Today, 24th of December, we celebrate Christmas ( Jul) in Sweden.
That means this is the last calendar post. We hope that you have enjoyed this years calendar and that you have seen things that you haven’t seen before.
Todays post is a Swedish embroidery. Wool on linen. Dated mid 15th century.
We have analysed the embroidery and a full report will come soon.
Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles- please cred if sharing.
Knitting! A cap. From Italy. Dated 1470-1540.
Wool. Brown.
That’s all for now 😉
It’s too late and I have been driving 450km. So I’m to tired to update something useful.
Here goes a random collection of things.
Spindel tops in metal. And whorls. Athen, Greece. Dated medieval. 10-15th century
Lucet in bone/ horn. National museum Copenhagen, Denmark. Dated “medieval 13-16th”
Net shuttle from Lödöse. Dated 13-15th century
Shears for cutting the nap after fulling fabric. Dated 1850-ish. 9year (132cm ) old for reference . Sundsvall Museum,
Today we travel to the north of Sweden. All the way up to Resele church in Ångermanland. The medieval church was demolished 1841 when the new church was built. Today’s textile is an antependium from the old church.
It’s a wool weave and it has got one warp system and two weft systems.
The birds are a common motif during the later part of the Middle ages and the antependium is dated 1350-1500, it is dated by style.
The textile is part of the collection at Historiska Museet in Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photos: Historical Textiles- pease cred us if sharing
The Fogdö embroidery is made with long armed cross stitches. It’s dated to early 16th century.
St George is often depicted in late medieval art. Here we can see George with a lovely jousting shield fighting the dragon with a very long sword… The embroidery is very well preserved, but on some places you can see that the wool yarn have worn off and the tabby linen weave is exposed.
Today it is found in the collections of Historiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photos: Historical Textiles- pease cred us if sharing
We stay in Nyköping and here is another medieval fabric. Wool of course! It’s reddish brown. Possibly dyed with madder.
It’s a tabby . 14/12th/ cm z/s.
Today in the collections of Sörmlands Museum.
Today is a fabric day! A medieval fabric from Nyköping, Sweden. 14-15th century
2/2 twill with 12/10threads per cm
Z/s
Dark brown colours. With pretty much dead hair in the wool.
Some metals are better then other in combination with textiles.
Iron tend to rust and this piece have today some rust “blobs” and rusty rings on the fabric. Originally it was rings sewn on to a velvet fabric. Most likely lacing rings on a doublet. The rings were sewn on with double white linen thread.
The piece comes from Italy and is dated 1470-1540. Read more about the finds from this collection here on our blog. Use the search word Italy and you will find more finds from the same collection.
/ Amica and Maria
Photos: Historical Textiles – cred if you share!
Spindle whorls are often found in archeological excavations. The once found in medieval contexts are often made of bone, stone, metal or ceramic. In most of the cases the spindel stick is gone. Why? One thought is that a broken stick have a secondary value as fire wood. And that it’s difficult to mend a stick. And quite easy to make a new one.
What about spindel whorls made of wood? It’s a lot easier to cut a disc from a piece of wood then to make one in all materials mentioned above. Stone takes time to work with, and demands tools that can take some beating. Metal whorls was most likely made by craftsmen in a guild. Bone needs a saw, a tool that not all persons had. Ceramic needs a kiln.
We find few or no whorls made in wood. And when a wooden disc is found- can we be sure that it is a whorl without the spindle stick?
Anyhow- in the Gothem church on Gotland, Sweden, some items was found under the 13th century floorboards. A broken disc and something that really look like a distaff. Is the disc a whorl? We don’t know. What do you say? 
Plant dyed fade over time. The more light they are exposed to the faster the fading goes. What was dyed on a large scale in historical times was wool and silk. Linen is difficult to dye, unless it’s blue.
Sometimes you are lucky and can see the backside of an old textile. The backside have often been protected from light and are therefore of stronger colours then the front side.
Here- a gilded leather embroidery dated to mid 15th century. Skokloster 2, today in the collections of Historiska museet, Stockholm, Sweden. To the right you can see the front, and in the middle the backside. Compare and see for yourself.
