​Can you easily tell the differences in these two cloths?  Could you tell the difference if they were not presented side-by-side?
 

Tabby

Twill

2/1 Lozenge

2/2 Lozenge

2/2 Diamond (Broken-Diamond)

Lozenge Twills from Birka (photo credit to Geijer, Birka iii)

​So What Do I Buy?

​Other Considerations

Broken Diamond Twill from Oseberg with an insanely high threadcount. The diamonds are smaller than a centimeter.

If the linen tabbies may be considered largely domestically produced, the origin of the linen textiles in other weaves is not so clear. Simple 2/2 twill in linen, or probably linen, of which there are four examples at 16-22 Coppergate (1273, 1332, 1403 and 1462), is Fig. 150 Padded pleat, 1462, in carbonised 2/2 twill. Not to scale extremely rare elsewhere, although there may be some examples from Spong Hill in Norfolk (Crowfoot and Jones 1984, 22, 24). Similarly only a small number of 2/2 broken diamond twills in linen are known from Anglo-Saxon sites, from Barrington, Cambridgeshire (G. Crowfoot 1951, 30-32), Finglesham, Kent (E. Crowfoot 1958, 17, 36-7), Sutton Hoo (E. Crowfoot 1983,460) and Spong Hill (Crowfoot and Jones 1984, 24), with counts of 16-18Z x 16-18Z, 22-24Z x 18S, 21-22Z x 15-17Z and 16Z x 16Z respectively, all with varying pattern units.

These linen diamond twills resemble the wool diamond weaves and most probably were woven on the same type of loom and in the same areas as the wool examples; significantly the Finglesham piece is an unusual example of a vegetable fibre, probably flax, being used S-spun for one system in the manner of the wool diamond weaves. Looking beyond Britain, 2/2 twill, whether simple, chevron or diamond, is also rare among the linen finds of Scandinavia and Germany, although some are known, for example at Sievern, Kr. Wesermunde (Hundt 1980, 156-7); one example of 2/2 diamond twill in linen has been recorded as early as the Roman Iron Age at Hemmoor near Hanover (Schlabow 1976,30). 

2/1 twill is not common in any fibre before the 11th century. In the Roman period there are examples in wool from Corbridge, Northumberland, and from Germany: Mainz (Wild 1970, 101, 117) and Feddersen Wierde (Ullemeyer and Tidow 1981, 77). From early Anglo-Saxon England there is a fine 2/1, 30Z x 22Z, from Little Eriswell, Suffolk (E. Crowfoot 1966, 29), probably of flax, and another in wool, 21-25Z x 19-20Z from Broomfield, Essex (E. Crowfoot 1983,473); from the Sutton Hoo ship burial there is also a 2/1 chevron, probably of vegetable fibre (ibid., 439). In Germany there are several 2/1-based pattern weaves, discussed below, and two examples each of 2/1 and 2/1 warp chevron from Elisenhof, all in wool (Hundt 1981, 11, 15). In the 11th-13th centuries the 2/1 structure became much more common throughout north-west Europe, being used for
fine lozenge twills and coarse simple twills, both of wool (see for example the late Viking Age textiles from 6-8 Pavement in York, AY 17/3). However, the 2/1 carbonised weaves from 16-22 Coppergate have a closer resemblance to the earlier linen textiles from Britain and the Continent, in yarn-type and in general appearance, rather than to the later, medieval,
wool finds." ​​

Example of Herringbone Stitch (incorrectly used in this case).

The variation of Herringbone from the Mammen cushion cover. Note this is a much more complex version of the stitch than is usually seen as a decorative element on costume.

One additional type of embroidery that seems to have been practiced even before the Viking Age was the ornamentation of seams. This practice occurred in an earlier related context, on a seam from a seventh-century pillow cover from the Sutton Hoo textiles (Crowfoot, 422), possibly indicating a tradition of some antiquity in north Europe. In the ninth century, one of the Oseberg garment seams is oversewn in some sort of loop stitch with a thread used double (Ingstad, 92). In similar fashion, some of the ninth- and tenth-century Hedeby and Birka finds display corded or braided thread appliqué over the seams (Hägg 1984, 169). The tenth-century Mammen grave contained a wool cushion with embroidery over a seam (Hald, 282). The stitches used on the Sutton Hoo and Mammen finds are similar: both yield a thick, wide strip with a plaited appearance. But whereas the stitch used on the Sutton Hoo pillow was a complex interlaced variant of Vandyke stitch (see the figure on the left below, redrawn from Crowfoot), the stitch used on the Mammen cushion was simpler, a closely-worked variant of herringbone (see the figure on the right below, redrawn from Hald).

Image from _Mammen : Grav, kunst og samfund i vikingetid_ by Mette Iverson.