Period Images

  • AZ 086
    These images are gathered from various places using various techniques, and thus the quality is hugely variable. I apologize in advance for dark and blurry pictures...museums will frequently allow photography of the works they own, provided you don't use a flash or a tripod...so although I think these are useful for research, they are not really worth duplicating. I have attempted to label every image with what was on the museum placard, or data available online.
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July 05, 2009

No tiny gauge, please

Okay, so now I'm definitely in love with yardage, and started to wrap another warp with this stuff, thinking I'd try out a fine gauge:


006

Fail.

I didn't even empty one of those little spools.  I didn't like the way the thread cut into my fingers...I just felt like a slave to it, with no sensual return.  Gave it away, and cut the wrapped warp off my warping board.

Onto cushy colorful DK cotton, for playing in unbalanced twill structures!

July 04, 2009

First big weaving project done

Began with 5.5 yards of warp (that's the max length of my warping board), ended up with 4 yards, 30" total length, so that's 24" of loom waste.  The finished piece averages about 32" wide.

Yarns:  All of the dark brown weft is alpaca that I spun myself.  This is about two pounds-worth.  I learned that I don't really like spinning, and have just sold my spinning wheel, so I'll be forced to do the medieval thing and actually buy my yarn henceforth.

The blue warp is also alpaca, but commercial.  The orange warp is handspun, but sheep, and not by me...it was a present from someone who went to Ireland.  The taupe warp and weft is mystery wool that was a present, so was the rose warp.  The light gray weft at the top of this picture is more mystery wool, gifted by Mairi Ceilidh just at Midsummer Revel.  I have a lot more of that, and it was a pleasure to work with.

All of the warp yarns are pretty thick...DK weight at least, running to worsted weight.  I have them set at a bit more than 6 epi (the reed is 6, but I skipped a slot every inch).  These gaps were very apparent in the weaving, but not so much now that it's wet-finished.

The warp yarns are mostly thinner.  I started with an unplied version of the taupe, a sport weight, but my spinning and MC's yarn are definitely mostly fingering weight.  Mostly...did I say I didn't much like spinning?  All you people who ask me, "Greet, is there anything you can't do?"  Now we know.

001

AFTER WET FINISHING

Damp dimensions: 8" short of 5 yards, but still averaging 32".  Lost two inches to finishing.

I chose to "full" my piece in the bathtub.  I wanted as much control over it as I could get, but I also wanted to lock the fibers in warp and weft together, to protect the structure.

Here's what that looks like:

009
(yes, those are my feet)

Dirty, huh?  My books tell me that cloth not yet wet-finished is called "gray cloth", because it's dirty from the weaving process.  I don't think that my own weaving process made the cloth dirty...I think that all this grime is from the alpaca fleece I spun - all the dark brown yarn is naturally colored, from an animal called Midnight who lives outside Pensacola.

What I did:  I put a few inches of the hottest water my tub produces (probably right under 140 degrees, given that it has about 40' to travel from the hot water heater), and per instructions from Dixon, added a good lather of "mild detergent".  (I used cheap shampoo, because the alkali is pretty low and my ordinary laundering of wool responds well to shampoo.)  In went the dry fabric, I scrunched it up so that it wouldn't be folded, and stick together accidentally, and then walked on it.  I walked on it for about ten minutes, scrunching and unscrunching it to get all the bits abused evenly, and it was in the water for about twenty, while I fooled around with taking pictures and figuring out what to do next.  Rinsed with same temp (pure hot, administered with handheld showerhead), and squeezed it out gently with my feet.

Apparently there's a piece of equipment, a slatted roller, that you can use to roll your delicate, heavy, sopping wet wool textile on.  I don't have one of those, didn't even read ahead to find out about it.  But I had a couple of FedEx tubes and lots of towels.  Wrapped a couple of towels around the FedEx tube, and rolled the whole thing up and stashed it in the spare shower overnight.

This morning it was much drier (though the FedEx tube was mush...I have an idea on how to make an inexpensive slatted roller out of chicken wire, still to be used with towels) but still dampish on the inside end.  I laid it out flat, took the top picture, and re-rolled it with a fresh tube+towel.  Which looks like this:

004

That's actually the starting end of the weaving, which apparently has a header.  (Haven't really seen or thought about it in two years, so I am not sure what I had in mind, there.  Probably blindly following instructions.)  I'm going to leave it in, because this piece has so many beginner's lessons for demonstration.

Other (ahem) design features:

I didn't warp selvedges...have you ever noticed in yardage that the warp threads are generally much closer together, which gives the selvedge a different appearance?  Often the weave structure changes to tabby at the edge to be firmer.  These selvedges are like the rest of the fabric.

Minimal puckering at the centerfold!  Very proud of this, for the following reasons:

This textile was produced with a weaving technique called "doubleweave"...which is a tricksy way to produce cloth wider than the loom.  You need twice as many shafts as the cloth weave structure calls for...i.e. for tabby, you need two sheds, so on a jack loom, that's four shafts.  Doubleweave can be two layers of unconnected fabric, a tube, or open on one side and folded on the other.  That's what this is....so when I took it off the loom, I opened it up and had wide fabric.  Except for where I messed up.  Look at this:

007

This is immediately off the loom.  See where it's not unfolded?  That's where an error "sewed" the two layers together.  I did this error twice within a few inches at a demo.  I fixed them by cutting the warp thread at the open side, pulling those threads out, and then darning them back in with a needle at this point.  Because this cloth is made from large-gauge stuff, and the weave was simple tabby, it was easy to fix.
008

Close up of the errors.  See the lighter stripes, where threads are missing?  That's where I've pulled the wrong weft out already.  You can see how securely the wrong weft "sews" the fabric together.  Of course this function can be used for design, too...I've seen doubleweave projects where the weaver stuffed batting in a bunch of channels as the fabric was being produced...not sure how you wet-finish that sort of thing.

Maintaining straight edges while weaving is tough - there's a gadget called a "temple" that helps, though I haven't made/got one.  I was warned by the books to expect some tension strangeness at the fold if I couldn't keep that edge smooth...so minimal puckering means I'm doing a good job with the edges.  Good job = not pulling my weft too tight (more common) or too loose.

I tried while rerolling the piece this morning to yank it about a bit, and carefully lined up the edges to stack with themselves - if you're familar with blocking knitting, you understand this phenomenon.  You have the power with wet wool to affect its final shape in blocking - a bit of fine tuning on shape is possible, even desired, for geometric shapes like straight lines.

So.  It's finishing drying, and I think its character is pretty well set.  The drape is fantastic...a function of the loose weave.  I like the long fringe, even though I know it will get raggedy with use.  The color is too wild and contemporary in its changes to be clothing, and I'd be concerned about the unravel factor, so I think this will be a light blanket, to be folded diagonally and worn as a big cuddly shawl.  It's light, soft, and will be easy to pin through with my penannular brooch.

After it's dry, I'll machine zigzag twice in the middle of the length to secure the weave for cutting, and then cut between the zigzags.  I'll handsew the selvedges together, and then handturn down a hem.  Maybe this is a good time to learn that herringbone stitch...this project is sort of a Frankenproject, showing off all its construction aspects proudly.  I figure between this and my North Sea woolly dress, I should be set for warm things for Pennsic.

Dixon, Anne.  The Handweaver's Pattern Directory: Over 600 weaves for four-shaft looms.  Interweave Press, 2007.

June 25, 2009

Benefits of researching less

I had a powerful experience recently.

Typically when I decide to make a thing, I do a little research to show me which of several design alternatives I should choose, and then I make it.

Almost always, the thing comes out well enough that it inspires me to do some back-documenting, during which I learn that there were variables I didn't know, or context...I learn a lot.  The thing isn't museum-perfect, but I use it, and people like it, and tell me so, at which point I tell them all the stuff that's 'wrong' with it until I realize that I've passed the 'geek' line, and shut up.

Up until now, I've angsted about this.  I've felt I should do one of two options:

1.  Remake the thing.  I can nearly never do this...my curiosity or practical need was satisfied with the beta version, and I am just not that crazy about the activity to do another one immediately.  This turns the making into work.

2.  Hold off making the thing until I've done the research.  This doesn't work either...I'm not that interested in the research alone...know-it-all's are so tiresome...and darn it, I want my thing!  Clothes to wear, or gear to use...I'm in love and I want it now.  Besides, the research goes winding all over the place, and sometimes the book to use isn't available...this turns the researching into work.

I do not play SCA to work, I play SCA to have fun.  I do not play historical re-enactment, and I don't want to.

So recently, faced with yet another situation where I've dashed ahead and made a compelling thing which turns out to want a good deal of research, I've had a couple of talks with people who know a lot about teaching people, and have come to the conclusion that I was doing the process right all along.

Do you remember in school, where the textbook or the teacher would say, "write a short essay about X" or "define the following new words" and then after you'd done that, then they'd give you the related reading to do?  That order always used to confound me, because I wondered how I was supposed to do a very good job on this task without the background.  Now I understand.

Demanding your brain to do a task, makes you focus better on the reading forever afterwards.  It makes you invest in the concepts, and then the reading is very interesting.  You're passing judgement on yourself, giving yourself your own context.  That sort of reversed order makes it all stick.  Very sneaky.

Furthermore, in SCA A&S context, I have been completely inspired by projects that I thought, "I wonder if I could do a better/different job of that, because I know something about that which isn't presented here."  I am so grateful to those projects, because they drag me down roads I would have never considered before, and I think that's what SCA is about.  Furthermore, I am grateful and impressed by the people who produce projects that they know aren't as perfect as they can make them, just because that vacuum is there allowing someone else to step in and learn/contribute/explore.

Screw the points...I'm gonna be making stuff.  If I have a very good time making stuff, perhaps I'll make more of similar, and then my points will go up.  But the important thing isn't having close-to-perfect stuff, the important thing is the LEARNING.

June 24, 2009

Summertime, school is out! Requesting EP fiction...

Why yes, I was one of those boring children who read all summer long, but even the most dedicated learner benefits from a change of pace.


I'm collecting fiction about sub-Roman Empire Britain, for the purposes of increasing my ambiant knowledge without the angst of yet another research project.  (The more I personally identify with and enjoy my research directions, and the further I stretch to get there...the thinner my skin gets.  Ergo, time to feed the right side of my brain.)

Having just started, I haven't got very far yet, but the Dark Is Rising series is a favorite.  I should probably go back and check epics like Sarum for that period, too.  I recently tried The Silver Pigs, the first in Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series; this one is partly set in Britain.

Wikipedia has a short page on this subject:  suggesting Shakespeare's Cymbeline, films King Arthur and The Last Legion (Centurion, Glastonbury, Boudicca, and another I, Claudius seem to be in production), but as the three I could think of most quickly weren't there, I want more suggestions.

Anyone?  Bueller?  Please no Marion Zimmer Bradley-esque, though.

(and yes, I've unearthed one of my favorite Scandinavian children's books, Hulda, which I will just have to own somehow.)

Edit (from WorldCat):

Libertus series by Rosemary Rowe, all set in Britannia, and apparently heavier than Davis.
Dark North, Gillian Bradshaw
Dalriada trilogy (White Mare, Dawn Stag, Song of the North) Jules Watson
Hadrian's Wall, William Dietrich (warning, romance novel, apparently, but year 375)
Rosemary Sutcliff

June 15, 2009

If it's summer, it must be Roman...

That title isn't quite fair, as I am generally interested in the fall of the Roman empire, north and south, so it does make sense for me to have a Roman outfit beyond the 103 temperatures.  I'm not being very academic about assembling this one though...


005 Greet_roman

(Perhaps someone has a snazzy background?  I've got great pics of the ruins of the baths of Caracalla, but that doesn't quite work for post-apocalyptic logic reasons...must look at old travel photos.)  Edit: Lorenzo proposes Pompeii, apparently.

This garment is an experimental chiton.  It's a very loose weave linen, with teensy gray stripes.  I stripped off the weft and tied the warp at the shoulders in knots as I've seen in illustrations.  Total extension of weaver-logic:  you've got to do something with the warp at the finish of the weaving anyway, this is quick, permanent, looks like the picture, and makes a garment.  Made of win.  It's got a contrasting black hem, with light teensy stripes, and I've embroidered the Meridian Ms (in very non-Roman Lombardic font, because that's the trademark), alternating with chariot horses lifted from Pompeii (horse = Meridian populace badge animal), and spaced them out with mother-of-pearl shards.  Pearl = margaret = Greet.  Black-and-white = Meridies, rah-rah.  Black-and-white-and-green = Greet.

Gwen tells me I ought to be wearing a gauzey sleeved tunic underneath - I need more information about the cut of that - if it's anything like the Coptic tunics, it's skinny arms, big body.  (I also need to find an appropriate fabric...I'd really prefer not silk, as mom's allergic.  India was producing fine cotton in Classical Roman period, and if Romans could get silk thread via silk fabrics, did they get cotton?  Dunno.  Edit: Ha!  Apparently yes, luxury stuff like silk, per Pliny Book XII, 38 - must check this somehow.)  I girdle the chiton directly under the bust with a tablet-woven wool strap, and again with another around my hips, so I can blouse the chiton up (it stretches out over the day, very elegant puddling, but not so efficient walking/dancing).  Both girdles are green, to signify Apprentice relationship.  Sandals are from Patagonia, very comfy, and fairly minimal for the comfort factor.  I wear glass millifiori earrings (since the London millefiori bowl find), and my hair is in two braids crossed over my head.

P7063241
(I could wear my hair like this - it'd take a while, but would be very fun.  2nd c CE, Whitehall.  Pic from archeological documentary here.  I think this is the only application of frenchbraiding I've ever seen in period...but a Real Academic Specialist did it, so I'm encouraged to try it.)

The above dig yielded several bone hairpins (if anyone wants to make me a stash of hairpins, I'd be very happy with that lovely person /shameless begging), with the interesting observation that longer hairpins are older than shorter ones, which tells me something about hairstyles...my hair is much like the woman's above in thickness...it takes a long pin to wedge up all of it at once in a bun, but shorter ones work better for a more distributed shape (like the pic of me, above).

Hairpins are important to palla wearing:  I have been wearing my palla without pinning it to my head, in order to practice Veil Management.  (Indian veils are Not Pinned, according to Madhavi - the fidgeting, rearrangement, and gesturing with veil are part of Feminine Charm.)  However, I have noticed that veils stay put better when there's spiky things in your hair, so I'd really like a collection of hair ornaments for my Roman ensemble.

The palla is a light cotton voile, barely green, edged with a full 6 ply of black DMC embroidery floss.  It's pinned on my left shoulder with a gold-tone round brooch.  It does stay on my head pretty well when I'm inside, but outside I fool with it - using it for a sunshade in whatever direction, etc.  Kind of fun to play with.  I don't think that voile is an appropriate weave, but it does work very nicely as a sunshade.

I don't have a stola, and I'm not going to bother with one.  First, I'm single.  Second, Gwen says the stola was only actually worn during Augustus' era, and was symbolic in artwork after that.  (I really need that Dress and the Roman Woman book.)  

May 21, 2009

Oil lamps, 0.2

Mistress Honnoria, of Aethelmarc, sent me the following link about using oil lamps.


This answers a concern I had, about the flame somehow spreading into the reservoir.  (It also refutes the Hollywood stunt about spilling oil lamps and then igniting the oil.)  According to this, natural oil has to be heated to burn.  Proximity to the burning wick heats just enough oil to burn as it goes along.  If you slosh oil, you're likely to put the whole thing out.

More useful things for my particular application:

Placed wicks are those simply placed in the oil, with one end resting on the bottom and the other end resting on the edge of the lamp, outside of the oil. This outer end is what is lit, and burns as the oil is drawn up the wick. This is a very simple arrangement, but suffers from the drawback that since the flame can only burn on the upper side of the wick, the oil on the lower side generally drips down the outside of the lamp. It was common to place the lamp on a saucer of sorts both to protect the table from oil stains, and to recover the oil for reuse.

Okay, I need saucers.

Also, apparently the lamp is partially filled with water for economy, a cotton mop head is recommended for economy (though lots of other wick materials work too).

He also mentions lamps made of glass (which we've all seen) so perhaps my lamps being glazed won't affect their function after all.

May 18, 2009

Oil lamps, 0.1

Lusty 001

So I got it into my head somehow that it'd be cool to have some oil lamps.  Or cool to take Lady Kerstyn Gartenier's pinchpot class at Lusty.  I did a teensy amount of research (and here's a very basic timeline, look for the Oil Lamp page), and decided I might be able to bring off an Iron Age lamp.

(Interesting historical tidbit I hadn't thought about yet - the Iron Age is later in Britain than other places, but the lamp type is the same.  This mushed shallow bowl is an IA lamp, whether it's found in the Mediterranean Near East, or fifteen hundred years later in northwestern Europe.  The coolness of the culture clash created by the Romans continues.)

These lamps are hardly A&S-worthy (fortunately I've grown out of the insane idea that everything I make has to be).

  1. They are stoneware, and will be glazed.  Not so all the originals I've seen data on thus far.
  2. They are pinchpot made, not wheel-thrown.  Not so all the originals I've seen data on thus far.
  3. At least one of them is really too big.  Most of the originals I've looked are about 3.5" in diameter, tops.  This makes some sense given:  oil is expensive, dangerous, and heavy, and the lamps if properly maintained shouldn't be burning terribly quickly.  The larger one here was my first attempt, and it's about 5" in diameter.  It's tough to make a smaller item!  You can't get your fingers in, really.

But hopefully they will work as a test for Living With Oil Lamps, and that's what I want.  And I wanted to play with clay again, as it had been since highschool.  Plenty of people seem to sell Something Better...I'll upgrade when I think it's important.

I won't see these again for quite a while, as Kerstyn will fire and glaze them.  But hopefully I'll have them back by RUM, and can test them out later in the year.

May 14, 2009

The genius at work - Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk

I don't think of myself as an artist.

A creative person, sure.  I have creative skills, and I solve problems with creative thinking.  I think of myself on the craft side of the craft vs. art continuum, and that's okay.  My work doesn't make any sweeping statements about the human condition in this place and time, it just tries to bring useful and attractive objects and places into being, that weren't there before.  I draw and paint and weave and embroider and sew and knit and write and calculate and imagine...and all these skills come together into objects that are sometimes clothing, and sometimes buildings, and sometimes dinner.

I'm really familiar with "artistic success", since my skills are taught by artistic types.  I know what it feels like to sit down to work and remind myself that my work doesn't have to "mean" anything, it's okay as it is, solving someone's problem.

Today I found Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk, and she's brilliantly confronting the myth of artistic success.  I'd want all my friends to watch this, even if you don't think of yourself as a creative type.  I found it via a favorite blog, "this artist's life".

She recaps the Renaissance idea as: "let's put the individual human being at the center of the universe, above all gods and mysteries, and there's no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine."

(Those mystical creatures would have been the Roman "genius" or Greek "daemon", sprites that live in the walls of a creative person's room, and who whisper ideas to them.)

"For the first time in history, you find people referring to someone as BEING a genius, rather than HAVING a genius.  And I gotta tell you....I think that was a huge error."

"Allowing one mere person, to believe that he or she is the vessel, the font, the essence or the source, of all divine, creative, unknowable eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile human psyche.  It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun."

"What now - can we go back to some more ancient understanding of the relationship between humans and the creative mystery...?"  She makes the compelling argument, via her own experience and that of other bona fide artists, poet Ruth Stone and musician Tom Waits, that one can separate oneself from the power of the creative idea, the genius, so as to be kind to oneself, the mere and very frail human being.

I might watch this everyday for a while.

 

May 12, 2009

Non-SCA early period fora, furniture and oil lamps

My buddy Cynred introduced me to Roman Army Talk, which I've been finding a terrific resource for my Coptic interest.

Today, I stumbled on Kelticos, which has lots of lovely (and new to me) archeological directions, as well as people who are very focused on late Iron Age Europe.

I was actually looking for some guidance on a ceramic oil lamp, because this weekend I can play with dirt under the guidance of Kerstyn Gartenier, but of course, I got sidetracked.  Here's an illustrative exchange about Celtic household furnishings:

Joan Liversidge is an expert on furniture from Roman Britain. She studied designs from the Mediterranean and presented British artifacts that show these were made from local materials in Britain. Numerous examples exist to support her work from the artwork of the period too.

How does this apply? She has written about rush mats being used in homes, and the evidence of wicker furniture. These materials were available, and basketry was made and used by the Celts before the Romans came. Wicker was even used on chariots and make early shields. So could it have been possible for wicker furniture to have existed in Celtic dwellings? I think so. Now it's not all that hard to imagine that couch being made of wicker, is it?

Hallstatt Hochdorf burial couch

Hallstatt Hochdorf burial couch, c.550 BCE

and here's what I wanted on the oil lamps, though I wish there was a better citation.  Here's an impressive collection of them on flickr.

May 10, 2009

Bronze Bog dresses, skirt 2.0

While making the first version of my Borum Eshoj dress, I knew I wasn't cutting the skirt as accurately to the drawing as I could have been.  I admit I was thinking first about my mundane notions of vanity - which normally I really try not to do, because I think a big part of my historical recreation is setting my modern self aside. 

The modern self that is proud of my long thick shiny hair, my fit figure...cover your hair and put on the poofy full skirt, Greet, and see how it goes.  It's just an experimental game.

So, here's version 1.0, with skirt cut just full enough to fit the hips, and version 2.0, with skirt cut something like the drawing.  Version 2.0 has a circumference of 100", which I find is my comfortable stride minimum; any less and I run into clambering-around issues.

Small 003

Both shirts are cut the same length, it's just that skirt 2.0 is sitting a bit low.  It ought to meet, like in 1.0  You can see the braid I used to trim the neck.*  The neck of shirt 2.0 is also 1/2" tighter all the way around.  It could still come up in the front - I'm not sure what weaving the slot integrally would do to the proportions of the neck opening, since I think the weave would stretch somewhat.  Here's the drawing:

BorumEshojDrawing

I think version 2.0's fullness is much closer to this depiction.  One of my constant technical design concerns, also, is that clothing cost way too much in work hours** to have non-pregnancy-friendly women's clothes, so I wanted to test how the fuller skirt might work on a pregnant woman.  Isabella kindly played mannikin for me.  You can see the drawstring left on the outside - I'm not going to wear a skirt only belted on, sorry. (There is a drawstring in the checkered Huldremose skirt.)

001 002 

We decided that the skirt worked much better above the 8-month bump, rather than below.  Isabella wears a larger dress size normally than I do, but is shorter.  She tried on the top, too, but it was too small in the shoulder/chest circumference for her.

We don't quite understand why there's a vertical slit in the top at all - it's not needed for breastfeeding, as it would be in a full-length garment, as one can just lift the hem of the short top.  Hald seems to imply, in "Ancient Danish Textiles", that it's left over from when the shape of these tops was influenced by the shape of an animal skin, but her prose is very sketchy.  I need to read more to understand the state of the art on this better.

*It's a four-strand braid of 3-plied linen thread, and I didn't have the heart to cut it, as it was just the right length to perhaps tie around something.  I might poke a hole in the other side, and then tie them together - the weave on the herringbone twill is certainly loose enough to not be damaged.

**Regarding the man-hour production value of clothing:  I think it's in Elizabeth Wayland Barber's Women's Work, where she explains the studies in the 1950's, of remote Greek villages who still made feast clothing from scratch, using drop spindles, vertical looms, etc, and the discovery that making ONE set of clothing for each person in the village took far more village man-hours than food production.  Staggering to think about.  And since food availability is certainly related to population replacement (not just fertility, but also child survival) - I think people's clothes were too major an investment to bother having non-pregnancy-friendly clothing design, though I also think that people might not have had such a personal ownership of garments.