For the exhibition in Bad Staffelstein, I made video snippets to demonstrate both how the textile techniques look "in action" and to give a small impression about how time-consuming textile works can be. Here's one of the four snippets I made, showing tablet weaving in twill structure, done with modern weaving tools (also known as butchered playing cards). I translated the text into English - it's German in the exhibition, of course.

It's no teaching video, but it does show my weaving setup and work procedures - so tablet weavers might be able to see what I'm doing and how, and others hopefully still get an impression of how long such work takes, and that it's not the tools or any machinery that make the pattern, but the brains and hands of the person working.

After yesterday's high aspirations to luxury thread, today it's back down to earth in the Market Stall. I proudly and happily present to you the most basic of tools for the textile trade:

The Abysmally Underestimated and Neglected Spindle Stick!

While spindle-whorls are common archaeological finds, and while there are hundreds of dozens of spindles in all kinds of homes, working or not, the spindles themselves - that is, the sticks - are not something commonly seen for sale on markets. And I asked myself: Why? While there are not so many conserved wooden spindle sticks (I could write just "spindle", but I want to prevent any misunderstandings) around, the situation is still much better than that on textiles. And there are textiles on any medieval event.

I found out soon why they are not commonly for sale. Medieval spindles are usually rather slender with a double-conical form. With as little as two or three millimetres diameter at the ends, and not much more than a centimetre at the thickest place, they are too slim to be turned on just any lathe - the thin stick starts to wobble, making an efficient production difficult or impossible. But spinning with a much thicker double-conical spindle stick, which would pose no problems when turning, will not work as well. And, even more important, that stick won't fit the whorls so smoothly. And you want your spindle to fit your whorls, all of them, so you can just change. For example, have three spindle sticks, spin on one until it's full, spin on the second until it's full, and then ply both singles together on the third stick before removing your ball of plied yarn from that spindle, freeing all three again. And that will work only if you can change your whorl from spindle stick to spindle stick - and preferably, if you have more than one whorl, this would work with any of your stash.

In contrast, most modern spindles are seen differently, with the whorl and the spindle stick firmly belonging together. And most spindle makers just have their own method that will cut out the need for double-conical spindle sticks - often they use a stick that is firmly fixed to the whorl and not conical in shape. So the market for spindle sticks seems to be not so large. And if you want just one single stick, you can always take a knife and whittle it down to fit your whorl(s). If you are like me, that is possible yet not pleasing, because I'm not so good a whittler, and most of my "make a spindle" efforts were not so successful. Whittling down some wood to get a rounded, conical and slender shape is not too easy, I found.

So after searching a while, I finally found a workshop that accepted the challenge. And now they are back: Double-conical spindle sticks, made from beech wood, modeled after a find from Bergen in Norway. They are 11 mm thick at the fattest part, 3 mm at the ends, and 27 cm long. Need I say they are a pleasure to spin with?

Today is an exception to my normal posting rules, since you are finding mostly German text here - it's the info for the workshops at Cave Gladium. Our idea was to offer a learning space and opportunity at the Cave, since that is a time and place where lots of living history people are already together, so travel costs and extra organisation time for the participants would be really, really low.

Since the info about the workshops seems to have gotten a little lost in the forum pages at the Cave website, I'm posting the description here again. So if you are interested in attending a show fighting workshop, or would like to learn how to dye with plants, or how to forge a knife, or how to weave 3/1 twill on tablets without counting and sticking to a pre-made pattern, or learn a few new loop-braiding patterns, you can This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. At least the forging and textile workshops should also be possible in English, if there should be any language problems.


Schaukampf - aber richtig
Unter diesem Motto freuen wir uns, in diesem Jahr einen Workshop anbieten zu können, der zeigt, dass es nicht einer blutigen Nase und ein paar ausgeschlagener Zähne bedarf, um auf höchstem Niveau einen Zweikampf zum Besten zu geben. Dabei werden alle Aspekte der Sicherheit und Erhaltung der eigenen Gesundheit beachtet, ohne damit der Begeisterung der Mitwirkenden und der Zuschauer Abbruch zu tun.
An drei Tagen werden die Grundlagen des unbewaffneten Kampfes, Fallen und Rollen bis hin zum Schwertkampf vermittelt. Das Ergebnis wird am Ende des Workshops in einer kleinen Choreographie dem Publikum präsentiert.
Voraussetzungen: Es ist durchaus hilfreich, wenn der Teilnehmer bzw. die Teilnehmerin über eine durchschnittliche körperliche Fitness verfügt und schon einmal ein Schwert in der Hand gehalten hat.
Mitzubringen sind: sportliche Kleidung, festes Schuhwerk (Trainingswaffen werden gestellt)
Kursgebühr: 140,- € pro Person
Zeiten: Freitag: 16 bis 20 Uhr
Samstag: 9 bis 12 Uhr
Sonntag: 9 bis 12 Uhr

Brettchenweben mal anders
Keine Lust mehr, einem festgeschriebenen Schnurbindungsmuster zu folgen? Neugierig, was sich mit Brettchenweberei und einem ganz einfachen Aufzug alles anfangen lässt? Im Workshop webt jede/jeder ein Band zum spielerischen Ausprobieren in zwei kontrastierenden Farben. Der Kettaufzug lässt verschiedene Diagonalenmuster und Köperbindung zu, die mit etwas Hintergrundwissen zu den Grundlagen der Köperbindung frei kombiniert werden können.
Voraussetzungen: Der Kurs ist kein Anfängerkurs, sondern richtet sich an Brettchenweberinnen und -weber, die bereits etwas Erfahrung gesammelt haben.
Mitzubringen: Zum Aufziehen der Kette werden helles und dunkles Garn benötigt; empfehlenswert sind nicht zu dünne Webgarne, etwa in Stärke von Sockenwolle. Das helle und das dunkle Garn sollten jeweils auf zwei Knäuel gleicher Größe aufgeteilt werden, weil dies den Aufzug stark vereinfacht. Pro Knäuel werden mindestens 25 m Lauflänge benötigt (reicht für eine zwei Meter lange Kette). Mitzubringen sind außerdem, falls vorhanden, 12 Vierlochbrettchen.
Kursgebühr: 70,- € pro Person (ganztägig)
Material bei Bedarf bitte vorbestellen
Zeiten: Samstag 15.08.2009

Schmieden bei David Schütze
Der Einsteigerkurs ist für Menschen geeignet, die von der historischen Technik der Metallverarbeitung fasziniert sind, sich aber bisher nicht aktiv damit beschäftigt haben. Vorkenntnisse sind nicht erforderlich. Werkzeug- und Materialkunde werden ebenso vermittelt, wie die grundlegenden Techniken des Schmiedens und ein kurzer Einblick in die Geschichte des Handwerks. Die Teilnehmer stellen ein einfaches Messer selbst her.
Voraussetzungen: Einsteigerkurs (keine Vorkenntnisse notwendig)
Fortgeschrittenenkurs (mit Vorkenntnissen)
Mitzubringen sind: --
Kursgebühr: 140,- € pro Person (Einsteiger)
210,- € pro Person (Einsteiger)
incl. Material, Werkzeug und Versicherung
Zeiten: Samstag 15.08.2009

Färben bei Sabine Ringenberg
Pflanzenfarbe ist ein faszinierendes Thema. Wie wird sie auf der Faser haltbar gemacht? Welche Unterschiede gibt es beim Färben von Seide, Wolle oder Leinen? Auf diese Fragen gibt der Einsteigerkurs von Sabine Ringenberg Antwort. Mit selbst gesammelten Pflanzen wird die eigene Wolle oder Seide gefärbt. Dabei werden die gängigsten Beizverfahren ebenso behandelt, wie die Nachbehandlung und weitere Verarbeitung des Färbeguts. Vorkenntnisse sind nicht erforderlich.
Voraussetzungen: Einsteigerkurs
Mitzubringen sind: Eigene Wolle kann gefärbt werden
Kursgebühr: 85,- € pro Person (eintägig)
zzgl. Färbegut
Zeiten: Samstag 15.08.2009, Beginn 09.00 Uhr
Sonntag 16.08.2009, Beginn 09.00 Uhr

Fingerschlaufenflechten
Flechten mit Schlaufen statt mit einzelnen Fäden hat in den letzten Jahren an Bekanntheit gewonnen - ist aber immer noch nicht sehr verbreitet. In dem Kurs werden verschiedene Flechtvarianten, zum alleine oder gemeinsam Flechten, erlernt und geübt.
Voraussetzungen: Einsteigerkurs
Mitzubringen sind: ---
Kursgebühr: 45,- € pro Person (halbtägig)
incl. Material
Zeiten: Sonntag 16.08.2009, Beginn 09.00 Uhr

Though I hadn't posted about it anymore, I have obviously continued working on the blue hairnet, since it's finished now. I have sewn it to a drawstring made from birch-leaf-dyed silk (a thin silk ribbon), using one of the handmade steel needles (which worked like a dream).
Here it is, already brought into shape on a styrofoam head. That is also the form in which this net will be exhibited at Bad Staffelstein.

It took me about 30 hours to net (again); the large meshes with the pearls in the middle did obviously save some rounds, while fiddling on the pearls took up that time again.
The large mesh is something that has to be worked with utter and extreme care, though, or they will come out slightly uneven, resulting in netting problems further down.
It took me another hour for the finishing works - sewing on and inserting the drawstring and rinsing the net as well as bringing it into form over the styrofoam head. It has about 30 cm diameter; because it is cast on with rather few meshes (only 68), the circumference at the bottom is not too great.


Altogether, I think that the next time around, I'd rather attach the pearls afterwards by sewing them over individual knots of the mesh. I'm not too content with some of the parts of the net, where there are irregularities and where you can see how often the thread broke at places, I guess because of increased friction with the pearls. Overall, I'd say it looks quite nice, though - and my respect for the medieval net-makers is growing and growing!

Because I've grown quite fond of netting as a show-and-tell procedure (as the regular readers here know already), and I want to include netting in the demonstrations at the exhibition vernissage, I have spent yesterday evening doing the cast-on for another net. And this time around it's really close to an original net, found in London and published in Crowfoot et al's "Textiles and Clothing". Ages ago, I had already done some analysis and counting for one of the nets, coming up with 210 loops for cast-on, doubled after about 14 rows of mesh. After misfiring the first cast-on start (the loops grew nastily in length), I have now finished about 210 meshes and their connecting row successfully. I'd love to know how often I have mis-counted during the three hours I needed, but I'm much too lazy to count the loops again. I can however tell you that 210 loops is a lot.


The netting is done in extra-fine silk thread, and with a gauge of 2 mm diameter, resulting in meshes with 3 mm side length. This just fits with the large netting needle - which in turn fits in well with the fact that 3 mm seems to have been a quite common mesh size. If it comes out like the find (read: if I have not mis-counted ages ago when doing the analysis), it will have a lower edge circumference of a whooping 960 mm. That is almost one darn metre to net for about 50 rounds! I'm really curious to see how this net will turn out. And I can promise you that it won't take only 30 hours to complete, this time, since I have about tripled the mesh count...

Today's choice for the blog presentation: Beeswax. Everybody needs beeswax! Each sewing bag, pouch, chest or other sewing-goods-container needs a piece of beeswax! And because carrying a candle for that is not the most practical of things, and because there are not so many nice chunks of good-quality beeswax on the market, these are the latest addition to my product line:



In case you don't know why beeswax is a sewing tool: It is invaluable to wax threads for sewing, especially linen threads. It makes them much more durable, they are less prone to fraying where they rub against the needle's eye, and the thread will not kink itself into knots as easily. Plus it smells heavenly! Just draw the thread across the chunk of wax once, and you are all set. Use of beeswax in textile work is documented for medieval times through different accounts, and once you are used to lightly waxing threads, you won't want to be without it anymore.

You can also use beeswax to neaten the edges of fine cloth - though that does take quite a bit of practice, and of course that will eat up your chunk of beeswax much faster than drawing threads through them.

When I learned tablet-weaving, I used either beer mats or butchered playing cards. For my small hands, beer mats are definitely too large, so I went over to playing cards cut up and punched with holes for good. They are slim, lightweight, quite sturdy and cheap - the only problem is that you have to cut them to squares and punch holes. And as I'm a bit demanding about my hole placement, wanting them all in the same place, this did always take some time; time spent to prepare weaving equipment that was obviously so not historical. So I've been looking for alternatives for a long time now.

I tried to weave with small (really small) bone tablets one time - they are nice, smooth and good-looking, but they are also tiny with their side length of 2,4 cm, and I did not manage to get a smooth weaving sequence with the tiny things in a band with more than just 5 or so tablets. I also got wooden tablets made as a present once - again, carefully cut, bored and sanded for smoothness, and just the right size to weave. However, wooden tablets add a huge amount of bulk to the tablet-stack and are quite heavy.

So despite all these tries to use more medieval materials for the tablets, I always returned to my trusty playing-cards for weaving work. Since I don't weave for show on medieval events, it was never a problem. But there's a difference between not needing and not wanting... and I wanted.

And now I have - and I have to spare, so they are on offer at the market stall. I present to you the museum-compatible, slim alternative to cardboard and playing-card tablets: Weaving tablets made of parchment.


These tablets measure 6 x 6 cm, a convenient size when weaving and large enough that you can handle them well and even weave with the tablets standing on the corners, for tubular or other special weaving actions. The parchment is prepared by hand, in one of the last traditional parchment manufactury. In this case, it is calf parchment. Rounded corners for smooth turning, large holes for ease of setting up the warp.

The tablets, being parchment, can be marked, coloured, scribbled on - whatever you desire. With a thickness of about 0,6 mm for most of them, they are slim enough so that handling a larger stack is easily possible - but stiff and wide enough to grasp them easily. So... no more excuses about not having acceptable weaving tablets to work with!

Yesterday's post is the first to accumulate its comments so fast, and the questions have prompted me to stay with the topic of needles for a second post.

Pins and even more so needles are an archaeological problem - because... yes, you have guessed it: they are so small. This means that unless there is a nest of pins or needles (like we once discovered in a church excavation on the women's side of the aisle, pins upon pins upon pins, probably lost during service and not retrievable, because they fell through the spaces between wooden floorboards) or unless there is a huge stroke of luck, these tiny metal rods will never be found. If they ever survived the corrosive surroundings in damp soil, that is - something that iron or steel might not take as kindly as copper alloy. And then these rare items are so much overlooked - because duh, of course they had needles, that's an everyday item, isn't it? - that there is no collation of needle articles or archaeological needle knowledge yet.

So LH folks today are faced with a problem: What to sew with? Which time knew what kinds of needles or other sewing implements? (And archaeologists as well, should they want to write about needles.)

We have two possible ways to find out what needles were in use. One way is to find surviving specimens, analyse them, and if possible make some replicas and try them out. That, of course, is a really nifty way - only quite difficult because of the scarcity of finds and (you know the sad song by now) because it's oh-so-hard to find published needles.
The other way is by deduction. Nobody can tell me that medieval people (or people in what age soever) bought extremely costly materials like gold thread and fine silk to weave enormously fine fabrics and embroider them all over with beautiful, awe-inspiring motifs using a (needle) bodkin (for the Germans: "Nähdolch" is the term. The term.) and dragging this huge metal abnormity through their costly fine fabric! Fine fabrics require fine tools, after all. And at least I have not had much fun running my well-beloved copper alloy sewing needles through linen or silk instead of wool; they are just not suited to these. So fabric type makes a difference, too.
Deduction, though, will only tell us that some fine needles must have been there, out of due necessity, but no more than they must have been suitable for this or that work and material. So it's back to no. 1 for harder evidence.

There are a few needles in my picture collection, so I bring to you: The Needle Parade!

First, from the glorious and long-past 3rd and 4th century, needle boxes and needles on one of my bad photographs, taken in the Historical Museum Oslo, viking section.




Next finds from Konstanz (Lake Constance), from the 14th century, an array of small things including sewing needles. From LANDESDENKMALAMT BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG und STADT ZÜRICH (Hrsg.): Stadtluft, Hirsebrei und Bettelmönch. Die Stadt um 1300. Stuttgart 1992. P. 433.


Everybody knows this copper needlecase missing its lid, from the late 14th century London. It still contained an iron needle - and that needle size would match a modern sewing needle. From CROWFOOT, ELISABETH, PRITCHARD, FRANCES und STANILAND, KAY: Textiles and Clothing c. 1150-c.1450. Medieval Finds from Excavations in London:4. London 1992. P. 151. There you go:



From a special exhibition in the Alamannenmuseum Ellwangen, a needle from the graves at Kirchheim/Ries. My photo, taken with kind permission. It lacks scale, but I would use a needle like that in daily life without finding it special. Graves at Kirchheim/Ries date to the early middle ages, between 6th and 8th century if I remember correctly.


Again from the 14th century: Needles and thimbles from Copenhagen, National Museum, photo taken in the Medieval Section. If you come to Copenhagen, make double sure you visit that wonderful museum - reserve a full day for it, if you can. It is worth it.


That's all I have gathered together during the years - but at least it shows steel sewing needles from as early as at least the early middle ages. If any of you have more needles, please give me a hint - I'm collecting evidence ; )