Medieval Style Knitting

One of my goals for this year is to knit something in a medieval style. This has taken a lot of thought and practice. I decided I wanted to make a small bag. First I looked for some appropriate inspiration.

 Then I started knitting on smaller and smaller needles.

I worked my way down to size 0 as I played with various colorwork designs. Here are a few of the things I made:

The "white" mitten was knit on size 1 needles, the grey sock (my own design) was knit on size 0 needles.

While I was knitting, I was designing my pattern. I decided to base my idea on an embroidered bag that included large versions of arms. I plotted out my arms and my husband's arms, and then experimented over and over until I was happy with the surrounding images.

 The problem with this idea is that both of our arms include 3 colors. I have not found an example of medieval knitting that includes more than 2 colors per row. Perhaps I should have stuck to embroidery! But I am persevering. I am using size 000 needles. I started by practicing carrying the colors around the row, using cotton crochet thread. It was terrible to work with at such a small scale, and I quickly switched to a lace weight wool/silk blend. I played a bit longer, and have now started my actual bag.

You can see the start of my arms on the cotton sample at the top of the photo. I've gotten fairly competent at keeping the threads untangled. On the actual bag, I have knit a plain band for the top and I'm ready to start adding the designs. Check back at the end of the summer and I will show you how far I have come.