My Journey as a Viking Age Costumer

Pennsic Prep... and other things

7/17/2017

I can never just do what I need to do, in any sensible order. I did, in fact, prep the RV and do some Pennsic Packing this weekend, but I also spent some time trying out indigo dyeing (I need a long blue wool veil) and finished up a Hedeby purse.

The dye I used was actually an indigo tie-dye kit from Dharma. It has everything you need to set up a vat very quickly and with little chance of error. As I am only a dabble-dyer, and have never used indigo or woad before, I opted for easy. I will definitely use this again! I did three dips with my wool gauze veil, 3 with a small piece of silk habotai, and Lady Rosamund came over and dyed 3 skeins of wool yarn and several scraps of wool cloth and felt.

My one comment is to buy LONG rubber gloves if you dont want blue fingernails!

http://www.dharmatrading.com/kits/starter/sets/indigo-dye-kit.html

Less than 2 weeks till War! I cannot wait!

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Linen Experiments

8/18/2014

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I love linen. Most of my garb is sewn from linen fabric. I have experimented with weaving it. I had tried to grow it (will attempt that again in a few years when I am living at the farm property full-time and can water plants during the dry months). At last, this weekend, I tried to spin it.

The first few yards were rough, as it is indeed very different than spinning wool. However, once I got a feel for a slippery fiber that does not tend to grab its neighbors (doing half of the work for me in the drafting process), it was spinning wonderfully.

Interestingly enough, I found that it seemed to spin most easily on my smaller, low whorl spindles. Normally I prefer top whorl spindles with wide, light-weight whorls. For this, so far, my favorite tool is this spindle with a Sami reindeer antler whorl purchased a couple of years ago from Feed The Ravens/Viking-U-Like. The thread I am spinning is quite fine and I will attempt to ply it to be used as sewing thread. Plying will also be an adventure as I have only ever plied with my spinning wheel, even if the singles yarn was produced on drop-spindles. I will finally make myself learn to ply without the wheel.

And while dyeing is not my first love, I have also decided to experiment a bit with linen dying. I know the fiber does not take to dye as well as wool, but I am determined to get something more than the palest shades out of dyed linen.

For this experiment, I took linen yarn and (after washing with synthropol) steeped it in a solution made from oak galls (that I have been collecting for a year) for 24 hours. The linen went from white to a tawny shade, so I know that it will sadden the final color, but hopefully the final dye will take better over that. Currently it is in the alum mordant, and tonight it will go into a dyebath of madder root. In the photo below you can see the color obtained from the oak galls on both the linen yarn and a swatch of linen fabric.

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Wool Dyeing Process Experiment

2/3/2014

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Combed wool.

I excited to finally get this project underway! I had intended to start it in the fall, but the vendor I was hoping to buy fleece from disappeared on me. I found another white Icelandic fleece in December and finally got it washed last week and started combing a portion of it this past weekend.

I am curious to see how different fabric looks when dyed at different stages in the textile creation process. At Coppergate wool was found that was dyed in the fleece with madder (Walton, 1713) and some of the tabbies from the Oseberg ship burial were dyed after the cloth was woven (Ingstad). This got me thinking about how garments that are dyed in the wool, yarn-dyed or dyed after weaving would differ in final appearance and feel.

So now I have a fleece which is cleaned and separated into 3 equal portions (of about 7oz each) which I will process and dye. One sample will be dyed in the fleece, spun and then woven. The next will be spun into yarn, dyed and then woven. The last will be spun, woven and then the resulting fabric swatch will be dyed. All wool will be combed prior to spinning and all samples will be woven on a rigid heddle loom. The dye will be madder and all samples will be dyed at once (with locks, yarn and fabric going into the same dyebath to insure consistency). I hope this goes well as I look forward to seeing how the results compare.

White Icelandic ewe's fleece being combed. The puff on the table next to the comb is the 'waste' the short bits of the thel that are too short (1-2 inches) to blend into the rest of the wool. I always save these bits of fine fluff and will eventually either card it or use it to stuff a pillow.

Resources

Ingstad, Anne Stein. "The Textiles in the Oseberg Ship". http://forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Oseberg/textiles/TEXTILE.HTM

Walton, P. "Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate." The Archaeology of York Volume 17: The Small Finds. 1977.

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New Dyeing Book Coming Soon from Jenny Dean

1/9/2014

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I love both Jenny Dean's Wild Colour book and her blog, which is home to her Anglo-Saxon Dye experiments. She has great information and her books are more than wonderful for a novice dyer like myself.

I was very happy today to see that she has a new book coming out this summer about historical dyeing!

More information can be found below (and you can bet I have added this already to my wishlist!)

http://www.jennydean.co.uk/index.php/a-heritage-of-colour-my-new-book/

http://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Colour-Natural-Dyes-Present/dp/1782210369/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389293087&sr=1-12&keywords=jenny+dean

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Moving Forward

11/4/2013

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Too many projects at once and too much work has been needed on my car, so little progress has been made! I did, however, finally cut out my Ottoman coat for 12th Night. Some of the fabrics I may be using are below. The Rust colored fabric with the repeating medallion motif is one I have had from sometime and it will become the Entari. The golden fabric is linen that shall be the coat lining and the green is silk for the facing.

The large pomegranate pattern on the left will possibly be a set of sleeves or hat or even the lower part of a pair of salwar (pants). The lovely large scale pattern on the right will become shoes and possibly a hat. I also have blue linen on which I will stencil a pattern for my chirka.

I also found that one of the oak trees near the cabin is infested with oak galls. I have been collecting these for a few weeks now (I now have 3 or 4 times as many as I have in this picture) and will be crushing them to test some dying out with them. I hope to have enough galls to run small samples of both wool and linen using two different mordants (alum and iron). I look forward to seeing how the samples turn out!

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Ottoman Fabrics for the SCAdian: Part 2 - Color

9/5/2013

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This masterwork of silk does not repeat the pattern in the entire garment.

There was no lack of color in the attire of the Ottoman nobility. The range of dyes they could produce covered the spectrum, as is shown in both extant textiles and in paintings of the time period.

Commonly used plant dyes (with mordants of alum, iron, tin, or copper) were indigo for blues; madder for reds and oranges on wool; weld, safflower, larkspur and saffron were used for oranges and yellows; certain types of buckthorn berries gave green; and brazilwood gave purplish red. Insect based dyes such as kermes, lac, and Mexican cochineal produced the most vibrant and valuable reds and crimsons.

Additional colors were produced by overdyeing one color with another. A yellow dye over indigo gave greens, indigo and henna produced blacks and indigo with a crimson dye produced deep purples.*

Late 16th Cent Ottoman Painting. (Photo credit British Museum)

Miniature paintings also show a variety of colors being employed by the residents of the Ottoman Empire. Blues, reds, oranges, greens and yellows appear on people from varying walks of life. Based on paintings, we can also determine that colors appear to have been used liberally, with little modern sense of "matching" (likewise with patterns).

Some personal things that I keep in mind when making color choices for an Ottoman persona:

If I were to create a garment for someone of high status I would plan to use a rich crimson at least somewhere in the costume, if at all possible.
If I have fabric woven with metal threads (such as the Indian jacquard in the below photo) I would also use it only for someone of high status, as serasar was only available to the very wealthy.
I always use white for the gomlek (this is all I have seen in paintings, though there is one that could possibly be interpreted as indigo), but it is good to keep in mind that white is also an option for a woman's pants.
If I were to create the impression of a non-upper class person, I would lean towards oranges or orange-reds rather than crimson or blue-based reds for color choice in the red family.
A well-chosen, rich color in a solid fabric (such as a velvet or satin) can read better as a period reproduction than an overly busy quilting cotton that employs far too many colors. (Often I will use a solid for a coat and reserve that lovely, but busy print for the pants.)
While deep or bright colors were highly prized and more prevalent, there were also Imperial garments in white or pale shades such as taupe or rose.
The facing of the coat was often a contrasting color (as shown in the green Imperial caftan below). I have seen red, yellow, light blue, olive, bright turquoise, rust, grey, or hot pink, with other hues possible as well. The lining of the garment could be a plain white (or beige) linen or cotton, or could be colored fabric as well.
Typically somber colors such as the darkest blues, black and dark greys were used for mourning, modesty or to show one's piety.
When looking to patterned fabrics, I try (though it is not always possible) to pick textiles that have a few colors, but not too many (again, that can be a failing of modern quilting cottons when used for recreating historic costume). Often striking patterns were achieved with only two colors. For more colors at once, a popular color combination for brocades was red/yellow/blue or red/yellow/blue/white. Red was the predominant color, with yellow (or gold metal) following that and small accents or outlines in blue or blue/white.
As always, I never knock the idea of using anything at least semi-appropriate that is already dwelling in the fabric stash. :-)

For a selection of both extant textiles and extant art, please visit my Pinterest page to see further examples of the amazing range of colors used for Ottoman silks.

http://pinterest.com/alfrunketta/ottoman-and-middle-eastern-costume/

* Dye information came from two sources: Topkapi Saray Museum: Costumes, Embroideries and Other Textiles and Ipek: The Crescent & the Rose: Imperial Ottoman Silks and Velvets.

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Dyeing Results: Experiment #1 - Part 2

4/3/2013

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I could not be more thrilled with this!

Here is crewel wool from Renaissance Dyeing that I dyed myself with madder (the same madder bath as in the previous post, but I mordanted the wool for three days before soaking in the dyebath for 7 more days). I LOVE the color!

This yarn, btw, takes dye exceptionally well.

Now, of course, I am contemplating a project for a hand spun, hand-dyed, and hand woven mantle f

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Dyeing Results - Experiment #1

4/1/2013

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Over the last several weeks I have been experimenting with natural dyes. The only dyeing I have previously done was in 2009 (I think) with onion skins. I managed a lovely marigold color with those (on wool) on my first attempt, but only a pale, dull yellow when I tried a second batch.

I have known for years that I wanted to weave my own fabric, and given that I also recently took up spinning, a more serious attempt at natural dyeing seems to be the logical next step. So, I tried a couple of dye baths with madder and weld (and still have another madder bath going) and below are my initial results.

Above you can see my initial attempts. This is a white wool roving that I dyed with weld (left) and madder (middle and right). They were each mordanted with alum for 12 hours. The weld sat in the dye bath for 4 hours (I wish now I had left it longer), the madder in the middle was there for 3 days and the madder on the right was 5 days.

I actually still have that same madder bath going as it was not nearly exhausted. The items I added this time were mordanted for 3 days and the wool has been in the dye for 7 days so far.

The yarn above is my Icelandic hand spun (2 ply). On the left is undyed (it was a natural heathered beige) and the center has the madder and to the right is the weld. These skeins soaked in the same dye baths as the wool roving. I actually like how the weld looks on the heathered yarn more than I do on the roving.

Now, I cannot make something just for the sake of making it, even if it is something you have to practice a lot in order to obtain a quality product. (I actually guess that would be a period practice as well, lol.)

So, the skeins of dyed yarn are being woven into a tablet band that will start a warp for a miniature warp-weighted loom that I am constructing. For the band design, I was inspired by the double diamond pattern of the image to the left. This is a fragment of an extant band from Kaupang (more info can be found in Hilde Thunem's document here http://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html ). It appears from the diagram that the original might have been brocaded, but given that this is for warping purposes it is not a technique I wanted to test out on this particular piece.

I also will admit that do not truly understand the "how" of tablet weaving just yet. I can print a pattern off of the internet, set up the weaving according to the directions and follow the turn turn/flip pattern that they suggest, but this piece is my first attempt at really understanding the process of how weaving with cards creates a pattern. So, I drafted the pattern myself, set it up and fuddled with it until I got the weaving to show the pattern I was expecting.

Plan to weave a bit of the band on either side of the warp, so you can see below that I have started the left hand bit of the weaving.

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Pennsic Prep... and other things

Linen Experiments

Wool Dyeing Process Experiment

New Dyeing Book Coming Soon from Jenny Dean

Moving Forward

Ottoman Fabrics for the SCAdian: Part 2 - Color

Dyeing Results: Experiment #1 - Part 2

Dyeing Results - Experiment #1

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