14th century

Advent calendar 2022 – 21 December

/ Maria / 1 Comment

The Middle Ages is a time of “almost near is near enough”. What does that really mean, you might be wondering now? Well, it means nothing less than that you weren’t very careful back then. If one fabric ran out, another one was taken that had a similar color, as in this case with the gilt leather embroidery from Skokloster church.

Here, the intention was to use a surface with a blue wool fabric. BUT there hasn’t been enough so they’ve been forced to join several to get a piece big enough. As you can see, there are three blue fabrics. Quite different in both shape and appearance.

We get so happy when we see this embroidery. There is something very liberating about the fact that they didn’t feel limited by the lack of a blue fabric in the right size, but they solved it all in a simple and creative way. This in particular creates character and feeling for the entire embroidery and says a lot about the frugal and material-efficient work then. We hope to see more reconstructions made in the same spirit.

It’s dated 14th century.

Today we find the embroidery in the collections of the Swedish History museum.

Link here:

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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 19 December

/ Maria / 2 Comments

Knitting. A fairly young textile technique in Europe, likely imported from Africa. There is solid evidence of knitting in Europe by the 13th century and among the earliest finds are a silk cushion from late 13th century, Spain, and a fragment of what is believed to have been a mitten in Estonia. Alms purses appears during 13-14th century. Also knitted in silk. Gloves and caps shows up around the same time.

Bertram von Minden aka Master Bertram painted the knitting Madonna around 1390/1415. The knitting Madonna is knitting a jumper to baby Jesus on four needles. The knitting is from bottom to top and the needles are thin and looks like metal. The yarn balls are kept in a basket.

Today you can have a look at the whole altar cabinet in Hamburg at the Kunsthalle, see the full altar cabinet here.

Phots by Historical textiles, cred if sharing.

/Amica and Marria

Advent calendar 2022 – 16 December

/ Maria / 4 Comments

Tools. Without them there wouldn’t be textiles. To weave bands one can us a rigid heddle. And we would like to show you this lovely rigid heddle from Västkinde, Gotland, Sweden. It’s made out of moose antlers. It’s dated 1350-1500.

It’s in the collection of Swedish History museum and here is the link to the database.

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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022- 7 December

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Today’s post is about dyes. Or in fact dyed wool fabrics that are from the beginning of the 14th century and STILL in great condition. Check out thees seal bags, protective bags in fabric for wax seals on legal documents, written 700 years ago.

They have been stored in archives from when they were written until today. And they are dated on the exact day they were created and is by far the best source we have come across when it comes to textiles.

Now in the collections of The Swedish National Archives.
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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 2 December

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The second day of December we turn our heads to around 1325 and a lovely fragment. It’s a gold thread and slik embroidery in couched and satin/ brick stitch, two shields, one on each side of a helmet with helmet ornaments, on top of a black damask silk. The embroidery have faded over time but was originally probably strong yellow and blue.
We love the quirky feather plume on the top of the helmet.

The fragment was found 1910 in Strängsnäs cathedral when a bricked up window was restored.

Now in the collections of The Swedish History museum. 
More pictures here

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 24 December

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Our twenty-fourth and 2021’s last Advent calendar post 2021 is:

Silk fabric. This exclusive item was a long-distance import item for us up in the northern part of Europe. But still there are many goods just produced by Bombyx mori. Silk fabrics and silk yarns. Today we turn our attention to the silk fabrics. Silk fabrics can be woven in brocades with weft of gilded threads or only with silk thread as weft. The fabrics with silk and silk is the once we are looking at today.

These often appear as bottom fabric in various embroideries. They can be in different colors but also appear in natural white.

Here we can see a thin silk fabric as the base for an embroidery. The embroidery from Söderala church is today broken and little remains of the yellow fabric. The same goes for the embroidery with Holger Knutsson’s grave coverlet. Here the silk fabric is thin and in a green-blue shade. Söderala is dated to 1350- 1499 and Holger Knutssons fabric is dated to the same period.

Both embroideries can be found in the collections of the Swedish History museum.

Silk fabrics can be used for many things. If we look at how some fabrics are depicted in art, we can assume that silk fabrics have been used. A wavy veil could very well be made of silk. Like the one depicted in the Lutterell psalter. Or those depicted in sculptures, thin as paint. Like this one from Lincoln Cathedral. Here we can see the mouth marked under a very thin cloth. So thin that we suspect that the sculptor intended to show a silk fabric.

Text sources show that silk fabrics were used as banners on the battlefields as markers for various army commanders.

A thin hand hemmed fabric of silk can serve as: the bottom of an embroidery, a bottom fabric for painting a banner or as a wavy silk veil. Or for that matter – perhaps like a shawl in modern life.

We hope you have enjoyed our Christmas calendar this year. For those of you who have also bought the physical calendar, we hope that we have also offered some inspiration on what you can do with all the different yarns, fabrics, tools and necessities. Since we have received questions about how to buy next year’s calendar, the answer is: email us at historical.textiles@gmail.com if you want to know when we were going to release next year’s calendar.

Thank you to all 12,354 readers of Historical textiles Christmas calendar 2021! Merry Christmas!

/ Amica and Maria

Photos by: Historiska, British Library

Advent calendar 2021 – 21 December

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Our twenty-first Advent calendar post 2021 is:

A mix of slightly different things with the common denominator “a thin two-plied wool thread”. First in our batch is a tablet woven band from Gotland. Dated 800-1100 AD. Today the band is exhibit in the new exhibition The viking world. The exhibition text says: “Tablet woven ribbon of wool with individual turns. Woven with a two-plied wool yarn where the thread’s high twist gives the pattern a certain depth. The ribbon is woven with twelve tablets. The two edge tablets on each side are threaded with four threads in each tablet, while the pattern tablets are only threaded with two threads in each. The lack of threads causes a relief pattern to occur during weaving. The pattern is obtained by turning the tablets individually so that the missing threads end up in a specific pattern. Width 0.8– 0.9 centimeters, preserved length 28 centimeters. This ribbon from Gotland differs from the ribbons found in Birka as the latter have silk in the warp and picked pattern elements in gold or silver thread. Part of depot finds “in pasture”, from Lilla Ringome, Alva parish, Gotland.”

The second find is a find that is interpreted as a cushion. Grave find from Birka, Bj739, Adelsö parish, Uppland.
Hhere we can see something as unusual as clear colors on an archeological textile. Both red-purple, blue-black and yellow. The weaving technique is tapestry and soumak. Dating 800-1100 AD

The last picture is from Lödöse. Here we can see a small piece of a finger loop braid. Made with two different colours on the wool yarn. Dated to 13-14century.

The viking age finds are from the collections of the Swedish History museum.

The 20/2 wool thread is versatile and can be used in many projects such as, tablet weaving, embroidery, sewing, braiding and more. It dyes really good and we always try to have a range of colours when working. The pigments we use are madder, cochineal as a kermes substitut, indigo and woad, birch, weld, tansy, walnut, gall apple. Together with alum, cream of tartar, iron and pH-modifier we can produce countless nuances.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 19 December

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Our nineteenth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

Items sewn from linen or hemp cloth. There are countless things preserved to our day of just linen or hemp. Unfortunately, there are 10,000s of times more that have not been preserved to this day. But we know enough myclet to be able to say what these fabrics looked like. Linen and hemp are almost entirely woven in plain weave. In cases where they are woven in another technique, it is a twill variation. These are always for towels. Old towels can sometimes be found as, among other things, as embroidery bottom fabric.

Here we can see trust different mixed images. A mended knitted sock, a coif, a mended alba, a sudarium x 2, a chasuble and an appliqué M.

Linen and hemp are both bast fibers and are very difficult to distinguish with the naked eye only. They have the same characteristics. The fiber has high tensile strength but less good wear resistance. It gets stronger in the wet state. We use both linen and hemp in our reconstructions. A piece of 50 x 75 cm works well as a veil, or as an embroidery base, or as lining in a garment etc.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 16 December

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Our fifteenth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

To unknown backside of the Ärentuna embroidery. Ärentuna is not one but two different embroideries. The big piece have red contours and the small piece have brown contours. They are made in the same pattern but in different colors. This is most likely a recycled bit from another embroidery. The yarn is a wool yarn.

The cushion is dated to 14-15th century. And the original is in the collections of the parish.

When making embroideries it’s a good idea to have many colors in to work with. We plant dye our threads ourself and to make brown we use walnut, sometimes in combination with iron to get a really dark nuance.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 15 December

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Our fifteenth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

A selected mix of medieval embroidery with applications made in different fabrics. The medieval gilt leather embroideries often have several different fabrics, often in different colors and in different qualities.
Here we can see applications from the coverlet Dalhem 1.
The Ilsbo coverlet, unlike Dalhem 1, does not have gilt leather strips on the edge but twisted linen strips.
Skepptuna have lovely hearts in gilt leather. Masku coverlet have cute flowers in purple.

There is also a chasuble with nice little applications on. It has silk, wool fabric, gold thread and wool yarn in a wonderful mix. The wool yarn is used a bit as a contour or here as a stem.

Bonus is the Bexheda coverlet, also this embroidery has gilt leather strips on the edge and appliqués in fun colors. This one is not 15th century as the others but from the 17th century. So the tradition lives on.

Applique embroidery is not a Swedish phenomenon, but since we have access to museum collections here, we often write about it, but there is a fine embroidery from today’s Germany. The Tristan wall hanging that is available at V&A is a wonderful example of just application. This embroidery is dated to the latter part of the 14th century and it is easy to see that the people in the embroidery have fashion clothes from the era. This one also have silk embroidery and additional spangles. And of course gilt leather.

Dalhem 1 and Skepptuna and the chasuble can be found in the collections of the Swedish history museum. Ilsbo can be found in the collections of the museum of Hälsingland. Masku can be found in National museum in Helsinki. Bexheda can be found in the collections of Kulturparken Småland.

Small pieces of wool fabric are invaluable when embroidering appliqué. If you also want to embark on embroidery with gold leather, gilt leather strips are very necessary. Even small pieces of gilt leather are good to have! Pieces of wool are also very good to have if you are going to repair clothes that have broken. Maybe you need to repair a hose? Then put on a patch! It can feel fancy to have a plant dyed patch under your foot.

/ Amica and Maria

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