Greet's Middle Ages

Researching and re-learning the basics of Sprang

(2nd in a series on the Sprang Hairnet. Start reading from the beginning here.)

Sprang is a way of making fabric that I think of as being the inverse of knitting. If knitting is all horizontal threads, that are distorted to create vertical links, sprang is all vertical threads, that are distorted to create horizontal links. Similar to knitting, sprang is very drapey and will flex in its structure to contain a lumpy mass. (Like a pile of hair.)

You create the fabric by twisting vertical threads (warp threads) together, and by looping them through each other. Twisting together more times creates bigger holes. Looping through across the fabric creates horizontal lines.

This is a diagram from Margarethe Hald's now out-of-print classic, Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials.  I'm lucky enough to know someone with a copy, though I've also gotten ahold of it through inter-library loan.

(Legal disclaimer: GMA is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.  Why?  Because it's faster to grab an affiliate link from Amazon and get lovely pictures and links.  Haven't earned any actual money yet.)

You keep the twists from untwisting by threading a long rod or a separate 'stay thread' through the loops as you go.

(I'm jumping ahead a bit here, but there's the stay threads passed through the loops, and tied to the frame.)

Sprang is ancient, and has been done by various cultures for a long time.
I'm interested in Bronze Age Norse sprang.

But Coptic Egyptians made sprang caps in the 5th-7th century AD.  Here's a great blog post on one cap.

It's quite different from the Danish hairnet.

These crazy pants are a museum reproduction of a Trojan archer.  I found this picture via this lovely Pinterest board of all sorts of sprang applications, which is very educational!

Check out these wonderful leggings, inspired by a 15thc Venetian painting!  Read more about them at their creator's blog, here.

 
Go there, and look at pictures of sprang sashes and bags running into the 19th century and into this country, South America...it's everywhere!

Some people today propose shaped sprang as very modern-looking garments.

 

This is very lovely, and shows off sprang's drapiness quite well.  I am not quite THAT ambitious - I just wanted something to cover my modern haircut!

I started this hairnet project with a basic understanding of sprang construction, having taken a class at Pennsic back in 2009.  I think this Lady is who taught this class - there's a great tutorial of technique here!

I also *had* owned a copy of Peter Collingwood's The Techniques of Sprang, which is widely regarded as *the* textbook for sprang. But my previous interest in sprang was another one of those activities where I just wanted my product, and variations in the activity itself don't hold my interest, so I sold the book. 

(It's out of print, and now expensive. If you don't want that, I've looked at the reviews for this one, and I think it could carry you to good results.)

Although the Pennsic class had provided me with a small PVC loom, I'd long since passed it on, so I needed a loom. I wanted to try alternate ways of making a loom, since I wanted to have a primitive look as I hauled it around. I'll cover how I made a loom for sprang hairnets in the next installment.

Introducing my Sprang Hairnet project! The find, and why I wanted one

I've made a sprang hairnet!  This series of posts will share what I learned by making this project.

When I first made my Danish Bronze Age outfit, I had long hair, so figuring out how to dress it to complete my impression was pretty straightforward.

I wore my hair in these stacked braids, because Elling woman was executed wearing this hairstyle, and that's really rather cool.

It was also practical - most SCA events are outside, where it may be windy, so it's nice to have something that doesn't flap in one's face.

But in the Blog Hiatus, when I went back to school and got a corporate job, I cut my hair to a bob, and flapper curls are both incongruous with prehistorical (edit: early historical) appearance, and a mess in the wind. So what to do?

Here's my solution to historical impression uncertainty: Find a burial site(s) with a nice collection of stuff you like, and just Collect 'Em All.  So what does the dig offer for hair?

The Borum Eshoj and Egtved dig documentation showed hairnets made with a technique called sprang, and it occurred to me that a hairnet might work as well to conceal short hair as to corral long.

Conveniently, others have made reconstructions of these hairnets, and detailed diagrams of the structure are available, so I figured 'how hard could it be?'

A lovely artist's rendition of what this hairnet might have looked like worn.

No, I'm not setting you up for irony. It's not hard.

In the next installment of this series, I'll cover what sprang is, and how to learn it.

Requoting diamond twill source

I mean to go look at this diamond twill...

 

Sounds like a re.seller who buys from these guys. I got mine direct at 
great prices, they do bulk as well if you
can be patient and wait if they do not have enough in stock. on them to 
put the order together.
Usually a couple of weeks for 10 or more. But well worth the wait and 
the blankets are great for cloaks. LOL.
Here is the direct link. Shhh it's a big secret kept by their 
re-sellers. LOL. http://www.loricamos.vizz.pl/tkanieuk.html

Sandy

On 2/08/2010 10:17 PM, LEWINS SHELAGH wrote:
> I got it from a friend who trades in Viking and Saxon wares, in England. I
> can put you in touch with him if you are interested.
>
> These are actually shawls / wide scarves. One would be enough for a top, or
> for an apron to hang down the front of an apron-dress. Or you might piece
> one into a more suitable shape for a small cloak - or make any number of
> hats, pouches, trimming strips etc. But you couldn't make a whole dress out
> of one. And because the colours vary (they are seconds, though I haven't
> seen any flaws in mine) I think you'd be hard-pressed to get enough the same
> to make a full garment. But I haven't seen his current stock, there might be
> 2 the same and that would probably do an apron-dress.

 Looks great to me! Pretty much looks like this down to the size of the repeats:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_35z6SrYO6Eo/TFWnCRpprXI/AAAAAAAAAGE/bzPGkvrkuPg/s1600/\
Broken+Diamond+twill.jpg
-which was based on the thread/pattern repeat counts at the higher end of the finer fabrics found from the period (gaps between repeats are still there because it was a sample piece and only lightly washed).

Brígiða Vadesbana
http://ooo-shiiiny.livejournal.com/
http://brigidavadesbana.blogspot.com/

 

Gulf Wars 2010 recap

So now I've been in the SCA three years.  Gulf Wars was my first event, so it's a great time to think about how my play has developed, see where I've grown, and set priorities for the next year.  Basic recap first:

We got in just at sunset Wednesday, and after setting up camp, got ourselves over (late) to the Meridian Social.  The theme this year was RagaROCKS, and since I have about as much memory of eighties' hair metal as I do blue hair, my impression may not be quite recognizable, but it was fun to pull together:

 

My idea was to rockify my Borum Eshoj stuff.  (Mom, the "nalbinded beret" is on its way to becoming a filk, and was very popular.  You were right, again.  Albeit roundaboutly.)  So we have here: Nalbinded beret, made by my mother with indigo yarn she dyed herself, vest and necklace from thrift stores, the infamous BE gravefind string skirt, miniskirt version of BE skirt, and new bog coat that I made at Convivium Collegialis.  Fishnets and tall boots were already a part of the Costume Box of Wonderfulness.

This year I camped again with Glynn Rhe, but now it is my home group, and felt nice to belong somewhere properly.  The wool tent did fine again, though I am now sure I want to put toggles on the door ties to make getting in and out faster.  I now have two wood benchboxes, and they are perfect for keeping camp and foodstuffs in.  The Viking's cooler was totally ample and very efficient (the ice we brought with us got to go home again).  I need to remember to pack a broom next time, and I am still playing around with lights - he's wanting a multi-wick oil lamp, like this.

We brought one too many tunics for him, but just the right amount of food - maybe the catfish was excessive, but I distributed it to people in an area of about 2 acres.  We had plenty of goodies; enough to be generous, and people are learning that I like to bake.  That Krispy Kreme bread pudding may not be period, but gosh darn is it tasty.

Camp cooking is a recent and mutual interest.  I want to be able to take care of me and mine, and have it all look nice, and work.  A friend focuses on things cooking+Roman, and she put together a beautiful Roman kitchen, winning the Period Life competition.  I'm so impressed with her setup:

 

But we used some of our heirloom castiron on Wendy's kitchen setup, which worked pretty darn well.  Modifications need to be made regarding being able to "turn down" the heat.  I'm not sure whether a setup where you are able to pull the fire out from under the pot, or install a trivet under the pot, or perhaps both is the best way to go.  More options to try!

Cooking pots are definitely catching on in the merchant area, with varying prices being quoted for various things.  Fire Horse Pottery had a collaborator in Gode Erthe Pottes, who'd brought all sorts of ceramic cooking things: a heat reflector, with notches for a spit, a drippings tray, a waffle iron, a chafing dish, and even a lobster trap! in addition to the bread ovens that I'd seen before.  Apparently the bread ovens work, though there's a learning curve (isn't there always?!) on how to use them.

We did most of our shopping on Thursday: I bought two wool shawls for $65, one heavier weight in iridescent twill green/red, so that I can wear each of our colors, and a wonderfully light one in charcoal and gold so I can quickly dress up for court.  The Viking says the shawls make enough of a difference that he had difficulty finding me in a crowd - I consider I've gotten a bargain, considering that's two more "clothes changes" for the price of yardage and zero sewing effort.  Plus they pack tighter.  We also bought a lot of music - 5 CDs.  Two are of Owain Phyfe, a wonderful guitarist.  Three are from Vince Conaway, who I had met at Pennsic with Heather Dale, and got to talk to both of them again here.  I was so pleased that the Viking got to meet them too - I've gushed about how impressed I was with them as people, not just as professional musicians.  He bought some elbow cops, and we got a packet of leather to use on various projects - we're thinking a bag for feastgear and a gorget for me.

Friday I hoped to get into a bookbinding workshop, but it had sold out the day before.  I did get to watch and take pictures, though.  They were making these:

 

I also got to do a little painting of one of the class participants:

 

And then I painted the dyeing setup, which is one of my favorite things about Gulf Wars though I never have the patience to hang out there and dye things:

 

Saturday we packed up, trying to beat a storm out.  I squeezed in one last sketching session (hopefully I'll get to watercolor that sketch soon), and a really intriguing math history class, from someone I want to find again - she seems incredibly knowledgeable, and very bright to make connections.

Bronze Age String Skirt

I find it interesting that nearly all of my European interests center around one little bit of geography.  There's something about the southern North Sea shores that draws me.  My name is from 15thc Zeeland, I'm enchanted by the 5thc brooch-closed Kentish dresses (heavily influenced by the Franks, who occupied Zeeland), I like the tablet-woven edges particular to the Jutes who lived in that peninsula, and my current favorite summer event wear is this outfit, which our extant pieces document to Bronze Age Denmark.  (Same place.)  (I won't talk about my love for Danish modern furniture just now.)

Concept: Zealand (Olby? no, Hagendrup) variation of Bronze Age string skirt, with waistband taken from Egtved skirt, in order to wear with Borum Eshoj outfit...this is a hodgepodge, but a hodgepodge I'm going to perpetrate.

(Non-hodgepodge historical reconstruction of string skirt ensemble in Bronze Age Denmark with good pictures here.)

Societal rules apparent from Bronze Age documentation (particularly Barber's extensive treatment of symbology):

String skirt is for women of child-bearing age who are AVAILABLE.  Hair covering is for adult women who are NOT AVAILABLE.  They don't go together.

More disclaimers about the drawing, which is of what I wear:

I close my neck slit with two primitive penannular brooches.  I find these to be more secure than the straight brooches that are found in abundance in graves.  I hang a short strand of glass beads (recreations of 100BC) from the two brooches a la 5thc Kent jewelry described in Owen-Crocker, pgs 90-93, and Rogers, fig. 5.49.  My necklace is seashells, but someday I'll get some amber.

I wear a silver cuff, and a green tabletwoven girdle, with no particular tasseling.  Earrings are shown per the matched pendants in Hawkes.  Bog-type moccasins were purchased. [is ref for these in Bog People or Hald? Check.]

Assembly Notes:

Used charcoal gray wool (alpaca, already had, and would minimize friction felting, though still ply into cords well)

Need 36" of stringed area to wrap hips.  Planning 16" long skirt, which is not as short as Egtved, but not knee-height on me (20") either.  Personal preference; expect 20" skirt to catch too much in knees with hard metal for comfort.

Tabby belt accomplished with 2-hole tablet weaving warp.

Yarn is 17 wpi, S-twist, used alone for warp, but for weft, plied to itself, S-twist.

Resulted in tabby gauge of one cord per 1/4" of stringed area, therefore requiring 4x36 metal tubes for ends of cords.

Total cord yardage required: 4 pieces per inch x 36" x 16" long = 2304"/36 = 64 yards.  I don't have a yardage meter, so I'm just filling a few 1 oz drop spindles.  When I run out, I'll refill them as necessary.

I am thinking the way to get a twisted cord while weaving is to use the drop spindle as a shuttle - this way I can pass it through the shed, spin the spindle to overtwist the cord, fold the cord around some jig setup (note to self: clamp tabletweaving loom to warping board and use warping peg.  No wait, that interval is too large - add raddle.) [ADD PIC OF SETUP]

Purchased 36"long 1/8" diameter brass tubing; cut into XXX lengths for beads per XXX. [Could be 1", producing a beaded cord every 1/4", or could be smaller.  Waiting for more data.]  Someday I would like bronze beads, as I have a bronze bracelet, and I think the difference is apparent, but am in a hurry to complete skirt to wear at Pennsic.  Brass was cheap, though - under $12 for 4 pieces 36" long.

UPDATE:  I now have Barber's Prehistoric Textiles, which has much more information about the string skirts, as hoped (though still no pictures of any but Egtved, annoying).  The metal tubes are COPPER.  They are made by wrapping little rectangles of metal around the ends of the cords underneath the stay-cord, in place of the loops on the Egtved skirt.  I bet I can find copper sheet, and that'd be much easier to control, and live with, than tubing.  Plus it will patina nicely.  Also Barber does a nice job of citing original publishers on everything she mentions, so tracking down Glob and Munksgaard is the next step on this.

PHOTO OF COMPLETED SKIRT GOES HERE

References:

Barber, Elizabeth Wayland.  Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years.  Norton, 1994.  The mainstream version of her academic work below.  Pages 54-70 deal with string skirts and their symbology in various cultures from Stone Age to modernity.

Barber, E. J. W. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. [What's in this book?  On its way.]

Hald, Margrethe. Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials: A Comparative Study of Costume and Iron Age Textiles. [Copenhagen]: National Museum of Denmark, 1980. [Chase down corded skirt, look at what she says about string skirts in general]

Chadwick Hawkes, Sonia.  "The Jutish Style A.  A Study of Germanic Animal Art in Southern England in the Fifth Century AD." appearing in: 

Harvey, John H., Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, David M. Wilson, Gerald Clough Dunning, and R. P. Howgrave-Graham. Archaeologia: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 98. Oxford: Printed at Oxford by Vivian Ridler for the Society of Antiquaries, 1961.

Lise Bender Jorgensen, "Industries of the Near East and Europe in Prehistory: Europe." The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Cambridge University Press, 2003.  Photo of Egtved finds, description of those and Zealand as follows:

"The women's garments consist of three blouses with the same basic shape; but whereas two are plain and simple, the one from Skydstrup is decorated with elaborate embroideries**.  The three bouses seem to indicated that this type of garment was a normal part of female fashion in early Bronze Age Denmark.  Skirts are a different matter:  the Egtved grave, Jutland, contained a corded miniskirt, which, like the triangular loincloth of Hvidegaard (G: a male garment), has parallels in several bronze figurines.  On Zealand, several female graves contained parallel rows of bronze tubes containing cord remains which had been placed at knee-height, plainly deriving from similar skirts and suggesting a fashion for corded skirts adorned with bronze tubes.  Experiments have shown that such skirts have a merry tinkling sound when worn; an unexpected glimpse of Bronze Age life."

The very next paragraph describes the other skirt that I'm wearing together with the corded skirt:

"Another type of female skirt is indicated by the two graves of Skrydstrup and Borum Eshoj, both on Jutland.  Both contained long, skirt-like garments, and in the case of the one found at Skrydstrup, was placed on the lower part of the woman's boy and bound with a girdle, like a skirt."  

Jorgensen then says something with which I don't agree...

"The lower 40 cm of the 'skirt' were wrapped arond the woman's feet so that she appeared more like a participant in a sack-race, and the interpretation as a skirt must be considered doubtful."

I disagree with this amount of doubt because as anyone who's ever helped carry anyone unconscious, let alone dead, knows, you need to corral the feet somehow, and a tube already securely wrapped around the body would be awfully handy.  I want another opinion.  In the meantime, I interpret the long tube bound on the body with a girdle as a skirt.  [didn't one of the ones in Hald have a drawstring?  Must chase that down.]

**I'm very interested in these embroideries, but haven't seen an image or detailed description yet. HA!  Here.

Owen-Crocker, Gale R. Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1986.

Walton Rogers, Penelope. Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England, AD 450-700. CBA research report, no. 145. York: Council for British Archaeology, 2007.

Surviving Garment Database

Viking Answer Lady, Egtved page, accessed July 23, 2009.

Bronze Bog dresses, version 1.0

or more properly, Dress after the Borum Eshoj Woman.

CA CONTEXT

At GW, Gwen and Glenna both wore versions of what they called the Bronze Age bog dress (though Glenna's was more of a 'bog bikini'...she's very cute), and since it looked wonderfully comfortable and easy to wear in warm weather, I decided I wanted one.  Or three.  Here's what they looked like...Gwen's is normal skirt length.  (Gwen's image removed by request; sorry for confusion.)

Carl Kohler's book, of which I have the 1924 translation in Dover edition, shows a partial image of this drawing...

I decided I liked the front slit, that I was going to skimp a bit on the skirt fullness per SCA context, at least for the first one (I wanted to conserve the gorgeous herringbone twill I was using), and got my pattern worked out.

Those strips are underarm gussets, which make all the difference in converting a two-dimensional T-shape into something that will move with a 3D form.  These are only 1.5" wide, but they do seem to work.

(These pieces make me think about weaving them, to shape.  The largest dimension on the shirt is 37" for me (I'm not short; 5'-7"), and the skirt could be done to proper walking fullness with (3) 24" pieces.  Perhaps that's a warp-weighted loom project for another time.)  I left walking slits in the side seams on this version.

Again, per SCA context, I did the decorative seam-finishing stitching, but this time with linen thread.  Here's a closeup of the strip gusset that turns the flat cross shape into a garment with body...

 

And learned how to do a four-ply braid to trim the neck, because I read somewhere (Owen-Crocker, I think) that more complex braiding was a normal skill that everyone could do...On this version the trim is on the inside, because that's where the cut edge is.  I think this top could be woven to shape - Hald seems to have information on that, with analysis of exactly the path of the wefts, but I haven't read closely yet.  But it was good to learn the braid, and on the fuller version I turned the cut edge to the outside, and finished it with the braid.

The top fits better with a bit of brooch bling...I have a thing for brooches...(Raymond's Quiet Press)(North Star Armory, too, but these are oh so simple pennannulars)

And here's the whole thing, complete with hairstyle inspired by Elling Woman, and Medieval Moccasins...

 

I have the fuller version done also, and will post a comparison soon.

MORE LINKS FOR BRONZE AGE

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~catshaman/BAdresses/BAdresses.htm

http://www.gallica.co.uk/bronzeage/borum_eshoj_woman_clothes.html

BOOKS

Gwendolen Isabella Stewart says that these two books have more information, both unfortunately out of print, and I have not personally seen them:

Broholm, H.C. and Margarethe Hald; tr. by Elisabeth Aagesen.. Costumes of the Bronze Age in Denmark. London: Oxford University Press, 1940.

Broholm, H.C. and Margarethe Hald; tr. by Joergen Andersen. Bronze Age Fashion. n.l.: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag, 1948.