the dress. Thunem also discusses a find from Kaupang that has tablet-woven trim sewn onto it, and cord apparently sewn to one edge of the trim, but it's not clear whether this find was part of an apron dress or what part of a garment it might be from.

2. Another pleated wool apron dress? The pleated fragment found at Køstrup, which also seems to be an apron dress, also may not be unique. This summary discusses a Gotland find consisting of two fragments from the same 2/2 twill wool, "which has been pleated." The write-up indicates that the pieces were stuck to a knife and knife sheath, They are small (one is 4 by 3.4 cm, the other is 1.5 by 4 cm), and the write-up does not indicate where or whether these finds were located relative to a body. Granted, these fragments may well not be from an apron dress, but they still should be kept in mind in case later information makes an inference about the garment from which this fabric find derives possible.

3. The Lining Issue. Hilde Thunem, who is familiar (to varying degrees) with all the languages in which the archaeological reports that bear upon female Viking era costume are written, gives an interesting summary of the very small body of physical evidence for lined apron dresses (or "smokkrs") in this web article-in-progress on the subject of apron dresses:

Of the more than 100 graves with smokkr fragments, Inga Hägg describes 36 in detail in "Kvinnodräkten i Birka". Several of these graves contain fragments that probably stem from an inner dress or lining in addition to remains of a woollen smokkr. Almost all of the inner dresses or linings were made from linen (grave 464 is an example), but one grave (973) had a broken lozenge twill smokkr with a lining of repped wool. Here the twill and the repped wool lay parallel until they met at the edge of the smokkr and the seam was covered by a string. There is also one grave (954) that contained a woollen smokkr fragment with loose stitches which both Agnes Geijer and Inga Hägg interpreted to mean that the smokkr originally was lined, but there are no traces left of the lining itself.

The fragments of lining are too small to ascertain whether the smokkr was fully or just partially lined, although Geijer leans towards a partial lining.

(Emphasis mine.)

Grave 973 is one of the Birka graves that also has a textile fragment with an attached loop surviving. The fact that at least one grave had two layers of textile with a join covered by a potentially ornamental string suggests that at least some apron dresses really may have been lined.

It would be interesting to see how a lined apron dress drapes and hangs. Weaving fabric to match the linen twill and repped wool find in Grave 973, and then sewing an apron dress from the fabrics, would tell us much about how such a garment functioned, and might even give clues as to likely designs for such a garment. Alas, I am no weaver, and do not anticipate having the time to take up weaving any time soon. But it would be an interesting experiment.

Abstracts for NESAT XI

2010-09-15T20:38:00.010-04:00

From one of the mailing lists I frequent, I have learned that the abstracts of the papers to be presented at the next Northern European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles ("NESAT") are now on line. As I've mentioned before, the NESAT is held once every three years, each time in a different city and country. The next one is scheduled to take place in Esslingen, Germany, in May 2011. That means the printed volume containing the papers likely will not be published until the following year. The website says that the volume for this NESAT, the eleventh one, "will be published in a volume of the Internationale Archäologie series by German publishing house VML Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH."

You can find links to all of the abstracts on this page. They are listed by author; clicking on the author's name takes you to a separate PDF containing the abstract. The list also indicates the language in which the abstract, and presumably the article, is written.

There are some very interesting papers to be presented at NESAT XI. The following papers, listed here with a link to the abstract for each, touch upon subjects near and dear to my heart, but in general if you are interested in historic European costume from before the 17th-18th centuries CE, a browse through the abstracts may turn up items of interest to you also.

Elizabeth Wincott Heckett. The Lady of Cloonshannagh Bog: An Irish 7th Century AD Female Bog Body and the Related Textiles. http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_wincott%20heckett.pdf
Frances Pritchard. The Dublin Viking-Age Project: The Textile Programme http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_pritchard.pdf
Marianne Vedeler. New Light on Samite Textiles from Oseberg http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_vedeler.pdf
Irita Žeiere. Fragments of Male Clothing in the 9th Century Bog Hoard in Latvia. http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_zeiere.pdf
Hanna Zimmerman. Five Early Medieval Caps from the Northern Netherlands. http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_zimmerman.pdf
Beatrix Nutz. Bras in the 15th century? A Preliminary Report. http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_nutz.pdf
Nahum Ben-Yehuda. Textiles and Textile Production in 11th Century Troyes from Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki's Exegesis to the Talmud. http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_ben-yehuda.pdf
Riina Rammo. Production of Clothing in a Medieval Village in Siksälä (Estonia). http://www.nesat.org/abstracts/lecture_rammo.pdf

Byzantine Medical Costume

2010-09-12T21:08:00.001-04:00

I was looking for photographs of Middle Byzantine brooches for the costume I'm planning when I came across an interesting website called Maestra Anya's Big Blog of Medieval Miscellany. One of the older posts was about physicians' costume in Byzantium. It includes pictures from period illuminated manuscripts. Apparently physicians in Byzantium, at least during the late medieval period, customarily wore blue, or blue-green robes. I find this sort of detail fascinating. Maestra Anya's blog includes posts about other interesting items and facts; I recommend that any reader interested in the Middle Ages check it out.

EDIT: to correct my misstatement about the time period from which the illustrations featured in Maestra Anya's post originate.

New Eye Candy Books

2010-09-09T21:46:00.001-04:00

While trolling peacefully through Amazon.com the other day, I learned about two new books that may interest some of my readers:

Lynn, Eleri. Underwear: Fashion in Detail. V & A Publishing (November 1, 2010).

Takeda, Sharon Sadako; Spilker, Kaye Durland; and Galliano, John. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915. Prestel USA (September 22, 2010).

The first of these appears to be yet another entry in the V&A's "Dress in Detail" series--books which feature loving, tight closeups of fascinating details of articles of dress in the V&A's collection. "Fashioning Fashion" appears to be similar. Amazon quotes a description by co-author John Galliano from the book's preface, of which I will provide an excerpt:

...Fashion is in the details. The textiles, tailoring, and trimmings all work together in the creation of the finest pieces. Drawing on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's internationally known fashion collection, this gorgeous book tells the story-in words and beautiful pictures-of fashion's aesthetic and technical development from the Age of Enlightenment to World War I, a period when fashionable dress underwent sweeping changes. Many remarkable examples of men's, women's, and children's garments are featured here for the first time, including an extraordinarily rare 1790s man's vest designed to promote sympathy with the French Revolution; a stunning 1845 black satin gown from the royal court of Portugal heavily embroidered with gold; and an 1891 evening mantle with silk embroidery, glass beads, and ostrich feathers designed by French couturier Aemile Pingat.

Shop for those pre-order discounts now if this touches upon your areas of costuming history interest!

Omega Brooches--An Update

2010-09-09T00:20:00.009-04:00

Last year around this time, I wrote about a bizarre little variant of the penannular brooch that is often called an omega brooch. They are shaped a bit like the Greek capital letter omega, hence the name.

My attention was caught by the fact that antiquities dealers and some reenactors seem to think they are Viking jewelry, even though I've never heard of any omega brooches being found in Scandinavia. I learned that they are generally associated with a tribe called the Mordovians, who live in northwestern Russia, near the Baltic. Mordovia, now deemed a republic, is still recognized as having a distinct identity from Russia, though it is under Russian political control.

Recently, pearl, one of my most treasured correspondents, found some additional images of omega brooches on the Hull Museum Collections website, amusingly labeled "buckles." Typing the following accession numbers into the search box will show the pictures of the brooches she found: KINCM:2008.6067.42, KINCM:2008.6067.55, KINCM:2008.6067.56, and KINCM:2008.6067.58.

The most interesting information pearl uncovered, however, is the location with which the Hull brooches are associated. The British Museum, which had purchased some of the collection to which the Hull's brooches belong back in 1905, states that the brooches were found near Krasnoslobodsk. Wikipedia mentions two towns by this name, one of which is in Mordovia. Pearl reports that the BM's examples can be searched for on their website, using the term "Efaevo" (the specific location of the tumulus where they were found). Unfortunately, their web search reveals descriptive information but does not seem to include photographs.

So far, the omega brooch appears to be pretty solidly, and uniquely, Mordovian (although the BM and the Hull Museum have classified their examples as Finno-Ugrian), so far as I know it has no associations with the people we think of as Vikings. or with the apron dresses Viking women wore. (Thanks again, pearl!)

The Fitted Wrapped Apron Dress--Thoughts So Far

2010-09-08T23:53:00.003-04:00

Last weekend, I finally began work on the "fitted" wrapped apron dress that I've been planning to make for months.

What I have done so far was to take my fabric, decide on the approximate length and cut the fabric to length and width. Then, I wrapped the piece around myself in the manner in which the finished dress will be worn, and marked locations at each hip that will be slit from hip to hem for the insertion of long gores.

I'm not completely sure how to decide upon the size of each gore. They need to be wide enough so that the top portion will wrap snugly without causing the lower part to twist, or fail to cover my lower body.

The diagram below shows the plan of the rest of the construction. (Bear in mind that this sketch is only roughly to scale and the location of all features such as tucks is approximate.) The dashed lines on the main body part represent cuts, while the dotted lines show proposed tucks. Thus far, I have trimmed my fabric to the main rectangular piece shown below, and cut slits where the dashed lines are. The numbers show the order in which each subsequent construction step is to be taken, to wit:

Hem the side edges. (The top edge is a selvedge, so it's not going to be hemmed, this time around.)
Cut and insert a large triangular gore into each of the long slits. The parallelogram shown below the body piece in my sketch is meant to represent two gores, cut on the diagonal line running roughly from right to left.
Make and attach the loops. Like my orange wrapped apron dress, this dress will have three pairs of loops, two short sets (both of which will be in the front when the dress is worn) and one long set.
Try on the dress again, and add tucks above the waist to make the top fit more snugly.
Hem the bottom, evening out the length as necessary.
Trim as desired. I'll probably just sew a piece of fabric or trim between the places where the brooches will sit, in the area shown on the diagram.

Is there historic support for this design? No. Moreover, I doubt that this design would have been used in period, because while the body of the garment doesn't require wasteful cutting, the more-or-less freehand cutting of the gores I'm planning would be wasteful of fabric.

On the other hand, the top portion of the dress isn't blatantly inconsistent with the archaeological evidence, and it's possible that a similar effect could have been achieved non-wastefully in period by piecing many small scraps of fabric into two large gores. Garments such as the Viborg shirt show that the Vikings had no problem with piecing many small bits of fabric to achieve the effects they were after.

At this point, I'm mostly interested in demonstrating that it would be physically possible to craft a body-fitting garment that would not need to be wriggled into and that would have the convenient access to the breasts of the wrapped dress designs.

I will, of course, post pictures when the dress is completed. Hopefully, I can make some progress this weekend.

Article on Early Tortoise Brooches

2010-08-31T01:00:00.006-04:00

Every once in a while, I cruise through Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist's blog, to see whether he's written lately about a Viking-era discovery.

Sometimes I get lucky. Today, I found a post of his from several months ago, giving a pointer to a long research article he had written, discussing and analyzing tortoise brooches from the Vendel period, i.e., the two hundred or so years immediately before the Viking age. You can download the article from here and read his blog post talking about the article here.

I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so. Just knowing that there is a significant body of pre-Viking-age tortoise brooches is interesting, as it undoubtedly has information relevant to female costume just before the Viking age.

Revisiting the Historiska Museet's Reconstruction

2010-08-21T23:06:00.008-04:00

Most costumers who are genuinely interested in Viking era costume are familiar with the reconstructed costumes displayed on the website of the Historiska Museet in Stockholm.

Of particular interest to me is the Historiska Museet's reconstruction of Viking women's costume, which is featured on this page. (There used to be an English version of this page, but it was moved and then I lost track of it, while the original Swedish page remains easy to find.)

In this connection, I recently re-read an old comment by Carolyn Priest-Dorman from the old Norsefolk list on Yahoo that critiques this reconstruction. The main thrust of Ms. Priest-Dorman's comments is that the Historiska Museet's reconstruction uses components based upon artifacts found at different places and times. For example, the reconstruction's fitted apron dress and underdress with curved arm-openings are based on finds from tenth-century Hedeby, but the trimming on the underdress is based upon Grave 735 from Birka (which is a male grave), the pleated shift and caftan are based upon other Birka finds, and the triangular headscarf has no apparent provenance whatsoever.

Re-reading Ms. Priest-Dorman's comments now, after I've learned much more than I used to know about Viking clothing and the evidence for its form, is making me re-think one of my projects, which was going to be to do my own version of the Historiska Museet reconstruction. Even when I first formed the idea, I realized that the headscarf featured in this reconstruction has no evidentiary basis, and planned to omit it from my effort. But for some reason, I hadn't focused upon the fact that this reconstruction includes an apron dress design based upon the Hedeby fragment, an underdress based upon a different Hedeby fragment, but details and a shift based upon earlier, Birka finds.

For a while, I had the vague idea that I could manage to use the components of this project in other costumes, based upon comments in Eva Andersson's book, "Tools for Textile Production from Birka and Hedeby," and a sketch which shows a woman in a caftan. But taking that approach, I've finally realized, undercuts my original object for undertaking the project--to make a Viking-era outfit that is defensibly from a particular place and period during the Viking era.

So now I'm thinking of ways to depart from the Historiska Museet's design that would result in a defensibly single-period outfit. That may not be too difficult. I can continue with my idea of attempting to make a pleated shift, and follow up with an overdress *without* curved armholes, that is trimmed in the same manner of fragments in one of the Birka finds. (I already have a unpleated, keyhole-necked shift, that could also be worn with such an overdress, and a small silver penannular brooch to close the neckline with.)

The problem is the apron dress. All of the Birka evidence is for the very top edge of the apron dress. There is no real evidence as to whether the dress was wrapped, tube-shaped, or fitted, though most people who have considered the Birka apron dress finds seem to believe that they were not fitted. However, I have an aesthetic problem with wearing an unfitted apron dress with a decorated underdress and pleated shift--it just seems like too much of a contrast with the most sophisticated garments that would be worn beneath it.

What to try?

It occurred to me that my idea for a semifitted wrapped apron dress might make an interesting experiment to add to a prospective Birka costume. That would not necessarily be inconsistent with the Birka evidence, but could yield a wrapped garment just fitted enough to look very elegant.

So maybe that's what I should plan for my "Birka" outfit. Now I have even more reason to proceed with my experimental semi-fitted wrapped apron dress--if the concept works in linen, I will be making one from my good, rose herringbone wool, for the Birka outfit.

EDIT: I was wrong. The Birka fragments do offer some evidence that the wool apron dresses, at least, were not of a wrapped style, in that we don't find one layer of apron dress wool over another. Hilde Thunem points this out in her essay on the evidence for apron dress construction, still in progress, which she has recently updated. Thunem comments:

In addition surviving fragments from woollen smokkrs lie in a single layer around the body, instead of the double layer one should expect from a pair of overlapping wraparound woollen smokkrs. Based on this, Inga Hägg proposes that the woollen smokkr consisted of a front piece and a back piece sewn together at the sides. She points out that this closed tube would be a natural continuation of the woollen peplos that seems to have been in use during the Iron Age (as evidenced by the Huldremose find).

So a wrapped woolen apron dress would not be consistent with the archaeological evidence from Birka. That suggests that my wool apron dress should be a simple tube, like my favorite blue wool apron dress. Maybe that's all for the best. It would be simple to make, and I can give it straps consistent in fiber and type with the relevant find.