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Katrin How on earth did they do it?
27. März 2024
Ah, that's good to know! I might have a look around just out of curiosity. I've since learned that w...
Heather Athebyne How on earth did they do it?
25. März 2024
...though not entirely easy. I've been able to get my hands on a few strands over the years for Geor...
Katrin Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
Bruce Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
I think the closest English equivalent would be 'Down the rabbit hole'. It has one entrance (No, not...
Harma Spring is Coming.
20. Februar 2024
I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...

Subcategories from this category:

silk, fur and leather
DEZ.
19
2

How on earth did they do it?

If you're looking at medieval embroideries, you will, sooner or later, stumble across one that has been embellished with pearls. Seed pearls. As in tiny, miniscule specimens of pearls, smaller than anything you will easily get today. (Or get at all, in some cases.)

A while ago, I was looking for a source for pearls to do embroidery medieval style, but to no avail. The company that I found which in theory offered small pearls (with a diameter of 1 to 1.5 mm, as that's the size we're talking about) told me, on my inquiry, that they don't have pearls that small at all, and if they had, nobody would be able to drill a hole into them.

That was done, however. I'm wondering, together with a lot of other people, how medieval and early modern and modern people managed to drill holes into pearls so small that it seems you can hardly see them. With techniques possible in the Middle Ages...

To give you an idea of the tinyness of these things, compare the size of these seed pearls to the size of the modern glass-headed pin:

They are utterly, utterly tiny, and if anyone has an idea of how the holes might have gotten into these pearls, or how they may have been strung up, or sewn to a textile (these haven't, of course, but others did) they would be more than welcome! 

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MAI
10
0

Finally Fully Degummed.

A while ago I wrote about dyeing silk and different outcomes, depending on whether it had been degummed or not. My degumming try that I referenced back in that post ended up being not completely successful, as some of the gum had still stayed in. 

I finally got around to doing it again, with a fresh sample, and this time I made sure to steep it to death, or something very close - it stayed in the hot soapy bath for a full hour, and I used de-ionised water to avoid any hindrance by our rather hard tap water. 

And here's the result:

As you can see, there's four samples now. The one on the bottom is the silk dyed in the gum, the one on top is untwisted degummed embroidery silk dyed together with the gummy silk. On the small roll in the middle, the bottom one is the outcome of my last trial, partly degummed, and on top is the completely degummed silk. 

It's become very light in colour, even lighter than the silk that was degummed before dyeing. I had expected something like that - either a bit lighter, or somewhere around the colour of the embroidery silk. 

There is definitely more shine now, but it is also much more delicate; I've had several snaggy bits even though it's a twisted silk. 

So my current conclusions are:

If you want to work with silk that has next to no twist at all, leaving it gummy or partly gummy might be a good idea to up the stability. The sericin also seems to take natural dyes much better, so if you want to have really deep, vivid colours... leaving it gummy or partly gummy is, again, your friend. In case you want it to be utterly shiny, though, degumming is the way to go.

Though I had the impression that the thin strands of gummy silk, with about 20 den, are also looking quite shiny. More exploration might be necessary...

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FEB.
11
2

De-gumming Results.

So, here we are - de-gumming results:

The procedure I did yesterday resulted in colour loss and definitely loss of some, but not all sericin - the silk still has a rather firm hand and is stiffer than I'd expect it to be if completely de-gummed.

 


You can see the narrow band of lighter silk on the gummy original silk, and the completely de-gummed and then dyed silk on the left side. Maybe I should take another small sample of the gummy silk and try to get all the gum out by boiling it within an inch of its life? See what happens then?

In other news, I've been busy in the background working on the website re-launch. As usual, it eats up all the time it can and then some, and there's other things to take care of and work on (such as the Egtved Project, for which you're also due an update), too, so it's actually feeling a little like a wonder that I have made as much progress as I have. The learning curve is also rather steep - in the past few days, I've successfully dabbled in CSS, altered php scripts (do not leave an extra . in or you will get a lovely error), edited sql tables by adding columns, written an sql update thingummy to replace values in a column (it's called Abfrage in German and I don't know the English term), and used a regular expression for a search-and-replace routine. I've also cursed the inconsistency of things when an installation went wrong and pondered the pros and cons of starting over or not. (Verdict? I'll try, and if it goes wrong, I'll go with the semi-clean install that seems to work okay for now.) At least I cannot complain about lack of challenges in all kinds of fields!

 
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JAN.
26
0

Surcot Ouvert with fur lining

This is the sewing project I finished Friday, a sideless surcot. It had been on my list for ages.
I finally started sewing it this winter, with high hopes of keeping warmer next year during the colder parts of the season.

Cut and proportions are based on the garments from Burgos de las Huelgas, in Spain. Unfortunately, I am too poor to afford handwoven silk brocade in bright colours with arabian characters brocaded into a broad strip on the fabric, or something similar.
Thus it is made from blue wool twill, sewn with linen thread, and the upper part is lined with rabbit fur (there was rabbit fur lining found with one of the royal surcots, though, so this at least is similar material).
Should this prove not warm enough, I will add in more fur, but for the moment, I am quite content.


Since I dragged the unfinished piece around folded together, it still has some creases that will gradually hang out. And, of course, there's still lots of rabbit fur clinging to the fabric. But all that is left to do is shake out the garment and brush it down once, and then maybe hang it into the damp bathroom for a few hours to smoothe the creases... and so I can tackle the next thing on my craft projects list.

Which is? Let's call it "simple precision tablet weaving" for now.
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JAN.
12
0

Garment Production

After a phase of almost no sewing work, things have advanced during the last two or three weeks.
I have finally finished a kruseler that is now waiting to be tried out with the appropriate hairdo underneath, and a woolen sideless surcote is finished apart from the hem. The upper area of the surcote is lined with rabbit fur for extra warmth, and I am looking forward to testing this garment, though proper wearing will have to wait some months.

While working with fur, I have also decided to sew myself fur mittens. I get very cold fingers very fast, and I have rabbit furs and wool, so why not make fur-lined woolen mittens to keep my hands warm? I wanted to make non-modern ones (of course) so I can also use them on medieval events during winter time (or in severely cold spots). For medieval handwear, both gloves and mittens are known, and in the 14th and 15th century, even "lobster mittens" (two compartments for two fingers each, and the thumb) can be found on pictures. I opted for the earlier (and warmer) classic mitten type, though.

There are not many finds of fur garments, and cut and shape are usually impossible to tell from pictures. But the bookshelf, again, comes to the rescue with Rainer Atzbach's wonderful thesis about the finds from Kempten in Southern Germany. The Mühlbach-Ensemble in Kempten is a complex of a few buildings that sported hollow spaces between floor layers and between rooms. Those were filled with remnants of daily life - fragments of clothes, wood pieces, dust, straw, coins, paper scraps, and so on. Because there was no soil environment, and because it was all kept dry all the time, vegetable fibres and furs have kept well.

Fur usually degenerates in the soil, due to the tanning process (with alum) that does not result in leather as resilient as oak-tanned (or similarly tanned) leather. Thus, tannin-tanned leather might still be found in digs with good conditions, while furs or alum-tanned leathers will have disappeared. And this is why the Kempten finds are so important: It is the largest known find of furs from medieval times. If you can read German, Rainer's book "Leder und Pelz am Ende des Mittelalters und zu Beginn der Neuzeit: Die Funde aus den Gebäudehohlräumen des Mühlberg-Ensembles in Kempten (Allgäu)" is definitely worth a look. It is not only a documentation of the finds from Mühlberg, but he also gives very well-researched, concise histories of leather and fur garments. If you need to know something about shoes and fur garments, the book is a good start to delve deeper into the topic.

By the way, the first mitten fur lining is finished already, and the second one is coming along nicely. I hope to finish both mittens, including the woolen layer, on Friday.
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