A&S 50 - 4: Madder Dyeing Wool

NB: This write-up is one section of a longer piece of documentation written for an upcoming A&S competition.

A number of natural dyestuffs were known and used in northern Europe during the Viking Age, principal among them madder, weld and woad. These would have been used along with mordants such as alum, iron, copper and tannin to produce a wide range of bright colors on wool, linen and silk.

Madder was the most commonly identified dye plant found in the Coppergate digs, and the most commonly identified dye found on textiles in the same area and might easily have been grown in the vicinity. Madder does require a mordant in order to adhere to fibers. While alum would have been difficult to find in England during the period, Walton argues that large quantities of imported clubmoss found in the area were probably used as an alum substitute. There is also evidence of iron having been used as a mordant on the caps found in Dublin. Copper and tannin were also used as mordants during the period.

Wool could have been dyed at any stage during processing, either as unspun fleece, yarn, or finished fabric. Fulling was not commonly used as a finishing technique until the medieval period (see Walton), so it is likely that most dyeing was done prior to weaving as the dye bath tends to continue the fulling process and most extant textiles from the Anglo-Scandinavian digs do not have a compacted, fulled appearance.

Not all cloth during the period would have been dyed. Wool comes naturally off the sheep in a wide range of colors, and many textiles from natural wool colors have been found. As seen on the Dublin caps and discussed above, not all caps were dyed, but colored caps were not unknown. In addition, utilizing the natural colors of wool in combination with dyes can produce a broader range of possible colors, Walton points to one textile from Anglo-Scandinavian York which had proved to be grey wool dyed with madder.

For my cap, the finished cloth was dyed using madder with an alum mordant. I elected to use alum as it is safer and easier to use than iron, and was was used in conjunction with madder during the period. The fulled cloth was wetted and soaked overnight. I then dissolved 4 ½ tsp cream of tartar and 4 ½ tsp alum in boiling water, added this to cool water in my dye pot and added the cloth. The mordant bath was heated slowly to simmering, and held there for an hour. The cloth cooled in the alum solution over night.

While my fibers were in the mordant bath, I prepared my dyestuff. I used 4 ounces of madder root, and chopped it roughly and set it to soak overnight. I removed the wool from the mordant, filled my dye pot with clean water and added the soaked madder root and liquid. I then replaced the wool, and gently heated the dye pot, taking care not to overheat the dye as this can result in duller shades. I stirred the pot occasionally and after a day was able to exhaust the bath and produce a bright reddish-orange cloth.

According to all of the sources on madder dyeing I had consulted, the roots needed to be soaked overnight prior to dyeing. Unfortunately, all I was able to find to put the roots in was a plastic pickle jar. Knowing that vinegar is an acid and that acid is a modifier which will significantly change the color natural dyestuffs, I took care to wash the jar thoroughly before soaking my roots. The next day I carried on my dyeing, but noticed after about an hour that my wool was turning a brilliant shade of reddish orange rather than a clear red. After soaking the wool for a day in a warm bath, the result was the exact color my dye book said I would get if I followed an alum mordant with an acid modifier, rather than the clear red I had intended. Apparently the plastic had retained just enough acetic acid to alter the color of my dye bath.


Sources:

Crowfoot, Elisabeth. Textiles and Clothing c.1150-c.1450. Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 4. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1992

Walton, Penelope. The Archaeology of York: The Small Finds Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate. The York Archaeological Trust, 1997.

Lead, Drea. Dye Recipes from The Innsbruck Manuscript c.1330 (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/innsbruck/) Last visited January 18, 2011.

Dean, Jenny. Wild Color. Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999.

Priest-Dorman, Carolyn. Colors, Dyestuffs, and Mordants of the Viking Age: An Introduction
(http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html) Last visited Nov. 18, 2010.

Mckenna, Nancy. Madder dyeing. Medieval Textiles issue 29. Sept. 2001. (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/medtex.pdf) Last visited Nov. 18, 2010

Leed, Drea. A Lytel Dye Book (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/lyteldyebook/index.html) Last visited January 18, 2011.

A&S 50 - 5: Tablet Weave Monochrome Twill Band (Museum of London Braid 450)

The original band was woven in silk with four strands of silk threaded through each card hole and may have been used as a girdle or spur strap.   The band is a total of twelve cards wide, with the center eight cards creating the twill pattern. The original recipe for the pattern required that the cards be divided in packs, and each pack turned in alternate direction to achieve the twill effect. I quickly discovered that I could simplify this by alternating the threading of the center cards, which allowed me to turn them all in the same direction as a single pack, leaving only the border cards with a different turning pattern.

I elected to use linen, which produced a less soft, somewhat wider band, but will work well as a garters against linen hose.   The ends of the bands are finished in simple braids, held together at the end with wrapped threads.  Reproduction buckles from Ramond's Quiet Press  complete the garter.


Threading Pattern:
Cards 1,2 11 and 12 are the borders. These cards will always turn forward. The remaining cards will turn two turns forward, followed by two turns backward

A
B
C
D
	S	Z	S	Z	S	Z	S	Z	S	Z	Z	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12

Sources:
Crowfoot, Elizabeth. Textiles and Clothing, c.1150-1450 (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London). Boydell Press, 2001.

Carolyn Priest-Dorman. Three Recipes for Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Tablet Weaving. (http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/3recipes.html) Last accessed Aug. 31 2010.

Revising expectations

I guess I am the only one who cares, but it bothers me when for one reason or another I don't get things done on time.  Really, I should have known trying to get two fairly major projects done and competition ready soon after the holidays would be unrealistic, but I am still vaguely annoyed with myself.  That being said, I've decided to scrap my plans to enter our local 12th Night competition at all, and will be entering a partly finished project into the Interbaronial Championship at KAS.  The incomplete project really upsets me, but the embroidery pattern ended up taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would, and I have two other completed relic bags to go alongside the incomplete bag, so it should not be so bad.

On a plus note, I should be able to get a Triathalon entry together for Ymir in mid-February, which will even get a few steps closer to my A&S 50 goal.  I still have some hand-woven madder dyed wool I will be making a Jorvik hood out of, along with a soapstone spindle whorl and a nice mustard recipe (or two) to round it out.  The hood is basically done,   I just need to hem it and make the ties.  The spindle whorl has been shaped, I just have to polish it and make the shaft, and I already have the mustard sauce recipes picked out.  Hopefully this means I'm getting past my mid-winter malaise and will get back to my usual productive self soon!

Lacking motivation

For some reason I am really lacking motivation to finish my two latest A&S projects.  I'm working on another silk embroidered bag for Kingdom A&S based on this reliquary bag and a beaded filet/circlet/headband thingie more or less based on this picture.  Both are moving along, but I just don't want to work on either one right now.  Nor do I have any drive to write up my other A&S50 projects that are actually done.  I'm blaming this on the holiday's and some piles of knitting and sewing I've been doing for gifts and for commissions.  With any luck, that part of my life will soon turn profitable and help to fund some of the work I like to do (like relic bags, and tablet weaving and the like!)

In other news, I got a grown up loom!  For free!  It's a 36 inch LeClerk Artisat 4 harness floor loom a friend had gotten used a number of years ago and since grown out of.   I'm calling her Bertha, anything that takes up that much of my living room has to have a name.  She's bigger than I had planned to get, but free makes up for a lot, and this way I won't outgrow the loom in six months like I would with a small table loom.  This should last me a good while.  Now I just have to build a warping board, which I should be able to get done after Christmas, and get some boat shuttles and bobbins and decide on my first project.

A&S 50 - 3: Learn to dye with Indigo, modern method

 Indigo is unique in the universe of dyes in that it requires no mordant to produce a clear, lightfast blue on any natural fiber. True indigo was known in the Roman world, but remained rare in Europe during the middle ages until the 15th century. A chemically identical dye can be extracted at much lower concentrations from woad, which is much harder for the modern reenactor to obtain but was easily obtainable in medieval Europe and a major source of dyestuffs throughout the period.

Indigo vat prior to complete reduction

Regardless of which plant provides the material, the dyestuff is reduced through either a fermentation process or the use of chemicals to make it soluble. The dye solution then changes from deep blue to a milky yellow color. This “white indigo” can then be used in an alkaline dye bath to dye fibers. Once the fibers have been removed from the bath, they change from yellowish-green to deep blue as they react with the oxygen in the air.

Linen just after removal from the vat.  Note the color

In period, the indigo would have been reduced using either urine or fermented bran-water. Both of these processes can take up to a week and produce very offensive smells, so in the in interest of time and my marriage I elected to use modern methods for my first attempts. I began by using a yeast vat to reduce the indigo. In theory, this works the same way as a fermented bran-water vat; the gases produced by the bacteria reduce the yeast and drive suspended oxygen bubbles out of the dye liquid. However, I was unable to keep the vat at a constant temperature to complete the process long enough to reduce the indigo using this method and, after more than 24 hours, opted to use color run remover to reduce the indigo.

Once the vat was reduced, the actual dying process was relatively straightforward and quite satisfying. One must take care not to introduce air into the vat, so the fibers cannot be stirred or agitated much once they have been placed into the dye. This can lead to somewhat uneven absorption of the dye, but washing the fibers thoroughly prior to dying and adding them to the dye pot wet seemed to help mitigate this. A second dip in the dye pot resolved most of the splotchyness which occurred only on the linen skeins. The wool dyed evenly without any stirring at all.

Complete wool and linen skein drying

Sources:

Dean, Jenny. Wild Color. Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999.

Bingham, Gayle. Woad Dying. Medieval Textiles issue 29. Sept. 2001. (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/medtex.pdf) Last visited Nov. 18, 2010

Kolander, Cheryl. Dying with Indigo – Natural Fermentation Vat. (http://www.aurorasilk.com/info/indigo_tutorial.shtml) Last visited Nov. 18, 2010.

Priest-Dorman, Carolyn. Colors, Dyestuffs, and Mordants of the Viking Age: An Introduction (http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html) Last visited Nov. 18, 2010.

A&S 50 - 2: Snartemo II Band

For my second-ever attempt at tablet-weaving, I decided to weave a band supposedly found in the Snartemo II grave. The band is woven from cotton thread in two colors using twelve pattern tables threaded through only two holes, and a total of four border tablets threaded through all four holes. The original band was woven in wool and had an extra border tablet, presumably used to attach it to a cloth. I have been able to find very little information about the original band or the Snartemo finds in general, but hope that I will be able to track down more books on this in the future as the techniques used in these bands are both beautiful and fascinating.

In making this band, I learned two important lessons. First, when working with multiple colors, one should be certain that the weft thread matches the warp threads on the outer-most border. The weft
is visible on the outside of the band where it turns, and these turns are quite obvious if contrasting threads are used. Second, when threading only two holes, supporting the cards in some way makes
weaving much easier. I am not certain if my warp tension was off in some way, but I had fairly consistent problems with unstable cards. The best way for me to deal with this was to tie my band in such a way that it the cards were able to rest on my ironing board while I was weaving. This prevented them from flipping over, which they tended to do when suspended.

This is not a complicated pattern, but in hindsight was not the best pattern to choose for my first real project. It presented a number of challenges I was not prepared for and I had a great deal of
trouble correcting mistakes as my understanding of tablet-weaving was still quite limited. However, I learned a great deal and the band looks quite well on my husbands tunic.

Sources:
Lewis, Shelagh. The tablet Woven Band from the Snartemo II Grave.
(http://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/Snartemo_II/snartemo_II.htm) Last accessed Nov. 18, 2010.

Collingwood, Peter?

A&S 50 - 1: Learn to Tablet Weave

My first attempt at tabletweaving.  Note the curls where the cards changed direction.

Tablet or card weaving in a method of weaving narrow bands which dates back at least to the second century A.D. It was used extensively in Scandinavia and spread throughout Medieval Europe. Uses ranged from the utilitarian – straps and woven borders on fabrics – to elaborate brocaded bands used on church vestments.

The basic procedure in tablet weaving is quite simple. Cards, usually square, are threaded through a series of holes placed in the corners. The cards are held under tension and turned while a weft thread is passed back and forth. The manner of threading and sequence of turning create the pattern. Incredibly complex and intricate patterns can be achieved with this basic technique.

While the basic procedure is quite simple, learning to table weave can present some challenges and frustrations. Foremost among these is tensioning. My first band was woven using the warping peg from my rigid heddle loom attached to a small portable ironing board, which I was able to hold in my lap, which one end propped on a TV tray table. It is possible to table weave using a back-strap loom, however I found it far easier to put my work down and maintain even tension when returning to it using a more fixed system. I have since built a portable loom of my own design which meets my needs quite well, and will build a period-correct loom in the future as part of this challenge.

Warping cards can also present challenges to a beginning weaver attempting to learn on their own. A number of books and websites discuss the continuous warping method, which is infinitely easier than warping each card individually (though not always appropriate), but regardless of your chosen warping technique two fixed points are absolutely required to keep the warp threads from tangling and to keep them even. Currently, I use a warping peg and a doorknob to warp my cards, which works well only so long as I do not need to open the door. As some point I will need to get or build a proper warping board.

The weaving itself is fairly straightforward. Again, tension seemed to be the main challenge, both in keeping the warps even and tights, and in keeping the weft even. Maintaining a consistent band width and a smooth surface took some practice, but by the time I had completed my first practice band I was able to do both fairly consistently and more on to more complicated patterns. It does help to use some kind of measuring device to check your band width now and again, particularly when using softer fibers like silk or cotton.



Sources:
Crocket, Candace. Card Weaving. Interweave Press, 1991.

Lewins, Shelagh. The Ancient Craft of Tablet Weaving: Getting Started (http://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/TW01/TW01.htm) Last accessed Nov. 18, 2010.

Gaslee, Sarah. Basic Tabletweaving. (http://www.stringpage.com/tw/basictw.html) Last accessed Nov. 18, 2010.

New challenge and current projects

Having gotten back into the SCA this year after a 12 hiatus, I found myself as Baronial A&S Champion before I new what I was happening.  It's been a great honor, and a great personal challenge to actually finish projects, try new things, and push myself to enter competitions (something I usually avoid like the plague).  Since my term in that roll will be over in another few months, I've decided that joining in the A&S 50 Challenge will give me some of the structure I seem to need to both try new things and actually finish projects in something approaching a timely manner.

So, for A&S 50 I've committed to learning 50 new things about textile production in the middle ages.  I've been sewing costumes and embroidering for years so doing something in that area would not be much of a challenge, and I already know how to spin and the very basics of weaving, so I think this will be a good expansion of my current skills.  I've wanted to learn a lot of these things for a long time, I just haven't had anything pushing me to actually do it, so the structure of the challenge should be  perfect!  As I finish projects, I'll be posting pictures, notes and documentation on this blog.

My tenure as Baronial Champion should be up in May, and I currently have two competitions I'm working on.  One is our local Interbaronial Twelfthnight  celebration, and the second is Kingdom Arts and Sciences.  I'm less worried about IB12, which is at the end of January, and far more worried about KAS which is the first weekend in February.  KAS will be my second Kingdom level A&S competition, and aside from stepping it up on the documentation, I really don't know what's expected.  I'm not entering the pentathlon (thank god, I did that at WOW in October and placed 2nd, which was great, but I don't feel a need to do that again this year), there's a special competition just for Baronial Champions that I'll be doing, but the guidelines are pretty vague and I don't know if I need a whole huge display or just my project.  Right now I'm planning on a display, I've just got to work out how to lay everything out.