Wool

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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Advent calendar 2021 – 14 December

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Our fourteenth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

A the patterned part of a Danish wool textile. This is a textile find from Hvilehøj in Jutland. The bottom fabric is analyzed and is in a red color, the pigment is kermes. Although today it is mostly brown. But it can be seen that the patterned thread is of a different quality and of a different color. The bottom fabric is woven in plain weave and the pattern is picked. The pattern thread is originally assumed to have been white. It is 2-plied and the thread in the weave is a single in both warp and weft.

HERE you can read more about the entire reconstruction work done by researchers from the National Museum in Copenhagen. Scroll down in the text.

The fabric is dated 900AD.

With a 2-plied thin wool thread you could weave such lovely patterns. But you can off course also use it as warp in a tablet woven weave. Or as sewing thread. Or make embroideries with it. We love our white 2-plied thread since it’s strong and natural white and not bleached.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 11 December

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Our eleventh Advent calendar post 2021 is:

Today, we go back in time and visit Högom, Sweden. The chieftain of Högom is famous for his grave and the amazing items in it. The textile fragments in the grave shows sophisticated and specialised crafts, like the table woven bands with soumac in horse hair. Hopefully, we will have reason to return to those later, but today we focus on the cloak of the chieftain; more specifically, the tassels of the cloak. They are made with a red 2-plied wool thread and have a cute braid ridge on the flat side.

The cloak is dated to the 400-550 AD.

Today, you find the cloak in the collection of the Swedish History museum.

With red 2-plied wool thread you can make your own tassels in this style.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021 – 8 December

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Our eight Advent calendar post 2021 is:

A detail from an Icelandic wool embroidery. The embroidery is an antependium and is in really good condition consider it’s age. The technique is surface couching. The background is a linen fabric.

” Laid and Couched Work, is a form of embroidery where a thread (usually wool ) is laid on a ground fabric (usually wool or linen ). This stitch is created by laying a set of ground threads, that work from one side of the pattern to the other. Over these threads, in the opposite direction, are laid another set of threads at regular intervals . These cross threads are then held down by a series of couching stitches . The whole process results in an area completely covered in thread. This technique allows for large areas of pattern to be covered very quickly.” ref. Historical needlework

The yellow wool thread have faded over time, as yellow does, and was originally much brighter. The wool thread is thin and 2-plied.

The embroidery is dated to the 14th century.

We dye our own wool thread to be able to get a thin thread with a bright yellow. Reseda is the plant we use, as they did in the Middle ages too. To get is really neon-yellow, we add a small amount of ammonium. They used urin.

Today the embroidery can be found in the collection of National museum of Denmark.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021- 6 December

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Our sixth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

Red blood drops on Jesus body. The red wool yarn is a 2-plied and have a pretty high twist. Most likely dyed with madder. This is a detail from the Fogdö embroidery, Sweden. The embroidery is BIG and measures 0,9 x 7,9 meters long, originally it believed to have been over 15 meters long. The embroidery shows scenes from the life of Christ. The stitches are long legged cross stitch.

The embroidery is dated 1480-1500 AD.

When sewing long legged cross stitch, we always use a 2-plied thread like the original. And we also sew a bit more like the medieval style, in more or less in all directions. The medieval people were less neurotic then our crafts teachers in school..

Today the embroidery can be found in the collections of the Swedish History museum.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021- 4 December

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Our forth Advent calendar post 2021 is:

A detail from the Ärentuna cushion embroidery. The embroidery contains wool yarn of many colors on a plain linen weave. Also a white 2-plied thread. Since the white yarn contained more lanolin than the dyed yarns, the moths have prioritized the undyed yarn when feasting on the wool. Therefore the white and the brown yarn are badly damaged on the embroidery.

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

We are working on a reconstruction of the Ärentuna embroidery. And we use a natural white wool thread, 8/2 in our reconstruction. It’s very alike with the original.

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2021- 2 December

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Our second Advent calendar post 2021 is:

One wool fragment from the Viking age settlement of Birka, Sweden. The fragment is labelled as sprang by Agnes Geijer. The fragment is made out of a thin 2-plied wool thread. It measures 0,5 x 3 cm. It’s difficult to say if the fragment originally was dyed.

The chamber grave contains many interesting and costly items. The objects from the grave Bj660 can be found here. Dating is Viking period 800-1100 AD.

Today it can be found in the collections of the Swedish History museum. 

/ Amica and Maria

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Paper at Nesat XIV

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This year we presented our paper at Nest XIV. “Colours in medieval textiles versus archeological textiles from Swedish cities” was the title of our abstract.
Nest XIV was supposed to take place in Oulo in Finland but was first postponed a couple of times and then became a digital version on Zoom. All participants sent in their paper presentation in advance and only the session discussion was a live talk. A lot of interesting papers were presented! We can’t wait for the publication!!!

Since our talk was pre recorded we decided to put it up on YouTube. Here is the link:

We are so happy that we finally can share some of our research that we have been working on the last couple of years, it has taken long due to the pandemic… But finally we can share the amazing colors and fine fabrics from the medieval seal bags from Riksarkivet / National archive


Best wishes,
Amica and Maria



Advent calendar December 24 2020

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Today we celebrate Christmas in Sweden. We call it Jul. A name that originate from the tradition we celebrated before people up in the north became Christians.

Therefor we would like to share some Viking age things.

Wool combs from Norway. Dated 800-950. For combing wool.

God Jul! /Amica and Maria

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