Cords, Next Step.

Those fancy cords with the wool-wrapped rings at the bottom are not only finishing the bottom of the corded skirt from Egtved, they are the fancy finishing touch for belts as well - for several different belt finds, in fact.

Which means they also adorn the ends of the belt found in the Egtved grave... and I've finished weaving the reproduction of that, and now I'm at the cord-making stage:



The lighter grey thread is the weft thread, visible at the edge of the band; then there's single threads (that is the rest of the warp) and the thicker plies on the upper edge are the extra threads inserted to make the fringe full enough - because the paltry 20 warp threads are not enough by far for a proper, nice, bell-shaped fringe or tassel or however you might call it.

Making these was an enormous amount of fun. It was, however, also a series of movements I'm not quite so accustomed to, so in spite of it being a lot of fun, I had to stop before the thing was all done, because my wrists and fingers started to protest the repetitive twisting movements. Tomorrow, though, will see the thing done and completed!

This smaller amount of shorter cords has also confirmed my suspicions about how the yarn for the corded skirt should be spun and dimensioned in order to make cording as easy as possible, and that is quite, quite hard spun!