From time to time, I get asked if I have a pattern for this or that piece of clothing - to which my usual answer is "No, because there were no patterns in the modern sense used in the Middle Ages". Exceptions may apply for items such as hoods, where it's easy to take the pattern from an archaeological find, and which fits a range of head, neck, and shoulder sizes, and not-really-fitted garments such as high medieval breeches, which are rather huge and don't need a lot of measuring.

For dresses and other fitted items of clothing, though, such as hose? In my opinion, it does not make any sense to offer a pattern in the modern sense for these - because their construction, as it can be reconstructed, did work completely different. To get a result close to what the original garments were, it makes much more sense to follow the procedure that was probably used for the originals than to try and use the industrial, post-19th-century approach to clothes, in graded sizes on paper patterns.

Generally speaking, for the historical construction of garments, you take some key measurements and transfer them to the fabric straight away. It's not even necessary to have a measuring tape for this, you can do it with a piece of string (measuring tapes are a rather late invention as well, at least I was not able to find any evidence for them from earlier than the 17th century). Your building bricks for the garments are geometrical shapes, which means they are easy to cut out of the fabric, and final tweaking takes place straight on the body. In case of the more involved, very tight-fitting garments used in the late Middle Ages, or in case of really expensive fabrics, this cut-then-fit approach can be done first on the lining, and then the lining fabric used as a template for the upper fabric.

The huge advantage of this approach (apart from being much closer to the original method, and thus much better suited to get results that look and fit more like the originals fit their original wearers)? Different body shapes pose a much smaller problem than when you have graded pre-made patterns. Human bodies are quite different from start, and they tend to take on even more different shapes if weight is put on, which is definitely an issue today (it would be interesting how many overweight people there were in the Middle Ages, but that's an entirely different topic and not really relevant for now and here). These very varied ways on where extra fat is stored is one of the reasons why it's much harder to find well-fitting garments for people that are overweight or adipose; some people carry most of the extra weight in the legs, some in the butt, some around the middle, and these differences make for very different shapes, so basic pattern grading will not work properly anymore.

So I'm always a bit to very sceptical when I see "patterns for medieval dresses" somewhere. In my personal experience, a lot of the patterns will not work properly, because - as explained above - the approach is just too different. It's especially, um, "interesting" if the pieces in question have not been published completely yet... as is the case with the Lengberg bra. Apparently this skirted bra has been turned into graded patterns which are now available at a site called Reconstructing History. Apart from the fact that if you use the search engine of your choice to look for reviews of patterns from this place, you'll find a lot of people telling you that they are badly documented, badly graded, and come with not-so-great instructions, I can tell you that the members of the Lengberg research team do not endorse this pattern. It was produced without their co-operation or consent, and they do emphasise that it was made without direct knowledge of the original garments or their patterning.

The Lengberg research team is working on a publication on the garments, and as far as I know, they are also going to make their reconstructions as accessible (and re-tailorable) as possible. I know that patience is hard... but it's probably very well worth it here.

Well, I definitely got your attention with the gummy silk thing yesterday!

First of all, here's a better picture of the two silks side by side:



Now to the answers to all the comments yesterday...

Jessica's comment was:

Following up on the cording and cording tool use discussion - here's a few thoughts about modern tool use for reproducing ancient or old things.

In an ideal world, if you're doing a reconstruction, everything would be as it was in the original - same materials, same processes, same tools. However, that is usually not possible - due to a number of reasons.

Sometimes, getting materials that correspond to the original material is not possible. That is especially the case when working with plant or animal materials that have been undergoing selective breeding for a few hundreds, or thousands, of years since the original item was made. You don't get the medieval varieties of food crops these days anymore (maybe with a few very rare exceptions), and if we're looking at animal materials, whether bone from cattle or wool from sheep, there's been a huge lot of change as well. So compromises may be necessary starting with the material, which will, of course, have an influence on the finished piece.

Using the original tools and processes is the next part that can turn out to be more difficult than one thinks at first. First obstacle is that we often don't know how, exactly, something was made. With a lot of textile work it's possible to use different processes and different tools to arrive at the exact same outcome. You will not be able to tell whether a yarn was spun on a spindle or on a more modern spinning wheel if the spinner takes care to match the properties of the original thread, for example. Same thing applies for a woven fabric - if there's no tell-tale things like a starting border, how could a bit of fabric let you know what loom type it was woven on?

For purposes of research and experiential archaeology (and in some cases, if there's a question to answer and the setup is done accordingly, even experimental archaeology), it would of course be preferable to use tools and processes that are known for the period the original item comes from. However... when a reproduction is commissioned, there is often a limit to the amount of time available before the thing has to be finished, and - even more important - there is also a limit to the amount of money that can be spent on a single item. Both these constraints will make speeding the whole thing up a very attractive, or very necessary, thing.

So while I enjoy working with old methods and reconstructed tools, personally, I have no problem whatsoever with using modern gadgets for my reproduction work if there will be no perceivable difference in the end product. Using an e-spinner for making yarns, or a modern cording tool for making cords, or a treadle loom instead of a warp-weighted one for weaving plain fabrics, these are all things that can still result in a reproduction that is as close as possible to the original while cutting down on costs a lot. And I personally do prefer to make these compromises in the process to make repros more affordable, thus getting more of them out into the world, for people to see and touch and experience, than having a "perfect" replica made once in a blue moon.

Though if you should know of someone wanting to have something made using all old reconstructed methods only - do send them my way, I'd be happy to be part of such a project, too!

 

I've made more progress on the corded skirt, even though it's not very visible. That is mostly because most of the time spent on this project today went into spinning more yarn for the cords...



but there was a bit of weaving, too. I'm now at about 42 cm (the Answer!) of 155 for the corded part. I'm also making "progress" on my podcast backlog list, because both spinning and weaving are a very good opportunity to listen to all these stories and discussions that I have in my subscription list.

It is a lot of fun to weave, and cord, this skirt, but it is taking its sweet time. Also, after a while of sitting on the floor in the weaving or cording position, I really need to remember to take a break to stretch and move a bit. Otherwise I'm feeling it when I finally do get up... it's a slightly weird working position in both cases, and it does take its toll on the hips after a while.

It also does take a good bit of concentration to get everything done as it should be - so I am looking forward to the extended weekend a lot now. We have a bank holiday on Monday here in Germany, so I'll be back on the blog on Tuesday.

One of the things when doing a reproduction or reconstruction that always happens? More testing and trying out methods and materials than you'd have anticipated.

There's often that nagging feeling that there might be a better method. Or a better material. So you're looking at different ways of doing stuff, sometimes completely different, sometimes just a slight variation of what you tried before. At some point, though, there's a working method that does, yes, work - and then it's best to stop messing around and stop looking for something even better, even neater, even closer to the original... even though it may be tempting.

The optimal outcome is when you get to do enough testing beforehand that you end up with a really nice method when starting the actual piece... and that, usually, means more preliminary tests than planned for. Especially when it's a small but important thing that, on its own, is made rather quickly, testing it once more, practising it again, and trying out another fibre can be sort of addictive.

Case in point? The wool-wrapped rings on the bottom edge of the Egtved skirt. Yes, I did get some practice in with making such rings on the belt tassel... but they were still rather awkward to make, took a long time, and I was not overly happy with how the fibre behaved while working the rings.

Especially "took a long time" is a key thing here. With more than 300 rings, each minute that one of the rings takes will make a difference of more than 5 hours total work time. One minute adds up. The rings on the original also look very nice and neat... which can be achieved by picking the right wool.



There's a lot of different possibilities to make these rings, starting from what happens with the ends of each cord to how they are inserted into the fibre wrap or how the fibre is wrapped around them. My current favourite process involves a skewer stick, two needles, and longer ends to work the rings, and its end result looks like this:



Here's a picture of some of the original rings for comparison:

[caption id="attachment_6529" align="alignnone" width="300"] Detail from this image from the Danish National Museum.


So... what do you think? Is it a match?

The belt has finished drying after its final soak now - so it is all done and ready now!



It was not hard to do - not the weaving, nor the cord-twisting, nor the ring-making, though all parts had a little tendency to be fiddly. The wool was slightly sticky (which was remedied with the application of some size), twisting the cords took a bit of time until my fingers got back into the smooth action, and wrapping the end rings with fibre did turn out to be the fiddliest thing of all of the process.

I will definitely look into improving my method for the many, many ring ends on the skirt! At least after some more tries now I know that the fibre has an immense influence on how the wraps look, and how easy they are to make. Which means that I might end up using a different wool fibre than the one I had planned to use, as the results are just so, so much better.

It's amazing how sometimes small differences between materials can have a really, really huge impact. Have you had a similar experience with two kinds of wool that appeared not so very dissimilar at first glance showing very different behaviour, or very different outcomes?