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!

 

You probably know about my fascination with medieval pins - which is logical, in a way, since they play a part in two of my regions of interest: tailoring and sewing (where they come in very handy, even though I only need very few of them for working), and fastening dress items when wearing them (my headdress, for instance, relies on three pins to make it just so, and it is very comfy and nice to wear that way).

They are humble, and small, and often overlooked. I find them very, very beautiful though, especially close-up. I'm also fascinated by the question of how they were made - there's several different types, and accordingly different methods to make them.

If you also enjoy looking at these little helpers, head over to the Textile Research Centre Leiden's blog, where there's some wonderful digital microscope photos of early modern pin heads!

Both Beatrix and Harma have posted comments about the Egtved cording and the efficiency of the method, or how to make it faster. (Thank you, both of you, for your input! It's much appreciated.)

Cording by hand is always a relatively slow procedure. It can be made a bit quicker with several methods; one way is like Beatrix suggested, using both hands to insert twist.

In some cases, it's even possible to use the hands and leg to roll the two elements into one direction on the leg, then hold them together and ply them by rolling in the opposite direction. Whether that is possible or not depends on the material, the dexterity of the maker, and - last but not at all least - on the required or desired amount of twist to be inserted.

I find that the more twist is needed, the slower the whole process will be, and simultaneously it becomes harder to speed it up with these small changes to procedure. With more twist inserted, the elements get more "lively" and will untwist much easier than with less twist. That is the reason why my fingers are so close to the fell in the video, and why I only insert a little bit of twist before each cross. I have tried to work further away from the fell, inserting more twist at a time, but the probability of losing much of that when doing the crossing (or plying) then is quite high, which makes that method less efficient than the one shown in the video. At least for me - it may be different for someone else. These making things are, after all, very individual.

Regarding the use of both hands to insert said twist: I actually do this, though it is very hard to see in the video. There's only a rather small motion of the left hand fingers before the cross, but it is there. What does take time is the crossing over, and I can't see myself going much faster on that than I am doing already. The elements have to be transferred carefully, or they will lose the necessary twist for the density of the cording. There's probably a bit of speed-up possibility left with more practise, but I don't see much improvement lingering close by. The elements are quite thin which means a lot of crossings, and as stated, those are what takes time. It takes me about 6 minutes to make one cord with this method.

That all said, Harma's suggestion was the use of a modern tool to speed up things...  which is what I actually do for production. (My cord twisting tool is different from the Ashford tool mentioned, though, and more suitable for the specific requirements of the skirt cords.) The estimate of about 1/10th of the time is, unfortunately, not true - that would be wonderful, and extremely fast. That might be the case for a very long cord with a relatively soft twist, but for mine, the speed difference is much less - though still considerable, which is exactly why I use the tool.

I've been trying to practice using my digital microscope - by doing some fibre thickness measurements. Like so many things, this takes a bit of getting used to, and is not quite as easy or straightforward as one might expect... starting from getting things focused properly, to taking a good measurement of the rather fine fibres. It would help to have a greater magnification to have less margin for error (one pixel in or out does already make a difference), but then it's even harder to get a proper focus, and there's fewer fibres per image...

Anyway, here's a picture for you so you can see how that looks:



 
This is the fibre I'm using for the corded skirt, the cord part. I suspect that the measurements I took are a little bit high, because I have another kind of fibre where I know the micron count, and my measurements were consistently higher than the count that was listed... so, well, probably needs some more practice, and some calibrating of my own eye, and possibly I need to move that one pixel inside instead of outside.

Also... taking these measurements is quite time-consuming! Especially regarding the fact that you need to take measurements from about 100 fibres, randomly selected, to get something like a proper histogram of the fleece (or fleece part) that you are looking at. I only took a random sample of some few fibres, and I probably won't go for the 100 for now. There's other things to do that are more important right now (and I know already that the fibre profile of the stuff I can get does not match the Bronze Age sheep...)

So - it seems I've caught up with the things that happened during summer. I've not quite caught up with work, though, or at least it feels like it. There were things to re-order, things to sort, things to send off, and online workshops to prepare, and somehow there is never enough time in a day. Partly because small extra tasks tend to add up, and eat away at the time, too. Such as ordering new printed folders to tell people about what I'm doing, or making new goodies for the orders I send off. (There's usually something included if you get a package from me - a sample of threads or other things I have in the store, sometimes a small piece of parchment, and if you order something spinning related, probably a fibre sample of some kind.)

Current things on the list mostly involve packing and sending off of orders, and getting the sample threads for the Bronze Age Project labeled, packed up, and sent off. Before I send those off, though, I have to do a bit of re-winding, as only a part of them will go for the weave sampling.

Winding, by the way, has become a lot more fun since installing a counter on my skein winder... as in a magnetic counter app on my phone and a magnet on the skeiner. This is the prototype installation, with the magnets held by a piece of tape, but in the meantime, there are three little screws in the skeiner and the magnets hold on to those.



The phone app recognises the peak in magnetic force as the magnets pass the sensors, and thus counts the number of turns the skeiner makes. There's a beep each time, and it's possible to set the threshold for the magnetic force, and all this is very nice and comfy and also pleases my nerdy side. Smartphone! App! Strong magnets! All that to count the number of loops on a skein... for doing reconstructions of ancient textiles! Just the thing that makes me smile.

Packing is going on, quietly, here. Also final planning and organisation stuff for the Forum, and some more website wrangling snuck in (the new setup is resisting some of my efforts very, very valiantly, to my great dismay), and there was a post office run and mailing, and now it's afternoon and I still feel like I have a heap of work to deal with. Sigh.

At least there was Kirschenmichel for lunch, and it was delicious. (That's a kind of casserole with old bread, cherries, and a bit of cinnamon.) There was tea, too. And there might be some chocolate in my near future... at least my choc sense is tingling.

Out of curiosity - are quick self-tests for the Corona virus easily available where you are? And how much are they? In Germany, they are available in pharmacies and drugstores, and generally very cheap (as in one Euro or less), as there's also the possibility to get tested for free with a quick-test in test centres... but I guess that is not the case everywhere?

 

I'm very much looking forward to Sunday - which is when I will do the first online version of my workshop about medieval seams and stitches. It is an intro workshop resulting in a nice little sampler cloth, showing the most usual stitches and some seam and hem variations. It can serve, later, as a help to decide which seam to use, or which kind of hem or neatening will work best.

In the previous courses, I always brought along a few write-on-cloth pens and some extra linen fabric or bands for labels with the stitch names. But since that is not an option for an online class, there's been an upgrade:



Properly woven, nice neat labels for the stitch types.

These were done in a German manufacture on band looms, and they are in organic cotton. If you are looking for labels for something - maybe "handmade by ..." or with your name woven in, or with whatever other text, I can absolutely recommend Bandetikettenweberei Max Windrath, with their absolutely fabulous customer service. (Some of my labels got lost in the post, and the replacement arrived here lightning-fast.)