Planning a Portable Loom for Tablet Weaving

I commute to work so a lot of my craft-related stuff gets done on trains and buses. I knit, crochet and sew things; I do naalbinding and embroidery. Regrettably, I've had to leave my tablet weaving at home, because I haven't been able to find a portable loom that works for me. Backstrapping is not an option since I don't like being tied to my work and it doesn't suit my style of weaving anyway. I already have two inkle-style looms made after Toli's design, but they are too large and heavy to take with me on public transport...and impractical as I usually don't use a continuous warp. They are also conspicuously modern and I would like something that looks at least slightly historical. So a couple of weeks ago, I finally started looking around for sources and inspiration for constructing a portable tablet weaving loom of my own.

Medieval sources for tablet weaving looms are usually limited to contemporary illustrations which typically show the warp tied between two upright post, sometimes connected with a crossbar, as in these images:

I already have one of these posts-and-crossbar-looms, which I like a lot, especially for complicated work. But it certainly isn't portable enough to use on a bus!

There are also images of box looms, but they seem to be associated with rigid heddles or tapestry weaving rather than tablets:

(I'm not sure it's a loom in the top right image. It looks more like a bobbin winder to me, but it's small and box-like so I included it anyway...)

Looking at the more recent history of the box loom, it seems that Norway is the home of handy weaving contraptions. A quick search in Norsk Folkemuseum's collections came up with these 19th (?) century treasures:

For more of these wonderful little looms, go to http://primusweb.no/ and search for "båndvev"! You'll get a few pages of rigid heddles and weaving tablets as a bonus if you do!

Going back to the medieval illuminations, there's also this mystery loom:

It surfaced about three years ago on the SCA Cardweaving-list at Yahoogroups, but no one ever found the reference for the manuscript it's taken from (as far as I know). The image comes from a German book (see reference below) and appears to be an ad for a forthcoming publication about illuminated Gothic books (it's a "Probebild aus dem für 1932 in Vorbereitung befindlichen Band Gotische Buchmalerei". The bow-shaped object certainly seems to be used for tablet weaving - the woman holds her hand in a proper tablet-turning position and is using the beater like a pro! - but the actual design of the loom is left pretty much to the imagination.

Except for this "bow loom", there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of visual evidence for small and portable medieval tablet looms. But I still need one. So, giving up most pretenses of making something that's actually historically accurate, I've settled for a solution that I believe will work for me - a generic-looking box loom with a twist. I hardly ever work on only one project at a time and want to be able to change warps quickly and easily in mid-project - a procedure that doesn't work very well with box-loom roller beams... So I've decided to have "double" guide beams on my loom, mounted on top of each other in vertical slots in the sides of the loom. This allows them to move apart a little so they can be used to lock the band/warp in place without using the roller beams. I made this prototype to test that there wouldn't be any slippage:

It's not pretty, but it works perfectly, even with a slippery silk warp!

I used wooden toilet paper holders for the sides and a spice rack for the bottom part - unofficially I call it the "bog loom" (short for "bog roll holder loom"...) ;-p! It works fine as it is, but I want a nicer-looking, slightly larger version with roller beams too, one that I can use as an ordinary loom as well as for tablet weaving. My woodworking skills are virtually non-existent so I need to get someone to help be with this... In the meantime, I'll make do with my prototype and weave my way to work and back again!

(btw, I've sent in the proofs for my NESAT X article about Eric of Pomerania's Belt now, so hopefully it will be in print soon! And I will give a presentation about the belt at Medeltidsveckan in Visby, Gotland - see this link for more info in Swedish).

References and inspiration:

Swarzenski, H. 1931. Vorgotische Miniaturen die Ersten Jahrhunderte Deutscher Malerei. 2nd edition, Karl Robert Langewische Verlag.

Wyss, Robert L. 1973. "Die Handarbeiten der Maria". In: Stettler, M. & Lemberg, M. (eds). Artes Minores: Dank an Werner Abegg. Bern: Verlag Stämpfli & Cie, 113 - 188.

SCA-Card-Weaving at Yahoogroups, messages posted 2005-10-24 - 2005-10-27.

DigitaltMuseum: http://primusweb.no/

Karen Larsdatter's Medieval & Renaissance Material Culture: http://www.larsdatter.com/weaving.htm

Soper Lane: http://www.soper-lane.co.uk/

Toli's inexpensive inkle/cardweaving loom design:http://anvil.unl.edu/toli/loom.html/

Making a Boxloom: http://www.chateau-michel.org/boxloom.htm

Lynn the Weaver's Lucets and Looms: http://www.lucets.com/pages/looms.html

The Joyner's Shop: http://www.thejoynersshop.com/furnishings_TapeLooms.html

The Green Carpenter: http://www.greencarpenter.co.uk/

Les Très Riches Heures de la Vix

Now what's wrong with this picture?
























Instead of working on my new late 14th century wardrobe like I ought to or writing a proper blog post about weaving, I fooled around with PhotoShop and combined an image from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1412-1416) with a photo of myself from the photosession I wrote about earlier. Shame on me.

The Cap of St. Birgitta

In the latest volume of Medieval Textiles and Clothing Camilla Luise Dahl & Isis Sturtewagen present a new analysis and interpretation of the so-called "St. Birgitta's Coif". They argue, very convincingly, that it is not a coif which ties under the chin (something which is typically associated with men), but a cap where the ties are meant to be drawn backwards towards the back of the head instead, resulting in a headdress that would look a lot like these ones from the Maciejowski Bible.

The cap is made up of two pieces of linen fabric sewn together with interlaced herringbone stitch. 8.5-9 cm is left unseamed at the back, creating a split. The bottom edges are pleated and the cap is edged with an embroidered linen strip that continues on to form the ties. Together, the split and the pleated edges create a "pouch" at the nape of the neck when the cap is worn (Dahl & Sturtewagen, 131-133).

At Historiska Världars forum, a Swedish re-enactment forum, reconstructions of the cap have been discussed over the past few weeks, and since I'm currently making myself a late 13th - early 14th century wardrobe I was inspired to make one myself.

My goal was to use the construction of the Cap of St. Birgitta, make it fit my head (which is a lot bigger than what the original wearer's appears to have been...) and at the same time achieve something that looked like what the women are wearing in the Maciejowski Bible. I found that the biggest obstacle to do this was my hair - there simply isn't enough of it to give any kind of cap that characteristic pear-shape! As Åsa Vävare at Historiska Världars forum clearly demonstrates in this picture, the hair makes all the difference (it's the same cap worn first "without" hair, then "with" hair)...

To make my cap, I first took a measurement from the top of my head to the nape of my neck, i.e. the part of my head the cap would cover. I added 8 cm to the measurement (for the split) and used that as a guide when I cut the curve of the two pieces that make up the cap. I made a cotton mock-up to try out the pattern and promptly discovered that the "pouch" was much too large for my short and very thin hair. The cap sagged and looked pretty sad and deflated unless I used the ties to scrunch it up. And the "scrunched-up" version didn't look much like the images in the Maciejowski Bible. For mock-up no. 2, I only added 2 cm for the split, which resulted in tighter cap with a less pronounced pouch that fit me much better, so I used this pattern for my linen cap.

The finished cap

The final version still looks a little deflated, but that can be remedied with a couple of fake hairpieces...

Fake hair!

I made these braids from unspun flax and they can be arranged in a number of ways to boost my flimsy pigtails; as long as I cover them up properly they work really well, and I too can have at least the semblence of proper hair!

The cap worn with fake braids

It can also be worn with the ears showing, as in most of the images in the Maciejowski Bible:


The decision to make the split very short naturally makes my cap less like the original, with its 8.5-9-centimetre split, but it certainly looks better on me. It's nice and tight, which makes it practical to wear as a foundation for a veil too.

To join the two halves of the cap, I used a scaled-down version of the interlaced herringbone stitch described by Dahl & Lester in Medieval Textiles and Clothing 4. I've never done any kind of interlaced stitch before, so I decided to keep it simple and made the seam rather narrow - unlike the original where it's approximately 1.7 cm wide. The next cap I make will definitely have a more complex embroidery; it was so much fun to try something new!

I haven't had the opportunity to wear my cap for a full day yet, so I don't know how it will work when really put to the test, but for now I'm reasonably pleased with it. With a few more experiments I think I can find a cut that works better for me, but I'm certain I will still need some sort of stuffing to achieve the right shape...

My version of St. Birgitta's Cap

References:
Medieval Textiles and Clothing 4 (eds. Netherton, R. & Owen-Crocker, G. R.):
Dahl, C. L. & Sturtewagen, I. 2008. "The Cap of St. Birgitta", 99-129.
Dahl, C. L. & Sturtewagen, I. 2008. "Appendix 6.1. The Construction of St. Birgitta's Cap", 130-134.
Dahl, C. L. & Lester, A. M. 2008. "Appendix 6.2. The Embroidery on St. Birgitta's Cap", 135-142.

Martinsson, Å. Birgittas huva
(http://www.textilverkstad.se/pdf/funderingar_kring_en_huva.pdf)

A late 14th - early 15th century outfit

Some time ago I got to model some of my medieval outfits for Svarta Galten, a group that arranges LARP-events (Live Action Role-Play). They wanted pictures of late 14th century clothing as inspiration for the participants of their events, which are set in the fictional, medieval-ish world of Kastaria. The result can be viewed on their homepage, but I thought that I'd put up a few images of my clothes here as well.

Pink dress

(other people might prefer to call it a cotte, a cotehardie, a kyrtle/kirtle or some other word, but I try to avoid using historical terms until there's a clearly defined terminology for medieval garments available)

I'm very happy with this dress. It's made of a wonderful, lightweight, slightly fulled 2/1 wool twill, laces up the front and gives me ample support without being constricting. The bodice is lined with linen to prevent the twill from stretching. Since this photo was taken, I've made the sleeves even tighter by adding buttons to them to make it a little more 'fashionable' (and it's always nice to be able to roll up your sleeves when you do the dishes...).

I make all my tailored medieval clothing by fitting them onto myself and adding gores; the pink dress is no exception. I do have an assistant - my rather rigid and unsquishable dress dummy, but for the final adjustments and to get the bust support right I need to wear the dress myself. It's a little tricky fitting a dress with no one to help, but it can be done. It also helps to be stubborn, patient and not afraid of pricking yourself with pins...

With the pink dress I wear my shortsleeved

Green over-dress

This over-dress is also made of 2/1 wool twill, but it's heavier than the pink dress and more fulled. I had very little of this fabric so while I wanted to use the short-sleeved dress from Herjolfsnes as a model, I didn't have enough to make the side-gores go all the way to the armscye and had to settle for a simpler cut. I also had to piece the sleeves together from several pieces (a rather common practice in the middle ages). The sleeves are a bit too long in these images so I shortened them a little after the photo session. I haven't seen too many medieval images showing short-sleeved overdresses like this one (short-sleeved without tippets or flared sleeves, that is), so if anyone out there has some art references to share, please drop me a line!

Both dresses are completely handsewn with waxed linen thread.

Photos: Tobias Högström/Svarta Galten

I think I'm back...

After not having written anything for almost a year, this isn't much of a post, but I just can't stop thinking about how extremely alike Snoopy the dog and my nålbinding socks are!

Weaving with tablets and a rigid heddle

This famous depiction of a weaving woman comes from the 14th century manuscript commonly known as the Codex Manesse (Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift; Cod. Pal. germ. 848). The first time I saw it a couple of years ago, I thought that the artist didn't seem to know a thing about weaving or tablet weaving (assuming that the hexagonal objects on the warp are tablets and not a levitating warp beam) - the lady's sitting at the wrong end of the warp and, if we're talking about tablet weaving here, what's the rigid heddle doing there anyway? But now when I've thought about it and heard what others have to say, this set-up doesn't seem all that far-fetched anymore.

First of all, the woman's not actually doing any weaving in the picture, so she's not really at the "wrong end". It seems to me she's fiddling with the end of the warp (tightening it, sorting the threads?) , while using her beater to ward off the advances of the kneeling man (monk?) who's got his hand up her skirt. In Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance (2000), Nancy Spies further interprets this situation as the woman actually incorporating the man's hair into the warp (p. 100). Secondly, looking at other medieval pictures of weavers and tablet weavers - and at their modern counterparts too - it's obvious that you can sit pretty much anywhere in relation to the band you're weaving; it's not necessary to have the fell (the woven band) right in front of you as long as you can reach it to beat the weft.

As for the rigid heddle, Spies (2000) describes it as a "heddle/warp spreader" (p. 97, my emphasis), which could explain what it's doing in the middle of a possible tablet weaving warp; it's separating the threads and helping the weaver keep the band even. But there may be another, albeit conjectural function for the rigid heddle.

In The Techniques of Tablet Weaving (Collingwood 1996) I found a description of an unusual way to produce a double-faced 3/1 twill. It's described on pages 166-167 and involves both four-holed tablets used standing on their points and a means to raise and lower alternate tablets to achieve the correct structure. Collingwood suggests using a stick and leashes tied around the warp for this. There are no indications that this technique was ever used historically, but when I read about combining tablets and leashes like this, I immediately thought of the weaving lady in Codex Manesse - tablets together with a rigid heddle should work just as well as leashes!

The technique was a little tricky to master. For each weft, the shed was split twice - first by the square tablets standing on their points and then by the heddle raising or lowering every alternate tablet - which meant the final shed ended up being very small. It really helped to tilt the warp vertically on its side to get a better view of the shed. In various medieval manuscripts band weavers can be seen working with the warp in this position and I can verify that it really makes sense to do that if the shed's unclear!

The finished sample is approximately 2 cm wide and the front and back are shown here next to each other (I used thick cotton yarn, so it looks kind of rough).

Weaving with tablets and a rigid heddle on the same warp creates many new possibilities! For example, I tried it with two-holed tablets and managed to produce a nice little piece of double weave, combining ordinary interlaced twill with tabby. It might not be a historical technique or the most efficient way to weave complex structures, but for someone like me who loves all the technical stuff behind both tablet weaving and ordinary weaving, it's great fun!











References:
Collingwood, P. 1996. The Techniques of Tablet Weaving. McMinnville: Robin & Russ Handweavers, Inc.

Spies, N. 2000. Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance. A Thousand Years of Brocaded Tabletwoven Bands. Jarrettsville: Arelate Studio.

Finishing old projects... II

Here's the assembled purse! It's not very big, though - I can just about fit my hand into it...