The Great Wheel had its little outing, I once again got to appreciate how much more evenly I can spin with the spindle and distaff as compared to the wheel, and on the other hand how much faster the wheel is. 

As usual on an event like this, I got to take one quick break (when the guys from the next tent over were doing their fighting show) to dash out of my spot, re-fill my water bottle, get a coffee and a bite to eat, and go back. It was also very sunny on Sunday, so even though the tent provided shade, it got quite hot. Enter the Glorious Medieval Cooling System: The linen underdress and linen headwear will be very, very cooling if wet. Thus part of my water bottle's contents did not go inside of me, but into my dress to wet some of the underdress, and on my head. That worked very well, and kept me comfortable even through the hottest bits of the day.

Then, at the end of our festivities, I found one of the friendly museum ladies to take some pictures of me spinning:

As you can see on the floor, I didn't even make too much of a mess! 

Because I have to wet and stretch the skeins anyways, the plan for the warp yarns this time was that I add some sizing in that process, saving Silvia (who will do the weaving) from that extra prep step.

As it's here and available already, we settled on animal glue for the sizing. The idea behind sizing is to strengthen the threads against friction and abrasion on the loom, making it easier to weave and giving a better end result. So I dissolved some animal glue in warm water, bathed the skeins in their hot bath to set the twist, pressed out as much excess water as possible and gave them a good long soak (about half an hour) in the gluey liquid. 

Well, or at least warp time - I've started spinning for the warp for our textile reconstruction. The first bobbin has been spun, and reeled off, and it was quite a bit of yarn... 

The original textile has very, very tightly twisted yarn in the warp, so I've been trying to spin to the same degree of twist without overtwisting it (so that it corkscrews in places). That is a challenge - but, well, I have a few more kilometers to go, and I'll surely get more relaxed about it soon. 

But for now... the weekend is coming, and I'm very much looking forward to that!

I'm fitting a bit of spinning in every day now - and there's noticeable progress. Or, more precisely: The first three bobbins have been filled, and been reeled off, and now I have the first three skeins of yarn, destined to be the weft yarn for our fabric reconstruction. 

They might not look like much, but it's almost 1.5 km of yarn, with a rather high twist (as you can see from the skeins crunching up). A bit more to go for the weft, and then I will go on to spin the warp yarn, from a different kind of wool and with even higher twist. The warp in the original is actually really, really hard-spun, and it will be interesting to reproduce this. I just hope it will behave on the loom and not be too hard and awkward to weave with!

In this case, "it" is the spinning - with the first bobbin all done and completely filled: 

The second bobbin is not full yet, but as soon as it is, I will wind skeins from both of them, measure the amount done, weigh them, and set the twist. And then the rest will be spun.

I'm starting with the weft in this case, and I'm trying to make it a little bit thicker than in the test run; same will happen with the warp. The weft in the originals is rather unevenly thick and thin, so I'm sort of trying to not pay too much attention to thickness while staying in the appropriate range.

It's funny how trying to match a non-perfect original thread is about as hard (though maybe in a different way) than trying to match a really well-done, almost perfect original thread!

Since I've decided to play it safe(r) and do another test run, here's the result of my not-so-perfect weaving:

Yarn twist in the warp is now definitely closer to the original. Also, my selvedges are quite uneven (sadly, that's pretty normal for me) and there's a bit of a weaving mistake at the start (but on the other side of the fabric, so you can't see it here). 

 I have some warp left, so I can do some fun weaving when I feel like it, and maybe improve a little bit... and otherwise, I'll take another closer look at the sample tomorrow and see how well it matches our goal fabric. And then... spinning can more or less start.

A second round of test spinning has happened, and now it's done and the yarns have had their hot bath and are drying, with a bit of weight to keep them stretched. Next step in the adventure will be to activate all my weaving skills and do a little bit of test weaving with the stronger-spun warp yarns, and see how the fibre combination we're planning to use will work. 

You can see the difference in the amount of twist in the two skeins - the grey one is obviously contracting much more than the white one. Fascinating, isn't it?