a nalbinding project

First, I would like to thank my son for working his computer magic so that I can post again. He makes it look so easy.

So, once upon a time, in medieval Ribe, Denmark, a person lost a mitten as they were walking down Gronnegade, a street in the middle of the city. Had the day turned warm so they had taken their mittens off? I can picture their distress (or perhaps their wife or mother's distress) when they got home and discovered they had only one mitten. Did they go back to look for it, to no avail? In any case, it sank into the mud where it lay for many years, waiting to be dug up by archaeologists in 1955.

It has been safely kept in the Sydvestjyske Museer since then. Now, I have been studying the mitten and am attempting to make a similar one. I've made measurements and drawn a scale pattern; I've examined the deteriorated sections to try to determine the stitch; I've made several "test mittens" to work out parts of the overall pattern; I've spun enough thread to make a pair of mittens.

 I've used combed Jacob wool, spun on 38 gram whorl.

I've spun a total of 103 grams (3 5/8 oz.). The plied thread is 7 wpc.

How much of a commitment is it to make a pair of mittens? First, the wool would have been washed. I'm sure no one washed less than a fleece at a time, so that would have readied enough wool for at least several projects, depending on what it was going to be used for. But, I'll allow a half day for washing the wool. Once the wool dried, it had to be combed. While this wool was commercially combed, I know from past experience that it would take me about 6 hours to comb this much wool (I'm rather slow at combing). It took me 8 hours to spin this 103 grams of wool, and another 2 hours and 40 minutes to ply it. So, almost 15 hours of work would go into these mittens before even beginning to stitch. 

Spinning success!

I have been studying variations in methods of using a drop spindle. In addition to examining historical representations of spinners, such as

  I have been watching videos of modern spinners who still drop spin as part of their culture. This includes Navajo spinners, Andean spinners and African spinners. There is so much to learn!

While I do not desire to spin with a long Navajo spindle, from watching these spinners I have learned a trick to join together the thread from two or more spindles before plying or setting the wool, in order to have a longer continuous thread than could otherwise be had from one spindle. This seems very useful for warp thread. Simply take the ends from two spindles, fluff them out and allow them to twist together, The Navajo spinners will sometimes spin the wool twice - re-spinning the thread to give it enough twist for plying. This second spinning also allows them to correct any thick spots, resulting in a very even thread.

Andean spinners do not comb or card the wool. They gently pull and stretch the locks, having fluffed them out first. The wool sticks together, and they give it just a gentle twist to keep it together as roving. When they spin, they seem to use a form of double drafting.

This summer I purchased a small amount of quivet to spin. I expected it to be rather like spinning cashmere. The fibers, however, are extremely short and fine. It felt like trying to spin dryer lint.No matter how finely I spun, I could not make a stable thread. I only had success when I switched to long draw drafting - holding a palm-ful of fluff and letting the twist grab the fibers. By keeping the spindle in my hand after initially adding twist, I could add more twist as needed (frequently in this case) by turning the spindle between my fingers. After the thread reached arms-length, I spun and dropped the spindle to add strength to the thread and to give it enough twist for plying. I cannot spin well this way with combed wool, but I have been successful with spinning from locks and carded wool.

The brown yarn is quivet; the white yarn is BFL which I washed and spun from the locks. While I've had success, I am much slower at it than when I use a short draw method of drafting. But speed comes with practice.

Thoughts: This method of spinning looks very much like the frescoes and illuminations of women spinning flax. If women were spinning wool this way, too (although I have not seen it illustrated), would they have been using carded wool, as seen in this picture?

All of these types of illustrations post-date the Viking Age. Only wool combs (not cards) have been found at Viking sites. So, did Viking women use this method of spinning, or was their spinning more like the Greek and Egyptian illustrations? Or did they spin in another way altogether?

too many ideas

My sister is getting her MFA in film production, and she writes a blog about her experiences. She wrote something recently, and I thought, she's exactly right! Here is what she said, regarding movies she wants to make: "Too many ideas, not enough time. No, that's not true, all the time in the world." And I thought, her sentiment applies to me, too. I have so many ideas about textile things I want to research, design, create. Some days it feels like there will never be enough time to make them all happen. But just because I have an idea doesn't mean I need to be in a hurry to see it through. I need to allow myself the time to play with my ideas, experiment and see what comes of it. There is no point in making something just for the sake of making it. If that's what I do I will miss all the joy of learning new things. And I'm in this for the fun of it. So, I will keep adding to my project list as I get new ideas, then take a deep breath and pick the one that seems most appealing at the moment. Right now it is working on the reproduction of the medieval mitten found in Ribe. I've started to spin yarn of an appropriate gauge. I've chosen Jacob wool spun with my whorl #6 for this project. The yarn is fine, so it will take me a while to get enough for a pair of mittens.

Finishing some projects

I've been trying to get a few projects off my plate before the busy autumn months. I finally finished a project to nalbind mittens for a friend. She wanted them to be very warm. Here they are:

They are made from hand spun Jacob wool, with hand spun BFL for the fringe. The stitch is Balsta which picks up 5 loops from the back of the thumb. It is not a difficult stitch, but it uses up a lot of yarn. They are definitely very warm.

I also spun some Polworth. I love the color - it's called "cider house" - and I wanted to make sure I used it all. Here are the socks I knit:

This was a real learning experience for me. First, I had to learn to make a sock from the toe up - I used a short row technique. Then I had to learn how to nicely increase my lace pattern so that I could increase the width of the sock at the calf. I've also finally gotten the hang of negative ease. I invented the pattern as I went along, and these are the first socks I've knit that fit me perfectly. I'm looking forward to colder weather so I can wear them.

My third project is gloves. These are made from hand spun Romney. I spun the wool while my Dad was in the hospital over the summer (I needed to play with a cheery color). Once again, I didn't have a pattern, but I've made many mittens, so I figured out the fingers as I went along.

They were fun to make and I'm looking forward to seeing them peeking out of the sleeves of my black coat this winter. I think the next gloves I try will be done with nalbinding.

With these last two projects I feel that I have gained a better understanding of the knitting process. I've gotten used to knitting with small needles by making the socks (and two other pairs), and it has made me confident enough with my skill to think about trying something based on an historical project.

Natural Dyes

Over Labor Day weekend, a group of us got together and experimented with natural dyes. Our first experiment was using indigo. I had spun some South Down lamb wool, Shetland, and Finn. I wanted to know if the breed made a difference for how much color was accepted. There was not much difference between the Shetland and Finn, but here is a picture of the South Down (on top) and the Finn (below):

Both hanks were in the dye bath at the same time, for the same amount of time (about 5 minutes). The lamb's wool took more color. I had not expected this. The first shearing vs later shearing made more of a difference than the breed (or at least the breeds I used).

Our second experiment was using lily of the valley leaves from my garden. We used alum as the mordant. We chopped and then simmered the leaves for about an hour. We kept the mordant separate, soaking the fibers in the mordant bath and then placing the wool in the dye bath. I had only Finn left to dye, but a friend had some lamb's wool. Once again, the lamb's wool accepted more color. Her wool came out a pale golden yellow (you'll have to trust me, I don't have a photo). Here is a picture of my wool:

The roving is undyed. As you can see, there is very little difference between that and the spun wool. It is barely off-white, even though it was left in the dye bath for a very long time. I don't feel like it was worth the effort. But it certainly brought home the point that lamb's wool is the easiest to dye.

Egyptian textiles

My friend and I have been continuing the work of analyzing the textile artifacts found under the mummy at the Albany Institute of History and Art, in anticipation of the new exhibit which opens on September 21. We've made several exciting discoveries. The visiting Egyptologist, Peter Lacavara, has tentatively dated the garment remnant to approximately 900 BC, and identified it as a kalasiris - a long sleeveless robe (this one is approximately 60 inches long, including the fringe). According to Dr. Lacavara, this is very rare; he has seen paintings of them, but never an actual textile. While it is woven as a simple tabby (as are all the textiles we examined), it has beautiful decorative stitching around the armhole.

The garment will be in the exhibit, so if you are in the Albany area this year, it is definitely worth a visit. While this textile has a thread count of 48/26 threads per inch, the finest textile we were able to examine has a count of 140/60 threads per inch! The only way we could count that was with the help of a microscope. While there will be several textiles in the show, here is a photo of a piece we examined which will not be on display:

I'm fascinated by the pattern of bundled threads. This artifact is too small to know what its original use was. This textile has a thread count of 40/50 threads per inch.

What I did on my summer vacation

The days at Pennsic went by so fast this year! I had more responsibilities this year, participating at Court, volunteering with hospitality, teaching a class about spindle whorls. I had hoped to have some free time in camp to card wool, spin and nalbind, but as usual, I filled all my hours with classes. There are so many new and interesting things to learn! Unrelated to textiles, I took classes in medieval math, the history of labyrinths, architecture, and dancing. I suppose that's appropriate for a meanderer. And of course I took as many textile classes as I could. My favorites were taught by Barbara Klessig. She taught a class on the textile tools found on Gotland, Sweden. I found it interesting that the whorl shapes were mostly disks and spheres - quite different from the whorls found at Ribe, Denmark, although many were a similar size.

The second class she taught was reproducing weave structures found in medieval textiles. After learning about the different weaves, we were able to weave our own samples. I was rather slow and only completed 3 of the 4 samples. But I am very pleased with how they turned out:

Tabby, in the style of Coptic tunics woven as one piece.

This "waffle" pattern was found in a 10th century textile from Coppergate.

The rosette was fairly easy to weave. The complicated part was threading the warp correctly.

All of the samples were made on a rigid heddle loom with 3 heddles. I had so much fun with this project that I bought myself a little loom. (Yes, despite my insistence otherwise, I am turning into a weaver.) I want to make a larger piece like the Coppergate textile, and play with twill patterns.

I also took a class in 14th century nalbinding. This is very different from typical Norse nalbinding - simpler and more complex at the same time. Many of the artifacts are gloves made with the buttonhole stitch. The complexity comes from the fineness of the threads and the hole patterns made with the stitches.

I think I will put making a silk glove on my project "to do" list. But don't hold your breath - it will take a long time to finish.