I had the huge pleasure of doing a research trip yesterday - connected to my colleague Andrea's project of researching the so-called Albecunde belt. (I've posted about that here, with an image of the band.) So I packed my photo equipment and my digital microscope and some tablet weave samples to cross-check things if necessary, and met up with Andrea. Then we went to Speyer together, to see the band recovered from an unknown cleric's tomb, dated to the 9th or 10th century. Like the Albecund band, this was woven as a band with letters, in red silk.

It is, also like the Albecund band, a simple thing - monochrome threads, made of fine silk with no twist, and all tablets threaded the same way and turning in the same direction for the background, then switching turn direction for the pattern (which is letters). The Speyer band also has a strip at each side that was originally decorated with a bit of simple brocading in silk.

We took a look, and tried to figure out how the original colouring may have been (as there were differences in colour in the side strips depending on whether the brocade had covered a spot or not), and of course we took photos. So many photos! I learned a lot from the mostly blurry photos from the last trip, so this time, there was a proper tripod with an arm to position the camera properly over the object, and getting the lens in plane with the band. There was also a proper digital microscope instead of the cheap children's play version that I had available last time, and oh, what a difference that made.

Now I have a huge amount of photos to sort through. The most important bit, though: There really is no twist in the silk that was used for the warp, and there is the same very strong twist angle to the tablet-woven cords as in the Albecund belt. Both of these are key to making the visual impact of the pattern as strong as possible.

The only thing I need now is a few extra days (or maybe weeks) of time to play around with untwisted, un-degummed silk...

I'm getting asked time and again about what I do with my handspun. Well... that depends.

Sometimes I spin for a museum reconstruction project, so it's spinning for a certain end result, and the threads then get passed on to the weaver, or I do something with them.

Most of the other spinning I do is for no specific purpose, and a lot of it is yarns I do for demonstration. Thus they can be a little inconsistent... because of explanations like "see, this is how you make thicker yarn, and this is how you make thinner yarn, and this has more twist and this less..."

With that kind of yarn, not much is happening. It mostly sits around on spindles somewhere until I take it off, or until I need some bit of string, or have to demonstrate plying (yarn with little twist also plies up shittily, but ah, one copes).

Sometimes, though, I also haul it out (the better, not so inconsistent yarns) to do some experimentation, or fooling around. Like now, when I've set up a warp to test our Blindis band technique reconstruction once more, and (most importantly) take some decent photos of the process.



So... that's a bit of the brown handspun used...

If you need some eyecandy on this Monday evening, you could go to the site of the Met Museum and take a look at this Italian belt from the second half of the 14th century - with lots and lots of beautiful metal ornaments. Lots and lots and lots; so many, in fact, that the beautiful tablet-weave is almost completely hidden.

Fortunately, though, the makers of the Met's digital catalogue also took a photo of the back of the band, at least of one part, and there you can see the weave.

Stunning, isn't it?

 

Things currently happening here:

I'm writing a bit for a short little article about the Albecunde belt - it's more of just a better snippet, but it's still nice to revisit the thing again. It's a lovely piece of tablet weaving, and every time I look at the pictures I have of it, my fingers itch to sit down and make trials with different kinds of silk to find the perfect thread.

[caption id="attachment_5674" align="alignnone" width="300"] Detail from the "A(i)lbecunde" Belt from the Diözesanmuseum St. Ulrich & Afra, Augsburg. Tablet-woven from silk.


You can see in the picture that the angle of the individual cords in the weaving is very, very steep. There's also rather little difference iin apparent "looseness" in the looks of the cords twisted in S and twisted in Z direction - which points to very little, almost non-existant S-twist in the original threads.

The silk embroidery threads that I have already have too much of a twist in them, unfortunately. So I'd love to get my fingers on some gummy silk with almost indiscernable S-twist to give that a try, and that's certainly something that will be needed for the next stage of the project. (If you have a hint on where it's possible to get such silk, please do let me know!)

There's no time for that just now, though. The little piece needs to be written, and then there's some more prep to be done for a travelling exhibition organised under the wings of EXARC. That requires me to do two little snippets of a video, and this time I need a proper script, so I won't babble too much into the wrong directions.

Finally, more writing of some other kind - it's nearing the end of the month, which means, as usually, some newsletter writing. Before, you know, the month is over and I can't title it "November Newsletter" anymore...

Since the question came up - here's some more about the weaving knife from Dublin.

The information I have about is is from a single book:
James T. Lang et al: Viking Age Decorated Wood: A Study of Its Ornament and Style (Medieval Dublin Excavations, 1962-81: Series B, Band 1). 
The knife has the catalogue number DW80 and the additional number (1887:143). It was found near Christ Church Cathedral in unknown context. Length ist 26.7 cm, depth 5.8 cm, thickness 1.3 cm. The original has lost its blade tip (it's broken off), so how exactly the blade ended is conjecture. There is no information about the kind of wood used for the knife.

Here's the knife I have, which was replicated by a friend, complete with the carvings:



And here's the same photo, with the archaeological drawing from Viking Age Decorated Wood, p. 77, as an overlay:


As you can see, it's definitely a very good match (and you can also see the conjectured blade tip).

I haven't been able to find out more about the knife. Apparently, the excavation took place in 1972-1976, and it has not been published completely yet. Finds from the excavation date from the tenth to the early fourteenth century, with most of the evidence from the mid-tenth to the twelfth century. You can find out a little more about the excavation on this website from the Irish Heritage Council.

There is a second smaller knife that was found at Fishamble street, which has a similar overall form, including the cutout on the blade back at the tip. It was on display in the National Museum in Dublin, at least a few years ago; unfortunately, the museum has no online catalogue.

Though it is listed as "weaving knife" in the book, there has been quite a bit of discussion on whether it is one or not, and if yes, for what kind of weaving it was used. The shape especially seems to have caused doubts about its usefulness.

From my own experience working with it, I can only say: I love it. It's very useful for both pressing in the weft (with lots of fine control due to the curved blade), and the tip is handy for clearing the shed, picking out individual threads for checking, it can be used to create a brocading shed, and I also find it very useful when weaving back to undo mistakes. You can read more about my personal experience using it in this post here.