Paper on Advanced Tailoring Based on Lengberg Finds.

About two months ago, I posted a link to a YouTube presentation about how analysis of some of the 15th century Lengberg Castle finds support the use of unusual techniques in tailoring for women's garments.  

Today, I found a paper on Academia.edu.  The paper is a more formal write-up by Dr. Nutz, Rachel Case, and Marion McNealy of their hypothesis.  It was presented at the North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles (NESAT) at the Czech Academy of Sciences last year.  The paper is illustrated with photographs and reproductions of period art, and though the images are in black and white, they include photographs of completed reproductions based on the authors' theories and other material that compliment the slideshow. 

Anyone interested in the history of tailoring, or late medieval women's clothing, should check out this paper.

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.  

Some One Afternoon Tutorials for 2018

It's been a while since I posted a collection of links for short costuming projects that I call "one-afternoon tutorials" because most of them can be completed in a single afternoon, or less.  

Here's another "one-afternoon tutorial" collection.  For a number of these, you will want copper or brass wire and tools for making wire jewelry (e.g., round-nose and other pliers, wire cutters or pliers that can do the same, files) because they are tutorials for making various historical jewelry items.  

1. From Eleanor Deyeson's blog comes a tutorial I should try out--a tutorial for making Bronze Age spectacle brooches or. as she more aptly describes them, double spiral brooches. I have wanted a pair of these brooches for a long time, and reproductions are still more expensive than I am able to pay. 
2. Marya Kargashina's Novgorod to Three Mountains blog has a tutorial on how to make Novgorod-style coil temple rings.  Temple rings were rings, the size of modern medium-sized hoop earrings, that could be worn on a headdress, woven into the hair, or even worn through earlobe piercings, like modern earrings.
3. Konstantia Kaloethina has a tutorial on how to make U-shaped hairpins that reproduce the design of a 14th century London find.  
4. Also from Konstantia Kaloethina's blog is a tutorial on how to make figured bezants--small pieces of metal with a figural design.  Great for early Scythian or Sarmatian costumes.
5. Speaking of the 14th century, the Family de Huntington blog has a tutorial on how to make a frilled-edge veil in 10 hours.  The technique used is not a period technique, but it does give a reasonably good period appearance.  
6. Finally, La Bella Perla describes how she made her own 10th century reliquary pouch in sufficient detail that many sewists will be able to make a similar one on their own.  Her pouch used beading techniques, but other types of decoration were possible in period.

I enjoy reading tutorials even for projects that do not interest me, because I find it fun to see the ingenuity costumers employ in learning period construction techniques (or, sometimes, getting the right effect without period techniques).   Hopefully this collection will be interesting to others.