One Afternoon Tutorials--All the Bags

Today's collection of one afternoon tutorials has a built-in theme.  All of these tutorials are instructions for how to make various kinds of bags to carry things in.  Some of these can be very ornamental, while others are plaintly utilitarian.  I suspect that many of us would greatly value the opportunity to have a period-appropriate bag to wear and use with historical costume.

Some of these patterns, obviously, are simpler than others, and a few require special skills (such as knitting or crochet, and the ability to interpret knitting or crochet pattern notation), but most of them are simple enough to finish in a single long afternoon.

I've already provided a link to a good tutorial for the Viking age wood-framed bag elsewhere, but I'm going to list it again in this post along with all the other bag tutorials to make it easier for people to find it through my blog.  Although this list does not, and cannot, include tutorials for every type of bag ever made, it includes a significant cross-section of items that are not commonly written about or made by costumers or reenactors.  I have listed the tutorial for each type of bag in rough chronological order of when the original bags were made and used.  

• Anglo-Saxon Ring Bag.  Another interesting bag type shows up in early Anglo-Saxon finds.  It's a cloth bag with a ring, big enough to admit a hand but smaller in diameter than the rest of the bag.  Such bags don't truly have a closure; the contents stay put because the bag is hung from a belt so it stays more or less upright in position, and because the ring is sized as small as possible to allow a hand, and the contents, to be inserted.  It has been theorized that they were used by well-to-do women to keep small sewing projects close at hand.  A similar design turns up in the late Middle Ages,* apparently to hold small game collected during a hunt.  This one comes from Brígiða Vadesbana's eponymous blog.  The tutorial may be found here.
• Viking Wood-Framed Bag.  I've already tried out Kristine Risberg's tutorial for a wood framed bag; it works very well.  Wood frames have been found at several Viking sites, and reasonable reproductions can be found on Etsy and other places if you are not brave enough to make your own frames based upon photographs of original finds.  The bag I made using Kristine's tutorial may be seen here, and the tutorial itself is here.  
• Medieval Trapezoidal Shoulder Bag.  Next come tutorials for a medieval bag with a trapezoidal shape and a shoulder strap.  These could be made as large as a modern messenger bag, but the period art shows them to be quite small, more the size of a small modern handbag.  Here are two different tutorials:  one by Coblaith, and one by Sabine Scholl.
• Medieval Carry Sack.  Here is a tutorial for a medieval "carry sack" that looks like one of the "miser bags" from the Victorian era (see below) enlarged to military duffel bag size.  This tutorial was written by Peter on the blog of the reenactment group Albrechts Bössor; it may be found here.
• Late Medieval Coin Pouch.   Cathrin of Katafalk shows how to make a no-sew leather coin pouch here.  The original purse was found by archaeologists in Bergen, Norway and dates to the late 13th-early 14th century CE.  (This tutorial inspired me to write today's all-bags post.)
• Medieval Drawstring Purse, with Tassels.  This tutorial on how to make a type of textile drawstring bag commonly seen in artifacts and art in the late Middle Ages, may be found on Cathrin's Flickr, here.   
• 18th C. "Ditty" Bag.  Here's a design sketch and instructions for an 18th century sailor's "ditty bag", the period term for a sailor's bag for carrying useful small items.  Tim Abbott provides these resources on his blog, "'Another Pair Not Fellows'; Adventures in Research and Reinterpreting the American Revolution".
• Regency Reticule.  Drawstring purses were also fashionable during the Regency period (1800-1820s), when they were called reticules.  Here's a pattern for a cut-and-sewn reticule from DawnLuck's Photobucket account. For further guidance in reticule-making, here's an interesting article with useful, general advice on making cut-and-sewn reticules by Kelly at Tea in a Tea Cup.  Some reticules were crocheted, and AllaboutAmi has a pattern for a crocheted reticule. 
• Metal-Framed Coin Purse.  Most people have seen, and many own, small purses with a metal frame at the top, and a kind of snapping clasp at the center.   Depending upon selection of frame and materials, this type of purse can be period for nearly any time from approximately the 18th century onward.  Such frames can be bought on line or in sewing and craft stores.  A tutorial for supplying the rest of the purse and uniting it with the frame may be found here.  
• Miser Purse.  This is shaped like the Medieval carry sack mentioned above.  Like that bag, it has a relatively slender center containing the entry slit.  The contents are meant to be stored in both ends, and can be kept from falling out by pushing rings toward the contents.  They were commonly used as coin purses during the 1800s.  They were usually crocheted; it was unclear whether any were knitted.  Here's one tutorial for a crocheted purse, as well as a second one that is knitted, courtesy of Severina and Koshka the Cat, respectively.
• 1940s Purse.  For those with more modern interests, here's a free pattern for a 1940s crocheted purse shaped like a conventional handbag, not like a miser's purse.  

Finally, the simplest kind of bag requires no sewing at all; it consists of a circle of leather, with holes evenly made about 1/4-1/2 inches from the edge, and a string or thong drawn through the holes to close it.  In case a tutorial for such an item is required, Martha Stewart has provided one here.  This idea is simple enough, both in design and construction, that such bags could well have been made as early as the Stone Age, and Martha's blog post shows that they are still being made for use today.

* From Les livres du roi Modus et de la reine Ratio, from late 14th century. This particular image was found on Exploring the Medieval Hunt.

A Sigtuna Bag

I have found a photograph of the wooden frame that inspired the frames on my Viking bag.

The photograph belongs to Tomáš Vlasatý. Tomáš runs a website called Projekt Forlog, which features articles, mostly in Czech but sometimes in English, about various aspects of Viking age material culture.  Google Translate does a pretty good job with the Czech articles, and I commend them to the attention of any Viking era enthusiasts among my readers.  Readers interested in helping to support Tomáš's research can donate on the Projekt Forlog page or on the project's Patreon page, here.

Tomáš confirmed that the Sigtuna frames are 480 mm (48 cm or nearly 19 inches) long.  He also told me that the frames are in Sigtuna Museum in Sweden, and still have textile fragments clinging to them.  Because he was clearly unhappy with the fact that the chart I found had ended up on Pinterest without his permission, I asked only to link to the photograph of the actual Sigtuna frames, which you can see here. He obtained the information from Anders Söderberg of the closed Facebook group “Doba vikinská – Viking Age”.  The textile bits clinging to the frame look like the remnants of a coarse wool twill.

So my frames are based upon the Sigtuna find and are very small in comparison with the originals.  However, finds from Birka and Hedeby include designs made in different sizes, so it is not impossible that a small version of the Sigtuna frames might have existed.   But next time, I'll be a bit more cautious and do more checking before taking a casual representation about a "based on a find's" provenance for granted.

EDIT (7/29/2018):  It occurred to me that the size of the original Sigtuna frames and the number of slots in them shows that those frames had to have been used for quite a large bag.  A smaller bag can be attached to frames by sturdy stitching, but a large one that will be holding a number of heavy articles must be attached to the frames more solidly.

Probably Not a Haithabu (Hedeby) Bag

When I bought the wooden frames I used in my Viking period bag, I assumed that the maker was correct in attributing them to a Haithabu (Hedeby, Denmark) find.  I made this assumption because the shape is similar to frames shown in photographs of finds from the harbor that are displayed in the Hedeby Museum.

Yesterday, however, I found some infographics on Pinterest claiming that the particular shape of frame that I used is from a find, not from Hedeby, but from Sigtuna in Sweden. This infographic in particular. The shape they attribute to a Sigtuna find is an exact match for my bag frames.  Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find additional information to confirm whether the infographic is correct. 

In addition, if the infographic is correct, my frames are much smaller than the original find. The infographic claims the Sigtuna find was 48 cm long--that's nearly 19 inches. My frames are 22.5 cm (9 inches) long.  So at best my bag is 50% historical, and it may well be based upon a find that was nowhere near Hedeby!

I will see whether I can find out more about the particular find that inspired the frames I bought.  In the meantime, apologies for misleading anyone.

EDIT (7/5/2018): Thanks to the commenter who pointed out that I'd incorrectly stated that 48 cm is nearly 12 inches (it's significantly larger). I've changed it above.

A Viking Wood Frame Bag

The completed bag.

Though I didn't manage to finish my Hedeby bag in April, I have finished it at last!  See the photographs accompanying this post.

I very nearly made the seam allowances for the lining bag too narrow.  The problem with doing that is that stitching too close to the edge of my moderately coarse linen can result in having the stitches pull out of the linen in wear. however, I succeeded in making my seams narrow enough that all raw edges were enclosed and the structural part of each seam was sewn through two folded edges, which should make it strong enough for a durable lining.

Because I made the seams on the lining bag so narrow, the lining is bigger than the felt outer bag, though that's not a big problem in use.  A slightly bigger problem is the fact that the felt seams are thick enough that the frames don't quite sit squarely where they should, making the bag a tad lopsided.  It still seems solidly functional, however.

With regard to the "trim", I ended up cutting a strip of the amber wool about 4 inches wide and folded both long edges under.  The top folded edge was stitched the top edge to the top of the bag, and the bottom edge was stitched to the body of the bag.  After that, I sewed the frames to the bag by stitching each wool tab down separately to the bag, first on the inside of the bag, then on the outside.

The steps involved in my method of construction, in order, were as follows:

Looking into the bag, showing the lining.

1.   Whipstitch the edges of the felt bag together (treating the bag as I had pinned it together for the last post on this subject as the wrong side of the bag, since both sides are very similar in appearance).

2.   Add a running stitch close below all of the whipstitched edges.

3.   Turn the felt bag right-side out.

4.   Cut an approximately 4-inch (about 10 cm) wide strip of the thinner amber fabric, turning the long edges under, and stitch the strip to the bag at the top.

5.  Stitch the lining pieces into their own bag shape.  Here, I folded each raw edge inward, whipstitched along the folded edges, and then sewed underneath the matched edges using running stitch.  Note:  the lining bag stays inside-out.

6.   Sew the bottom of the amber wool strip to the body of the bag.

7.  Stitch each frame to the top long edges of the bag by running tabs of wool felt through each of the slots in the frames, turning the short ends of the tabs under, and whipstitching the folded edges of each tab down. (Note:  The inside edges and the outside edges were stitched separately; I did not try to make each stitch go through both tabs.)

Top of bag.  This picture shows the colors best.

8.  Place the linen lining bag into the felt bag and line it up properly (so that the narrow sides of the lining are against the narrow sides of the felt bag).  This guarantees that the seams of neither the felt bag nor the lining will be visible in use.

9.  Fold the top edge of the linen lining bag under (i.e., so that the raw edge would be against the inside of the felt bag).  Whipstitch the top folded edge of the linen lining to the top inside of the felt bag.

10.  Thread the cord through the holes in the wooden frame pieces, and tie knots in them to secure them in place.  The photographs show how the cord was threaded through the frames and how the bag stays closed naturally when worn.  The bag stays closed best when the contents of the bag have substantial weight (like, for example, an apple, or a smartphone).

For the Historical Sew Monthly fans among my readers, here is the challenge-critical information.

The Challenge--May: Specific to a Time [of Day or Year]

Material:  Wool felt for the bag, medium-weight linen for the lining, cotton cord for the handle, and a thinner, paler wool fabric sewn on to the outside of the wool felt for decoration.

Pattern:   I was inspired by Kristine Risberg's pattern on Nattmal, though I ultimately made my design, as I've discussed in an earlier blog post.

Year:  Roughly 10th c. CE.

Notions:  Dark brown silk thread from Guttermann to sew the bag together (though the originals might well have used linen or wool) and light gold silk Gutterman thread to sew the lining.  Also two birch wood frames based on Haithabu designs that I purchased on Etsy.

How historically accurate is it?  We only have surviving frames, not complete bags, among the Viking finds, so that's hard to ascertain.  My frames are ridged and black on the sides, suggesting that some kind of woodburning technique was used to cut them out; so far as I know, that method would not have been used in period.  I tried to stick to period materials and stitches, though I suspect that wool cord, not the cotton cord I used, would have been used to make a wool bag in period, and probably such a bag would have been stitched with wool or linen thread, not silk.  However, all of the material types I used (birch wood, wool, linen, silk) were available in Viking Age Scandinavia except (probably) for the cotton cord, and we do not know what weights and weaves of materials were actually used for similar bags.   In addition, although whipstitch and running stitch were used in period garments, I'm not sure that my particular combination of the two was used for seam construction in period; I'd have to recheck my sources.

Overall, I'd give my bag an historical accuracy rating of 70% at best. 

Hours to Complete:  About 6 hours, exclusive of time spent selecting materials and planning the design.

First Worn:  I haven't "worn" it yet since I have not visited any good venues at which to wear my Viking attire lately.  But since it will be useful to have a hands-free bag to carry necessary items any time that I'm wearing my Viking clothing, it will definitely see some use.

Total Cost:  $37.18.   I paid $15.00 for the wood frames (postage was free), $10.95 for the brown wool felt for the outside of the bag (inclusive of postage), and $11.13 for the amber wool for trim (inclusive of postage).  The linen used for the lining, cotton cord for the handle, and sewing thread all came from my stash.  All prices are in U.S. dollars.

The Haithabu Bag--A Progress Report

Bag with frames pinned on, via the wool tabs

Though I have missed the April deadline for HSM projects featuring unusual closures, the bag I intended to make using reproduction wooden frames based upon Hedeby archaeological finds is well underway.  I have sewn together the outside of the bag (i.e., the wool felt part) and have sewn the amber strip of wool to the edge of the bag opening, but have not sewn the bottom edge to the bag lower down.

The pictures show the amber strip as pinned down on the bottom.  One of the pictures shows the frames pinned onto the bag via the felt tabs.  That picture gives the truest impression of the color of the amber wool; the picture showing the bag from the broader side without the frames gives the truest impression of the shade of the brown wool.   As usual, each picture is clickable to get a larger image.  The picture quality is not as good as I'd hoped--my digital camera is old and getting crotchety, and trying to take a photograph before your batteries crap out is not the best path to quality photography.

Inside of the bag.  No lining yet.

Bag showing one of the narrow sides.  

Bag from the broader side.

Because the felt is stiff, the bag looks more like the flat-bottomed clasp bags of the 1950s and 1960s than I had expected, but in my opinion it remains a plausible design.  Possibly it would be more useful and look less odd if it were made up in leather; after all, the leather Sami bag Kristine Risberg discusses on her blog looks rather like a modern "hobo" bag.  The stiffness of the felt also means that the seams are quite thick, which may affect how the frames sit on the bag when the tabs are sewn down.  I probably will turn under the ends of the tabs before stitching them down, to give a more even look.

I've spent about two hours on this project so far (exclusive of planning and blogging).  That may mean that for many people, making such a bag is not a one-afternoon project, especially if one makes one's own frames.  One can simplify the task by selecting materials that are easier to work with, or that one has more experience working with than I have with sewing wool felt!

At the rate I'm going now, I will probably finish the bag by the end of June, if not before.  That makes for awkward timing in terms of the Historical Sew Monthly challenges.  April's challenge was "Buttons and Fastenings", but I missed that deadline.  I could probably have justified submitting the bag for May's challenge, "Specific to a Time [of Day or Year]," because the Vikings probably didn't use bags of this type except when they were traveling someplace (e.g., to a marketplace such as Birka).  But I didn't finish in May either, so the applicability of that rationale is also a moot point.  June's challenge is "Rebellion and Counter-Culture," which doesn't apply because there's nothing rebellious about making or using a functional item such as a bag, and there was no "counter-culture" in Viking Age Scandinavia so far as I am aware.  September's challenge ("Hands and Feet"; make an accessory for either) and November's Challenge ("Purses and Bags") are good fits for the project, as I've said before, but I'm not going to refrain from finishing this item for that long if I can finish in June.  So I guess I'll call this a late submission for May's challenge.

I'm happy with the bag so far.  It's quite sturdy, and I think I will like the look of the amber and brown wool combination when it is done.  There will be more pictures then, and I will definitely post on the HSM Facebook page also.

The "Bag" Part of the Hedeby Bag--Construction

Bag pattern

Over the last few days, I have been thinking about cutting my fabric for the wooden-framed Hedeby bag, and how the bag should go together.

A lot of the people who have made such bags simply cut a piece of fabric for the body of the bag that is twice as long as the intended depth of the bag, fold the piece in half, and then sew up the piece on both sides.  This type of construction has the advantage of not requiring any seam along the bottom of the bag, making the resulting bag stronger.

The downside of this construction is that the amount such a bag can contain is very limited relative to its depth.  It would be fairly simple to give the bag additional volume without making it deeper by adding bottom gores (thus making the bottom of the bag much wider), but doing so would create structural weakness by adding seams in areas that need to be weight-bearing. 

Outer layer with gores pinned in.

The Sami bag Kristine Risberg talks about in her post uses a somewhat different approach to increase volume.  It appears to have a circular or oval piece set in along the bottom of the bag.  This way, there is no bottom seam, just a seam that runs along the bottom edge of the bag, all around the sides at the bottom of the bag.    For a small bag that is unlikely to need to hold much, this much labor struck me as excessive for some reason.  And it also adds potential structural weakness.  Now, instead of having one piece of fabric for sides and bottom, there are three pieces; one for each side and one for the bottom.  That still seemed to create weakness.  On the other hand, the gores in the sides approach, though still involving three pieces, allows one large piece to be used for the wider sides and bottom, preserving much of the strength advantage of the fold-over design.

Then I started thinking about ways to add side gores.  The most attractive possibility that occurred to me was to add gores on the side that are narrow isosceles triangles.  This gives width to the bag without surrendering the strength and integrity of the folded bottom.  Though I'm no graphic artist, it is easier to explain what I mean with a diagram (see the graphic to the right of this post).  I've also included a photograph showing the gores pinned where they will be sewn.  Poor quality though it is, the photo gives a better idea of the finished bag's shape than the pattern sketch.

Under this plan, the lining will feature the same shapes as the exterior felt fabric, but since linen frays while felt does not, the lining pieces will have to be cut a bit larger than the main bag pieces--enough to allow for flat-felled seams.  That is desirable because linen, unlike wool felt, does fray, and the lining will suffer closer contact with the contents of the bag than the outer bag will.

I really like the bag shape the side-gore setup provides, so I'm going to use it.  After sewing the out and inner bags together, I will turn the outer bag right-side out, and stitch the frames to the bag using the tabs.  Once that is done I will insert the sewn linen lining (which will be a second bag, in effect), turn the top edge of the lining over, and whipstitch the lining and bag together along the top edge all around.    I have not yet decided whether I will apply the amber wool strip before, or after, stitching the frames on.  If I do so afterward, the top edge of the amber strip will lie against the bottom edge of the wool tabs holding the frame in place.

This approach will be different than that used on any of the bags I've seen pictured on line.  I'm excited to find out how (or whether) it will work.  

To Make A Bag

Having discovered on Etsy a reasonably-priced pair of wooden bag frames based upon one of the Hedeby finds, I impulsively decided to make my own Hedeby bag.  Naturally, the Historical Sew Monthly challenge where this fits best is the November challenge, but perhaps I can delay completion of this project item until October, the month before (which is permitted under the HSM rules).

What I have already discovered is that I am thinking about the construction of these bags in a significantly different light than I did before I had actually planned to make one.  Before I sat down to plan how I wanted to make the bag, I was looking at the idea of bag-making in terms of what would be possible, based upon materials and processes we know were available during the Viking Age.

Once I had ordered my reproduction wooden pieces (they aren't really "handles," as I may have called them, because it is not possible to hold the bag well just by using them; the cord or strap threaded through them is the only real handle such bags have), my thinking changed.  I began to consider what would be most likely given what I know about Viking textile technology and other material culture practices.

Part of this change was driven by additional information I obtained from Kristine Risberg's post about her Haithabu bag project.  From that post, I learned that one of the Haithabu frame pieces was found with wool ("fabric or yarn", according to Kristine) through holes which are in a natural place to use to fasten the bag to the frame.  That suggests that wool was used to fasten the frame to the bag, which in turn suggests that at least some of these bags may have been made from wool.

Even more interesting is that similar bags, with bone or antler frames instead of wooden ones, appear to have been used on leather food bags from Lappland, according to an early article by Arvid Julius.  The idea that the Viking bags were also used for food is supported, to some extent, by their sizes.  The Lapp (i.e., Sami) bags discussed by Julius were 20, 22, and 24 centimeters long which is close to the size of my reproduction (about 23 cm/9 inches long).  However, some of the Hedeby frames were much larger.  According to Kristine, the examples in the Haithabu Museum "are described by Westphal to "have a length of 181-495 mm and a thickness of 7-13 mm". The thickness of my piece is within that range, but its length is on the small end of the range. 181 - 495 mm equal 18.1 - 49.5 cm, or about 7 - 19 inches. In other words, the Haithabu bags were somewhere between lunch bag size and shopping bag size.  The Birka frames were largely incomplete fragments, but the one set of fragments that appear to constitute a single frame are 282 mm or 28.2 cm (11 inches) in length--within the range of the Haithabu frames though near the lower end of the range.  At 9 or so inches, my bag would be among the smaller bags based upon these finds, but I am content to make a (roughly) lunch bag sized container for this project.

The Sami frames were ornamented with simple carving, while the Haithabu and Birka examples were plain, their shaping being the only ornamental element.  Viking Age tools and useful articles differ greatly in how ornamental they are.  For example, most Viking needlecases and spindles are plain, though some examples bear simple decoration.  The wooden Viking frames fall on the low side of the decorative spectrum, which suggests that the bags they were part of were not adorned in a showy manner.  The likelihood that these were utilitarian items is further supported by the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, none of them came from graves--the Birka examples, for instance, were found not in any of the graves, but in an underwater area that was long known "to contain wooden logs and cultural layers."  With these facts in mind, I selected the components from which the bag would be made. Pictures of them appear with this post, and my rationale for each will be discussed below. 

WOOD: The birch frames

The elements to be decided upon for making the bag include: (1)  the type of wood for the frame;  (2) the material from which to make the body of the bag; (3) whether to line the bag and, if so, what material to use; (4) the color, weight, and (if using fabric) weave of the materials for the bag; (5) what material to use for the handle (e.g., fiber cord or leather strap), and how long a length of cord/strap to use, and; (6) how and whether to decorate the bag, and what materials to use for decoration.  Here's the reasoning I used to make each of those decisions.

BAG:  Wool felt fabric for the bag itself.

WOOD:  The frame pieces of the original finds that Kristine discusses in her post are typically ash or maple.  It is possible to purchase reproduction maple frames, but they tend to be more expensive ($30-$40 USD per pair).  The crafter from whom I bought my frame pieces uses birch and stains them walnut-colored, but I did not like the look of the staining and thus asked her not to stain my set.  (In addition, staining the frames I received would make it very obvious that that the wood grain on them runs vertically, instead of horizontally across the length of the frame as is true of all the original finds of which I've seen good photographs or drawings.)  The low price ($15 USD for frames that are about 9 inches/23 cm long) led me to go with the birch frames. 

BAG MATERIAL:  Strong, water-repellent, light, easily available--wool, the workhorse fabric of the Vikings, is a logical choice for a food bag.  The only drawback, if we're assuming the frame bags were used for food, is the possibility of moth damage, but that can be evaded with care and with using the bag solely for foods that are already wrapped or have natural protective coatings (such as apples or eggs).  

There are many different types of wool fabric, and that would have been true even in the Viking Age.  I purchased a fairly thick felt, since it seemed unlikely that a fine wool, suitable for elegant clothing, would have been used for a mere bag in the Viking Age.  Fine wool scraps might have been used for ornamenting an item, or for making small items such as hats or mittens, but a bag of the size that would match my frames would be need to be bigger, at least 9 inches wide and as much as 24 inches long--more than a mere scrap.  I selected a dark brown (the actual color is much darker than it shows in the photograph here) because such a color could be easily achieved on wool during the Viking Age, either with dyes or by using the wool of a dark brown sheep.  I have seen pictures of some lovely herringbone wool Haithabu-type bags, and I was tempted by vendors who were selling some truly lovely herringbone twills on line, but herringbone twill wool is not that common a fabric in the Viking Age, and I suspect such wool would be reserved for clothing or other items more display-oriented than these simple bags seem likely to have been.

LINING:  Linen for lining.

LINING: The Sami bags, being leather, would not necessarily need to be lined. However, what limited indication we have is that the Vikings made their bags from wool.  Since food stains on wool tend to attract moths, leading to fabric damage, it would make sense to line a wool food bag in a material other than wool.

The other commonly used fabric in the Viking Age was linen. We have no information that the Vikings used linen, waxed or dry, to wrap food, though there are hints in some of the Birka graves that linen was used as linings for dresses, underclothing, or both. But linen is not subject to moth damage, which would make it useful for a wool food bag lining.  If one uses a "bag" style lining (i.e., a lining that is sewn separately from the outer bag and sewn to it only at the top), it would be possible to remove the lining and replace it with a new one if the old one became too damaged or soiled in use.  In addition, I had a suitably sized scrap of linen in a plausible period color, so a linen lining was a reasonable choice.

COLORS:  Substances were available in the Viking Age that could dye wool in many cheerful tones of the primary colors.  Originally, I thought I would use dark blue wool for the bag, since I had some large scraps of blue coat-weight wool on hand, and it's a color I really like.  However, judging by the fine wool smokkrs found at Birka and Køstrup, blue seems to have been a prestigious color during the Viking Age.  In contrast, the frame bags do not seem to have been heavily decorated items, and not the type of item one ornamented to flaunt one's wealth.  So it seemed best to stick to a color consistent with the undyed wools available to the Vikings, which came mostly in grays and browns.  

HANDLE:  Cotton cord; not authentic, but expedient.

With regard to the lining, linen is difficult to dye with the materials and techniques of the Viking Age, and a utilitarian bag would not need a fancy colored lining.  Most of the scrap linen I have on hand is either white (to mimic bleached linen) or light blue (a prestige color, again).  I do have some medium-weight linen in a light antique gold color that did not seem too fancy but would still make a pleasing contrast with the dark brown, so I chose that for the lining. 

HANDLE:  Wool cord didn't seem like a good material to use for the handle of a bag that might hold rather heavy objects (such as apples), because wool tends to stretch with use and would be vulnerable to breaking from stress.  Leather stretches much less and is much stronger, but an appropriate weight and color of leather would have significantly increased the cost of the project.  A quick search of my stash produced a length of heavy cotton cord in a cheerful yellow color, with a diameter just small enough to thread through the holes in the frames.  Though it's unlikely the Vikings had access to significant amounts of cotton, and equally unlikely that a bast fiber such as linen, ramie or hemp could be dyed that shade of yellow with Viking Age dyes, I selected the cord because it was suitable for my budget for the project.  

As a practical matter, the cord for one of these frame bags has to be at least long enough so that the bag could open fully.  Medieval pilgrims' bags had straps long enough to allow the bag to be carried over the shoulder, and since many existing frames indicate bags too large to hang on one's belt or easily carry in the hand, it is fortunate that I have enough cord to make it possible to use the proposed bag as a shoulder bag.

ORNAMENT:  Finer wool fabric for trim.

ORNAMENT:  I have seen photographs of reproduction bags on the Internet that were decorated with scraps of silk and/or embroidery.  If such bags were used as the Viking equivalent of a lunch bag, I suspect that such effort would have been deemed inappropriate.  But I could not tolerate the idea of making a totally plain bag, and suspect that many Viking women would have found some way to make even such a bag a bit less plain.  The fragments of apron dress from Birka that are trimmed with a simple wool cord indirectly support this idea.  So I bought a small piece of amber-colored wool, which I figured would harmonize with the other yellow components of the bag.  I will cut a piece of that wool that is about two inches (5 cm) wide, and stitch it around the top of the bag, just below the straps securing the frames.  That should look attractive without requiring the kind of effort that likely would have been reserved for formal clothing and other forms of status display during the Viking Age.  Alternatively, I could use the amber wool for the straps fastening the bag to the frame, but think that using the stronger felted wool would be structurally more sound for that purpose.

The best thing about a bag project is that its small size and geometrically-shaped pieces mean that it will be quick to assemble.  If I do not decide to save it for the November HSM, I should probably have it finished pretty soon.  When I have it completed, I will post pictures on this blog.

Bronze Age Zipper?

The video to the right of this post is a recent Internet discovery of mine.  It shows a modern replica of Bronze Age sword belt and purse,  found in a grave at Hvidegården,  Denmark.

Ørjan Engedal, a professor at the University of Bergen and an archaeologist who is also an artisan, made a bronze sword with a scabbard, a small leather bag, and a sword belt, based upon the Hvidegården find.  The bag, or pouch or purse or whatever you want to call it, has an unusual closure.  The closure is a series of closely-spaced, alternating leather loops through which a long bronze pin is thrust.  The result looks much like a modern zipper though the method of closure is simpler in that no slider is used.

The Hvidegården grave was actually discovered in 1845; a brief article about it in Danish may be found here. Apparently the grave is thought to be one of a shaman or wizard, based upon the odd contents of the "zipper" pouch; they include (as best I can make out from Google Translate's English rendition of the article) a razor, a small wooden cube, a seashell from the Mediterranean, and part of the jaw bone of a squirrel.

It seems to me that the existence of this pouch is some support for the position that "there is nothing new under the sun."  In other words, the idea of a zipper-type closing certainly was possible before the zipper as we know it was invented; it probably did not become an acceptable closure because, with Bronze Age technology, it was fiddly and awkward to make and a bit awkward to use.  A technology spreads when the infrastructure necessary to support the manufacturing process and the materials needed are readily available and result in an easy-to-use product that fills a common need.  That is as true for clothing and bags as it is for computers and cars.

Reflections on "Birka" and "Hedeby" Bags

A wooden purse frame and parts of other purse frames
found in the water outside Birka. Image: Christin Mason, SMM

Recently, reenactment vendors, reenactors and costume enthusiasts interested in the Viking age have started to make their own versions of ... bags!  These bags are inspired by wooden and bone finds at Birka, Hedeby, and other places which, it is currently believed, were bag handles.  The photographs to the right show what some of those items look like today. They are roughly 20 cm (approximately 8 inches) to 30 cm (approximately 12 inches) long.

Most of the bag reconstructions seem to be about 12 inches (~ 30 cm) deep and have long strings attached to the wooden handles, like a handbag designed to be carried over the shoulder. The opening of most of these bags is a few millimeters narrower than the length of the wooden handles, and the pouch is made from a single piece of folded fabric with seams only on the sides, though there are exceptions.   The most common material used for them is a sturdy wool, sometimes with a linen lining, though a few are made from leather.  Some of the bags are attractively and ingeniously decorated, with a sewn-on strip of silk or tablet weaving, embroidery, or even fringe.

Because all we have of any of these bags (to the best of my knowledge) are the wooden handles, it's hard to say how close to the actual Viking originals these reconstructions actually are.  They are attractive, and probably useful to the Viking reenactors who use them.

I personally suspect that most of the current designs have been made to allow women reenactors to carry modern items (such as smartphones, keys, and wallets) in a convenient, period-plausible way at events. But I wish there was even more experimentation in their design!  Instead of just making lovely items that may not reflect the way the Vikings actually used such bags, we should think about considerations that would affect the construction of these bags. For example:

• Who used them?  There seems to be a common assumption that these bags were used by Viking women. This may be a reasonable assumption, since bags found in male Viking graves tend to be more securely closeable (e.g., nomad-style pouches made to be worn on a belt).  The answer to this question in turn makes it possible to make at least limited responses to other questions, such as:
• For what purposes were such bags used?  Consider a few examples.  A bag intended to carry a lot of silver coins, or hack silver, or tools, would need to be more sturdy than a bag intended to carry a woman's embroidery project and sewing supplies.  If the bag was intended to carry root vegetables, it would need to be both sturdy and stretchy.  Leather would be good for carrying heavy coin or woodworking tools, while a mesh design would be better for vegetables.
• What materials were used to make them?  Wool fabric is plausible, but so is linen fabric, or leather.  And there are other options.  If such a bag were used to carry root vegetables, for example, it could have been made of sprang, or nalbinding.  






Antler purse handle from Sweden. 

Photo:  Historiska Museet database
 (Object No. 604,027)  

• Would a lining be necessary?  Appropriate?  If the fabric from which the bag is made is loosely woven and the planned contents are sharp metal, or have pointed edges, it might be necessary to make a lining.  The properties of the contents, the potential bag material, and the potential lining need to be kept in mind.

Function would determine whether these bags really had long cords for carrying, as all of the modern reconstructions I've seen on the Internet have had.  If the bags were used as work bags, shorter cords might have been used.  If they were used to carry heavy objects, narrow leather straps might have been employed.

It is interesting to look at 20th century wooden handled bags, which were made in a variety of styles over decades and also had a variety of purposes. This model, made during the 1940s of imported silk, might have been used for sewing or knitting work. This bag from the 1960s was crocheted from jute and, given the differences in taste between the 40s and 60s, might have simply been a handbag. In the 1980s, there was a vogue for much smaller "preppy" bags that were carried by the wooden handle and often had changeable fabric pouches, like these.   And to this day similar wooden handled bags are still being sold, as this modern design, sold in 2016, shows.

There is a place for thoughtful experimentation here, maybe more so than with regard to apron dress design, and I hope to see more of it in the coming years.  Eventually, I will purchase a replica set of wooden handles and make one for myself.

EDIT:  (6/4/2017)  Added some additional thoughts I had upon re-reading parts of this post.