Coronation

The coronation ceremony of Edward and Thyra was beautiful. Everyone worked very hard to make it as authentic as possible. Of course, I managed to forget to bring my camera. I presented the mittens to the Queen, and I am happy to say, they did fit :)

Fit for a queen

At least I hope so. (Her hands are small.)

Here is a picture of mittens I made for the upcoming queen. Her persona is from 12th century Denmark, so I based the  design on a medieval mitten found in Ribe. I used the Mammen stitch. The gauge of the stitches is closer to the actual artifact than my first attempt to reproduce it. The pattern isn't quire right yet, but I'm getting closer. The wool was spun on one of my 8th century reproduction spindles. The embroidery is based on a Viking design found on the Danish island of Soro.

Haste makes waste...

...or measure twice, cut once.

My barony is hosting Coronation in October, so after finishing my first pair of socks, I decided to make a new dress. I had some beautiful wool twill fabric of a color which can be made by natural dyes. I based the design of the dress on one I had made previously which fits me very well. That dress has rectangular sleeves, gathered at the wrist. I wanted the new dress to have tapered sleeves. My first problem was that I cut all four gores the same length, forgetting that the side gores are longer. So, I re-cut. That meant I had to cut one sleeve with the grain and one across the grain, in order to fit the pieces on the fabric. Well, not the end of the world, and I'm sure it has happened to someone before. Then, when I assembled the dress, I discovered that the sleeves were too tight. I had forgotten that tapering changes the dimensions at the upper arm as well as at the wrist. I had to take the sleeve apart and add larger gussets. If I had only checked my measurements first!

I decided that since I was using wool fabric I would spin my own sewing thread. I love sewing with my own thread, but there are a few tricks to it.

• Because dress fabric is usually densely woven, it is important to spin and ply with a high twist so that the thread will withstand being repeatedly pulled through the fabric. Period sewing thread is approximately 1 millimeter in diameter, plied. To make thread this size means spinning the thread tightly at 72 wraps per inch (28-30 wraps per centimeter). This is much finer than crewel thread. 
• Discard any pieces of thread that have pills or flaws. This thread is quickly damaged by sewing; it is a waste of time to try to use it.
• Keep your pieces of thread 12-15 inches long for best results. Too long, and they will break from abrasion.

Hunter's Moon

This weekend was the Feast of the Hunter's Moon, put on by our neighbors to the east, the Shire of Anglespur. It is one of my favorite events - a very relaxing way to end the summer. On Saturday I taught a spinning class - Spinning with Period Drop Spindles. I really wanted to give people who spin only with modern spindles a chance to touch and try and experience the difference between modern and ancient spinning.

We talked about period sheep breeds, combing vs. carding, using a distaff, and spinning for the intended use. We spun with both the antique spindle whorls and the reproductions. The class was small but enthusiastic, and I think we had a good time.

On Sunday I made glass beads. My first beads were made on the torch. I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Then came the best part. Irene von Lassen had one of her Viking bead kilns there. She based it on the finds at Ribe. She taught me how to make beads in the kiln. It's completely different than making beads on the torch! It took a while to get the hang of it. The fire is made with charcoal, and is hotter than the torch flame. You begin by heating both the mandrel and a piece of glass in the fire. The glass sits on a little piece of clay so that it doesn't fall into the fire. But sometimes it does fall into the fire.

When the mandrel and glass are hot enough (the only way to know is practice), you touch the mandrel to the glass and it sticks. If the glass has become too hot, it sticks to the clay more than it sticks to the mandrel, and it is difficult to pick up. Once you have the glass on the mandrel, you hold it in the hottest part of the fire until the glass slumps all the way around. At that point you turn the mandrel until the bead becomes round.

It sounds simple, but it's not.

Here are the beads I made:

My first bead is the green one on the upper left. The mandrel was not centered on the glass when I picked it up, so there was much more glass on one side than the other. No matter how long I worked it, it was never going to get round. The broken blue bead was my second attempt. It, too, was misshapen. We suspect that it broke because of uneven heating in the kiln, or uneven cooling. Bead 3 is the transparent green bead on the left side of the picture. I was beginning to get the hang of it. Bead 4 turned out very round, but has bits of clay and charcoal stuck to it. The two beads on the right side of the picture are my "perfect" beads. They turned out round and I was steady enough with the long mandrel that I didn't get any unwanted bits stuck in the glass. I also found that I did better by starting with a smaller piece of glass. I am really looking forward to the next time Irene fires up her kiln!

Learning to weave

As I have said before, I want to learn to weave so that I can better understand how the spun thread is related to the woven cloth. With that in mind, back in March I purchased a rigid heddle loom. How hard can weaving be, I thought. After all, didn't we all learn to make potholders as kids? Well, didn't I have a lot to learn! I was so excited when my loom arrived, I grabbed what thread I could find - Gotland that I had previously spun to play with the breed - and warped up the loom. My weft is merino. For the first 9 inches, everything went fine. I was very proud of myself. Even my selvedges were even.

That's when everything went to hell in a handbasket, as my grandmother used to say. The warp threads began to break, and I had no idea how to fix them. The book that came with the loom didn't address that problem (or any problem). I hadn't thought about leaving myself extra thread for repairs, so the first thing I had to do was spin more thread. I tried tying in a new piece, but the knots wouldn't go through the heddle. When I was finally able to talk to Siobhan, the finest weaver I know, she told me how to fix the threads. Weave them in at the fabric side and bring the thread through the heddle to the back. Worked like a charm. But, by the time I knew the correct fix, I had already tried my own fix, which resulted in horrible weaving. It is full of mistakes and uneven tension. I was ready to throw the piece away. But I didn't.

Today I finished the piece. It is 5.25 x 21 inches. I had started out hoping to make a scarf. After all, I had been doing Navajo weaving off and on for 35 years, which is more difficult than weaving a simple tabby fabric. I expected a respectable result. This piece will be put away as a "lessons learned."

What I learned:

• Having a tightly spun warp thread is extremely important. The thread I had spun was not made for that specific purpose, and the friction of the heddle abraded the threads quickly.
• Gotland is a very slippery wool. It behaves very differently than Shetland or Merino, for example, making the tightly spun thread even more important. The tension of the warp caused the fibers to slip apart (even though they had been set), stretching the threads, which in turn impacted the overall tension of the piece.
• Because the threads did not stretch uniformly, it resulted in some areas with loose tension while others had tight tension. This made it difficult to pack the weft.
• As the tension at the edges became loose, it made it difficult to keep an even selvedge

For my next piece I will spin a thread specifically for the purpose. I may also try weaving without using the heddle bar to pack the weft. That should result in less abrasion. What was the other thing my grandmother used to say - if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

My first sock

I did it! I knit my first sock. This may not seem like much, but it was a new experience for me. While I figured out how to make cables on my own, I never would have figured out how to turn the heel and complete the sock without the help of my wonderful friends. The directions were so confusing! I guess I am more of a hands-on learner, which is also my favorite way to teach. I cast on the second sock immediately so that I am sure to wind up with something more useful than a "sack" to hang by the mantle at Christmas.

Spinning silk

I have silk fiber (filament?) in two forms - hankies and "roving." The interesting thing about the hankies - when you peel them apart, each one is one cocoon - one very long fiber. The only reason to spin it is to get a thread that is thicker than a single silk fiber. My attempt to spin from a hankie was less than successful. I pulled the fibers apart and wrapped them around a paper tube to keep them from tangling. Then I spun the thread from the tube. My hands tend to be rough (even with lots of hand cream) and my fingers catch on the fibers. The result was a very inconsistent thread. It looks better after I plied it. I'm really going to have to keep practicing this.

I then spun from prepared silk roving. This was much easier, and I am pleased with the results. I plied the first spindle-ful and kept the second as a single. Perhaps I will attempt to weave something.

single, 2-ply, and 2-ply from a hankie

Although the silk roving is slippery, it isn't really much more difficult than spinning wool. However, this isn't a method that would have been used during the medieval age. Spinning from a hankie, once I have more practice, will result in a fine, smooth thread, suitable for tablet weaving, embroidery or loom weaving. Since the roving is made of relatively short pieces of fiber, it results in a "halo" of fiber ends because the silk has no crimp.