Something that has happened to me time and again:

I look at some medieval Thing. I sort of try to figure out how it was made. I read up on more details of the Thing, and the Type of Things. I find out that there was quite some variation, and that some of the assumptions I made when seeing only Thing are not correct.

I read up more on Type of Things. I find something about it that sounds... weird. Like "how on Earth can that work" weird. "Whyever would you want to do that with this tool/material/method" weird.

I fiddle around some more with doing stuff. I try the weird-seeming tool, material, or method. I find it works brilliantly - much better than my own ideas that I used in my first tries.

I stand there, humbled, and realise again that living a couple of hundred years later does not make anyone automatically smarter, or better at doing something that was already successfully done, and developed to best efficiency, back then.

At least these days, I've been humbled often enough and learned enough about this that it does not take me very long to try out the original materials or (possible) methods... as opposed to when I was a teenager and getting started with Living History.

In the most recent case, by the way, the Things are the lace chapes, and the Weird Thing About Them was the indication that at least some chapes (possibly not all of them, but this is a tiny detail that may be hard to see or evaluate anyways, due to several different reasons) were riveted with an iron rivet.

Now, those chapes are tiny. (I mentioned that, right?) They are made from very thin brass sheeting, so once they are bent, they are a good bit stabler than the flat sheeting, but it's still a relatively soft material. Iron is much harder than brass... but I did find that using a soft iron wire to make the rivet does work better than using a dedicated brass rivet (yes, you can get them in so tiny).



So. I stand humbled, and corrected, and will happily go on pounding the heck out of soft iron when riveting. (Very carefully, though, rather softly, and with a very small hammer. I lovingly call it my "Mädchenhammer"... my girls's hammer.)

Now what is left to do is figure out how to offer these in the shop - which kinds of bands, which lengths of chapes, which lengths of bands. (Obviously, I'll be able to make specific lengths on demand, but setting up the shop attributes for that might not work...) If you do Living History, use laces with chapes (or laces without them) and have comments for me, they are very welcome!

I've been asked about proper, nice, authentic lace chapes again and again over the past years... so this has been on my list for ages now.

Lace chapes, for those of you not into medieval dress accessories, are like the plastic endcaps on shoelaces - they protect the lace from unraveling, and they make threading the lace through holes or eyelets much easier. Especially in the later Middle Ages, the style of dress for both women and men uses lots of laces to get things nice and tight-fitting on the body... and for all those laces, chapes are really handy.

The tiny problem is, though: The chapes you can usually buy today are way too large, and they are often cast, while the originals were made from sheet metal with use of a hammer and much smaller. How much smaller? Well. The modern ones I could find quickly when pretending to shop for some have a top diameter of about 5 mm. The medieval originals that I have nice documentation for have a top diameter of between 2 and 3 mm. That is... much smaller.

Most modern laces with chapes are also held together with a few stitches, while those original chapes that survived with lace in them are usually riveted to lock in the lace.

So recently, I have gotten some material to give this a try... then I played around some more. Then I bought some additional tools. Then I made some more tools. Fiddled around some more. Researched what was inside those chapes.

I'm getting there now. I can tell you, though: These things are tiny. TINY. And it's incredibly fiddly to set those infinitesitiny rivets without bashing the chape itself to pieces...



...but I'm getting there. This is one of the latest prototypes I've made, with 2 mm diameter at the top. And just so you get an idea of the size, here's a bigger one (with a good 3 mm diameter top) in my fingers:



I had originally planned to make these chapes and sell them, together with rivets, for customers to assemble with their band of choice. It looks to me, though, as if the originals were hammered close around the lace, then riveted for extra security. Even if you put this aside and assume it will be possible to stick enough of the lace into the closed chape, successfully setting a first rivet took me several tries, complete with totally bashed chapes. So I'll have to offer the chapes mounted on laces, all set and finished, to save everybody's nerves.

Which means I had to take a closer look at the laces involved...

When I started out trying to reconstruct how twill may have been tablet woven back in the Middle Ages, I had a list of things that the method would need to deliver - if you like being fancy, you could say I had a Requirement Specification. Apart from the obvious (has to work without written patterns, has to work with an indefinite number of tablets), one of my list items was "has to be robust" as in the system should be so workable that it is possible to stop at any time and take up the work again without a problem, and that it should be possible to weave while other stuff is going on in the vicinity, or while you're not one hundred percent fit. Also obviously, weaving really complex patterns in fine silk on a wide band won't work if you are bone tired and there is a bunch of people nattering at you - but to do simpler twill motifs, it should not matter if there is a group of others chatting in the same room, and you are keeping half an ear on it, occasionally joining into the chat.

Both the coffee cup weaving and the UFO weaving took place while there was a pen-and-paper roleplaying session going on in the same room, which for me sort of qualifies as "mildly distractive environment". So for my expectations, the system is robust enough; it does happen occasionally that I forget to re-order a few tablets, but I usually catch this even before turning them, and if I don't, it becomes really obvious right afterwards, and is easy to fix. (Turn the offenders back, sort, re-turn them.)

Something that happens even more occasionally, but that is much, much more of a nuisance: Forgetting a weft thread. This has really obnoxious results. First of all, it only becomes rather obvious a good while after the vile deed has happened, and I'm usually not willing to unweave two picks to fix the issue. Unfixed, the forgetting of a weft results in long floats across the width of the band, which can be very obvious if you are looking at the structure (or are a nitpicky person and are looking for mistakes). It actually happened twice when I was doing the UFO, see if you can find the spots:



Have you found them?

The second effect of forgetting a weft, which is at least as annoying, is that I use the side the shuttle hangs on as an indicator of what may or may not be done at that stage, pattern-wise. So having forgotten a weft, this changes, which can be confusing, even when using a marker on one side of the band to keep track of the "do-things-side" as opposed to the "maintenance-mode-side".

I complained about this to the Most Patient Husband Of Them All, and he quite correctly said that there must be a way to see that the weft thread is missing... so we spent a while discussing all the possible ways we could, collectively, think of.

The end result was that since the missing weft causes a change in the band structure, it is possible to see it right after you turn the tablets and press in the shed. However, since every thread is only tied down by the weft every fourth pass, this means only every fourth tablet shows this structural difference - so it is visible, but it is very subtle.

Here is how it looks with the weft thread in:



And this is the same pick without the weft thread:



It's no wonder I never noticed before when I had missed putting in a weft (and none of my students did when this happened in a workshop). Now that I know what to look for, though, I'll keep an eye open for the telltale tiny gaps on the edge of the weaving knife when pressing in.

Are you occasionally forgetting the weft? Do you go back when that happens to you?

Friday before last, I had a Grand Day Out - I hopped onto the train early in the morning to go to Lorsch, or rather to Lauresham, in preparation for the European Textile Forum.

Usually, we have this little conference in Mayen, at the Lab for Experimental Archaeology, but this year, LEA is due for some construction works. As it was not entirely clear in time when those works would be finished, we had to find an alternative place to hold the Forum, to be on the safe side.

To my great delight, as I have fond memories of working on archaeological digs in Lorsch, the good people at the Open-Air Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology Lauresham offered us their place to be. Because going to the venue for a visit is always a good thing (you don't want to plan a conference blind!), after figuring out most of the things that needed figuring out via mail and phone, off I was to meet with Claus Kropp, the leader of the Lab.

The place where we will be for our conference (at least mostly) is the Visitor Info Centre, which looks a bit like a glass house:

When you are closer, you can see that it's actually not a glass house to grow plants, but to grow knowledge:

There are rooms in the blocks inside for working, and things such as conferences, or school events, or small exhibitions. There's also space for exhibitions in the corridor, which - with all that glass - is very light and spacious-feeling. We will be a very happy group in that place!

There is, of course, also a little museum shop where you can get all kinds of things: honey made by bees on the location (bees are important in Lauresham, not least because there is a manuscript with a bee-keeping prayer written in Lorsch in the 9th century), mugs with an artistic rendition of Lauresham, ceramic mugs and music instruments and piggy banks...

...and you can even buy a reproduction of a pin found directly in Lorsch, dating to the 8th/9th century:

Besides checking out this building, I also got treated to a tour of the grounds of Lauresham proper. It was absolutely beautiful - there's a small vinyard, there are fields tilled with reconstructed ploughs using the working animals in Lauresham. The grains that are farmed here are of course old and often very rare kinds, such as this special type of rye, Waldstaudenroggen:

There are also Valais Blackneck goats, a very old breed:

Lauresham, as an ideal-typical reconstruction of an early medieval manor farm also has a small chapel, with a door modelled after an original 8th century find from Germany:

More from my visit tomorrow!

The new spindle whorls have arrived, and they are lovely!

While I make the hand-formed whorls myself, I have a professional potter who throws the whorls for me, after "inspirational pictures" of finds of spindle whorls that I send him. I always order a large batch (as that makes things more efficient), and it is a special pleasure to write there, as he lives close to the place I was born... so I am, in some way, buying "native soil".

This time around, I had done some more research and found that light-coloured whorls seem to also have been rather common. So I did ask for a second, light colour clay for the whorls - and I got a third colour thrown in for good measure.

I also asked for some lighter-weight ones. Fun fact: The current production of wheel-thrown whorls happened to peak in the same weight slots as my last production of hand-formed ones, which is in the 20-22 g slot.

So now I am fully stocked again with whorls! I even have them all weighed and sorted already. When I started selling spindle whorls, I kept them in one large box, and I picked out one when somebody ordered. But since some orders are for a specific weight, I've found that it is much easier for me to weigh them all once and keep them into some kind of sorting box, organised into 2 g slots. That way, if someone asks for a 21 g whorl, I only have to look at the 20-22 g whorls to find the right one (and yes, I will put them onto the scales again and see if I can't find one that is somewhere between 20.7 and 21.3 g... just because I can).

If you feel like you need one, the shop is updated, and I'm all happy to sell these new colours and new old shapes!

After showing you the dead whorls yesterday, it's probably time to also show you the survivors - so here's part of the yield, hanging out in a basket and feeling decorative:

By now, the whorls have all been weighed and are sorted in boxes - they range from below 8 g to almost 70 g in weight. The heavy ones are modeled after prehistoric whorl finds - and yes, it is astonishingly hard to match a given size and shape, as you can see here:

I find it really hard to make some shapes, among them the longish ones and the ones with a sort of T-profile. Roundish or double-conical is much easier for me, and I'm wondering if someone else would have a different experience, or if there's some special technique to making these other shapes easily. You can see in the picture that I didn't really match the original shape of whorl no. 14 - even though I tried really hard!

In some cases, with some shapes, I am quite happy with how close I got, though. Like with this one:

As a final note, it might amuse you that I managed to get only a few whorls within the weight range I was mostly aiming for - while I happened to (again) hit spot-on a few other ranges with a lot of whorls. If this continues, I might have to make a sale for these weight ranges!

The spindle whorl firing is done - so now I have plenty of hand-formed spindle whorls again. This time around, there are some decorated ones, and quite a few of these are formed after actual examples from prehistoric finds. Though, of course, I cannot guarantee that their shapes and weights are close to the originals - especially their weight will probably be quite different even if the size and shape matches, as different materials and different amounts of water and temper make a huge difference in the density - and thus the weight at similar size.

This is one of the many reasons why making whorls and pit-firing them never gets un-exciting. It may be boring (forming whorl after whorl after whorl can be really mind-numbing), but there is always a good amount of insecurity left. Especially regarding firing.

Will they all get enough heat? How many of them will be completely black, or completely light? And most importantly:
How many of them will come out undamaged?

As the pit-firing procedure is only sort of controlled, some whorls in the batch usually come out more or less of damaged. The most common cause is probably a small air bubble that has gotten trapped inside, followed by adverse conditions when heating up, such as getting too much heat too quickly, or too much heat only on part of the piece. Or the clay being still a little bit too moist - even though I try to make sure that the whorls have enough time to really dry out.

Obviously, all these things are more probable on the really large whorls - and this batch, one of the big ones did die a spectacular death, giving out two very loud bangs right after I started the firing. It was accompanied in its venture to explode by two smaller ones... so a total loss of three whorls for the firing batch.

While this is, obviously, a total loss, there are always some whorls that only lose a little chip off their surface. They are otherwise still okay, and they can work just like undamaged ones - but of course they are not making their way into my for-sale stash of whorls.

I call these whorls "Salamander Snacks" because, as every reader of medieval bestiaries knows, the salamander can live in the fire unharmed. So obviously, the reason for how these whorls look is that a salamander living in the fire got a little peckish and took a nibble (or in some cases, a bite) out of a whorl.

While last time around, I had quite a few salamander snacks in the batch, this time it was only a single one - but the salamander has been quite hungry, it seems, as it took a large-ish bite:

I hope it enjoyed its snack!