Today we would like to present an altar cloth woven in brocaded on the counted thread. Woven in linen. The pattern is today very white, but have a tiny, tiny, blue tint. It is possibly that the pattern originally was dyed blue.
The tablet woven band sewn to the edge is woven with 2 plied linen thread in the warp. 6 tablets set in VVV.
Dated to the 15th century.
Today in the collections of The Swedish History museum.
/ Amica & Maria
If sharing photos: please cred us.
Today we present an amazing find. The Grödinge double weave.
The weave is woven in dark blue and white wool thread.
Here a detail of the boarder. Wyverns.
The weave is dated to late 15th century.
Now in the collections of the Swedish History museum.
/ Amica and Maria
If sharing photos: please cred us.
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
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.
A bit late for Sweden but it’s still the 5th!!
One really good thing that can preserve fabric is fire. Not burning down, but being turned into charcoal. Like this medieval fabric from Nyköping, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photos: Historical Textiles- pease cred us if sharing 
Our nineteenth advent calendar post is a small fragment of a wool fabric item. The fabric is something quite unusual. The warp and the weft have very different colours, warp lighter and weft darker. This is not something common, at all. The fabric have gone brown after years in the ground, but even before it must have been a clear visual difference of the warp and the weft. It’s woven in 2/2 twill. The fragment also have some seams. It was clearly sewn into something before it ended up in the ground in the city of Enköping, Västmanland, Sweden.
They fragment is dated to 13-15th century.
Now in collections of Historiska museet, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles
Our fifteen advent calendar post is, once agin not a textile but a textile tool, a rigid heddle is from Västkinde, Gotland, Sweden. It’s made out of elk horn.
It is decorated on both sides. The size is H. 4,7 cm , W. 4,5 cm.
The rigid heddle is dated to 1350- 1490 AD.
Now in collections of Historiska museet, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles
Our eleventh advent calendar post is once again a piece of a decorative weave from the Oseberg burial, Norway. It’s a piece from the same decorative weave as in this lovely film we linked to today.
The textile is made out of wool.
The ship, from where the textile was found, was built 820 AD and the grave was covered 834 AD. The ship was covered with clayey soil. This has protected the grave as clay-rich soil is very low in oxygen.
Now in the collections of Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo, Norway.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles
Our seventh advent calendar post is, technically speaking, not a textile any more. But it used to be. In 1361 the bodies of the fallen from The Battle of Wisby was buried outside of the city of Visby on Gotland, Sweden. The med were buried in their armors and clothes as they wore that day, 27th of July 1361. The textiles have after 569 years in the ground gone missing. But at some places where the textile have been in close contact with the metal from the armors, the textile have become metallized after so long time in contact with the metal.
This piece of amour might give us an indication on where on the body the textile were used. If the textile imprint in placed on the inside of a lamella from a coat of plates, one can assume that the textile have been part of some sort of clothing on that person. Sometimes it’s even possible to tell the weaving technique and even the fiber content.
The lamella with textile is dated to 27th of July 1361.
Now in collections of Historiska museet, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles
Our sixth advent calendar post is a silk band/ ribbon. The warp contains of two plied silk threads in red, white and blue. The weft is a red silk thread, most likely the same kind of thread as in the warp. Possibly woven with a rigid heddle.
The band is part of a cope from Vallentuna church, Sweden.
The cope is dated to mid- late 15th century.
Now in collections of Historiska museet, Sweden.
/ Amica and Maria
Photo: Historical Textiles
