Well... at least in the Wall Street Journal.

Janet Stephens, a professional hairdresser, has researched and tried to re-model Roman hairstyles (the ones often said to have been wigs). I have personally never really bought into that theory, so I'm very happy to see that someone has managed to do it on non-wig hair (and is also quite sure it can be done normally).

Go read the lovely little article about the Roman hairdressing (also because it involves needles and thread).

Meanwhile, I will be here and very happy about the bit where a journal editor says that this was something that needed a craftsperson, and that no normal scholar would have written such a piece as the article published in 2008, "Ancient Roman Hairdressing: On (Hair)Pins and Needles."(Published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, in case you now really want that.)

Finally, all things necessary have come together: The wood that I need, the machines and tools that I need, and the lovely upstairs neighbour with time on his hands to show me how to use the machines. So on the weekend, I started work on the new wool wheel.

As German strategist von Moltke once said, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" - I have already made some changes to the plan that I drew in meticulous work. The board that will carry all the rest of the wheel has gotten somewhat slimmer (so that it could fit into the planing machine), and it's not all even (though that does not bother me a bit), and it's about 5 cm shorter than intended originally. But all that is no big deal, since the plan was more or less drawn after a Psalter illumination and part of the plan was to adjust as necessary.

In addition to the wheel, and in some way also to practice some of the procedures, I am also planning to build a crossbar-and-post tablet weaving "loom", which means a run to the hardware store today. And the loom will come in very, very handy for my latest weaving project which will also travel with me to the RGZM in two weeks. Fortunately, the thing is an utterly simple affair... rendered even simpler by my planning on how to build it.

There has been a project resulting in the virtual reconstruction of 1350 Bergen in Norway. If you can read Norwegian, you might be interested in the official accompanying page here. There's even a .pdf on that page about the basis for the reconstruction - brilliant!
If you don't read Norwegian (or don't feel like it) and only want to see the film, you can do it right here:



(or follow it over to its home on youtube, where you can watch it in much bigger).

I just realised that I somehow never got around to posting pictures of the chess-playing couple that I made for Hartenstein - so here you go, a few photos...

Closeup of the buttons on the blue dress (worn beneath the short-sleeved pink dress):

The man getting dressed. If you don't put the arms in first, it won't work, so they inevitably look like colourful pancakes with arms in at some point:


Last touchups on the fully dressed lady:

 Travelling to their new home in the car:

And sitting in their new spot at the museum:

I really like how those two turned out, and I'm still totally in love with the idea of showing a couple in a game of chess - showing a medieval pastime, a game, male and female clothing at once, and all that together with an intimate and romantic touch. Now I hope the people at the museum will also like it as much!

I will let you know when they will be officially made part of the museum and on view for the public, which will be very soon probably.

When we modern folks are confronted with some archaeological find of yet unknown use, sometimes speculations ensue that seem totally plausible and yet can be quite wild. That's no wonder... knowledge dies out once something is not in use anymore, and that, in the worst case, leaves us guessing wildly on what this or that might have been used for. Or saying "unknown use". A bit like the children in this video...




I had a lot of fun watching it - and it is amazing, and also sobering, to see how easy it is for totally known and common things to drop out of the experience pool of the next generation. It's no wonder that we archaeologists sometimes stand in front of some find and really, really don't have any clue whatsoever at what that might be!

Years and years ago, at a small conference in Bamberg that a colleague of mine organised, I met with a few very interesting and very nice ladies. And with one of them, I somehow got to talking about buttons.

That was not so long after I had made a little hood with buttons after Textiles and Clothing, and I had made my buttons just like Crowfoot suggests: Cut a circle, pull it together by sewing along the edge, maybe stuff it with cloth and strengthen it by sewing through it in circles. That did work, but was somehow awkward, and it took quite a long time to do, and left the cut edges of the button quite exposed on the underside.

And Véronique Montembault then told me about a different method, one that she had reconstructed and now used for her cloth buttons: Cut a square of cloth, fold the corners in and fasten them with a few stitches; then fold the corners in again and fasten them; then fold the corners in again. The last fold-and-pull action tightens the button into a roundish shape; if there are still slight corners left, I stitch into them, pull the thread across the underside of the button and stitch into the next protruding bit. With soft fabric, it sometimes helps to make the button nice and firm to stuff a bit extra material into it before folding corners in the second time, but with firm fabric, just the square is enough. The cloth bits for this method are easy to cut out, do not waste fabric, make lovely little buttons in very little time, and all the cut edges of the fabric bits are hidden inside the button where they can't fray at all.

I did not use that knowledge about how to make buttons differently for years - but now I've made a heap of cloth buttons for the Hartenstein garments, and with every button, I felt really glad that I had been to that conference and met with somebody who gave me that little gem of knowledge (she demonstrated with a dark red paper napkin, by the way) that made my life so much easier now and button-making so enjoyable. And now I'm passing it on.

Cut a square out of your button-making fabric; try 3 cm side length for a smaller button, 4 cm for a large one. Thread a needle with thread, make a knot on the end of the thread and stitch through all four corners of the square, front to back, close to the edges and once more through the first corner; pull gently on the thread to bring them together. Now you can push them down onto the middle of the square. I now stitch a small circle around the middle of the now smaller square, to hold the corners down and strengthen the button top. Now stitch through the four new corners again (all four and the first one a second time) and pull together; this gives you a little pyramid shape, or something resembling a flower with four petals. I fix the middle by stitching just once through the button top and back.
Now the final fold. Like before, stitch through the four corners and the first on a second time. Try to squash the button into a rounded button-form with one hand and pull on the sewing thread with the other hand, making the button nice and tight. Stitch into all bits that stick out on the round and pull them together by criss-cross-stitching on the base of the button. When I'm content, I just stitch through the button to the button-top and back again once and then snip the thread.

And that's all there is to a folded button from a square bit of fabric. Enjoy!

I should have posted this yesterday, but I somehow hadn't gotten around to taking a pho was too lazy yesterday morning to take a picture. Here are the cloth buttons on one of the sleeves, already popped through their respective buttonholes.


That's a Euro one-cent piece included for scale. Welcome to 14th century button madness! I ended up attaching 22 buttons to that sleeve opening, so it will be about double that on the two sleeves together.

And those are definitely representative garments - because even if button-making is not taking so very long for each button once you have the method down pat, it is amazing how long the combination of making the button, attaching the button to the prepared (strengthened) edge and cutting and sewing the button hole will take. Those posh button rows are a time-consuming thing, and it is also rather time-consuming to button it all up when you are dressing in one of those things. Years ago, I made a hood with small cloth buttons after a find from London, and I have very rarely worn it buttoned, because it takes so long to pop every single button through its appropriate buttonhole.

Looks quite nice, though, doesn't it?