Mi Contra Fa

Brocaded fillet complete!

Figure 1: Entire band, with bad glint coming off the gold brocade and silver hooks in the back

It ended up coming together really quickly today.  I finished the brocading with maybe 4" of broad plate left - there's about 7" of brocade in all.  Then I wove a long piece of plain band.  The width was pretty uncontrolled because I was so thrilled at being able to go quickly, I just blasted ahead.  Also, knowing that the band will be covered by my veil, I wasn't so motivated to be persnickity.

Since agates are used to burnish gold leaf, and I have some agate cabochons, I used the flat back of a big (2" long) stone to hold sections of the braid and flattened the brocade with a smaller stone.  I also trimmed the brocading weft where pieces entered and exited the work.

Figure 2: Large close-up of brocade, with flash blocked by thin white paper.  It looks bad under strong light, but looks quite nice under normal room lighting.

The reverse was very prickly and scratchy, even after it was flattened, so I cut a strip of white linen to cover the it.  I meant for it to be a sort of a stand-alone felled seam, and it mostly is - just not as even as it could be.  I was worried that the corners where the fabric was folded many times would press "hot spots" against my head but so far, no problem.

Figure 3: Folded linen on reverse, sewn down with the same 60/2 burgundy silk that  makes the band, so that it is invisible on the top.  The longish stitches going across the band only sew a folded edge of linen to linen, and do not go through the band.

I tied it on snugly, then used to center of the knot to position my two silver hooks.  (I did have to open one of the hooks with pliers, just a little - they're meant to be used with a smaller gauge loop, I guess.) I used the attachment rings on the hooks like tiny annular brooches to pin them on and check fit.  I fit it on bare head but over hair.  I think that'll work with most of my veil configurations, or it will with a little adjustment.

The band I've based this one on was found with small gold rings at either end.  Given my thoughts about "eh, you can't see the unbrocaded band anyway," I wonder if - there was no more band?  This find was a long strip, about 10" if I remember right, so plenty long to go across a forehead and disappear under a veil. After that - who cares? Save the silk! (If it was silk; a brownish thread survives but is too brittle to analyze.) Maybe a cord was tied from ring to ring?  Or two cords, tied to each ring and then secured behind the head?

Also, the well-folded (to finish the edges) linen reminded me of Arnegunde's "padded cuffs."  And aren't there some Viking finds (Birka?) with padded bracelets of some kind?  I wonder if this padding was a similar protective backing?

All told - I am very very pleased with my new fillet.  I've been wanting to make one for literally years.  It's not perfect, but it looks very spiffy, and it reflects the light fantastically.  Woooo!

 ADDENDUM: This picture of the Cologne princess fillet reconstruction shows the hook offset and... more than that isn't clear.  I seem to recall reading that the fillet fastened with "a pair of silver hooks" - I just assumed they'd be in the center-back.  (Ah, it was in Crowfoot and Hawkes, p. 79: "and the fillet seems to have been fixed at the back of the head by means of silver-wire hooks.") I wonder how they came up with that reconstruction?  Maybe the brocade indicates the narrowing band, so overlapping it made sense? I'll see what my exhibit catalogue says, if anything.  I seem to recall that Crowfoot and Hawkes had more detail on that piece!

(And there seems to be room for either differing opinion, or else error: this book has the fillet fastening with the gold-and-garnet almandine pin in the front, which seems very unlikely.)

BONUS: This thesis appendix contains information on the textiles found with the Cologne 'princess.'  One is described as a 12 cm x 12 cm piece "probably of silk, of a half-basket weave, turning into a twill-like weave; the spin analysis revealed that it was probably of unspun silk, the count of threads was 18/20 x2 threads per cm." (32).  Sort of like my linen!

No idea what I'm doing! (Silk band with brocading)

Wheeeeee...

I thought I understood "turning on top," but when it came time to actually put metal to string today... I don't understand how to secure the brocading weft without taking it down through the band and out the back.  At best (because now I think I see it? maybe?) you'd have the turning corners not really tied down.  I think.

ANYWAY what I've been doing is just taking the weft clear out the back, and then back in.  I initially tried carefully folding it twice to reverse direction, but that really wasn't working very well.  I've ended up just passing the weft through and gently pulling it, letting it find its own place to fold.  Sometimes it works better than others, and the back is covered with sharp metal bits.  (So's the front.)  Burnishing it with a spoon or something will help flatten things out, but I may cut a narrow linen band and mount this whole thing to it, just so I have something between it and my skin.

The whole band narrowed when I started the brocade.  I was having enough trouble getting the brocade started that I didn't even try to worry about it.  The band seems to have stablized at a new, narrower width.

I've got spots where I wasn't as careful as I needed to be with my ground weft, and the outer cords pull a bit away from the band and brocade.

But!  All told, it actually looks pretty darn good!  I got four inches done today.

Gravity is a harsh mistress (Silk band with brocading)

Finished the section of plain band yesterday.

Every time I have to reverse card direction, it messes up my band width, no matter how hard I try to keep the cords in the right spots. :/

Re-read, and re-re-read, Nancy Spies book and A GOOD THING, TOO. I missed the part where the brocading weft turning technique I'd used on my sample pieces was totally wrong for these braids. I check the illustration in Crowfoot and Chadwick-Hawkes and YEP, there it was.

Figure 1: Pattern for brocading found in either Grave 41, 51 or 64 at Bifrons, from Crowfoot and Hawkes, "Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids."

Spies says that the metal weft turns on top of the band; the 'reconstructed pattern' above shows the turns as hidden (although the sketch on top seems to imply, by shading, that they are on the top). Putting the turns on top also keeps the metal from scratching the skin on the reverse of the band, a problem I already noted on my practice piece.  Each of those turns will also require two very neat folds of the band to reverse it, and I shudder to think of trying to do that in the warp shed or on the reverse of the piece. 

The black-and-white block diagram is the least trustworthy piece of information - given the more careful sketches and the practical reasons (both in making and in using the piece), I think top-turning, like Spies says, makes the most sense.

I figured that, once I start brocading, wrapping the band around my square take-up rod isn't a good idea anymore.  I've clipped the start of the work to the rod and dropped of off the table, then added clamps for weight until the tension was good. I grabbed something else lying in the workshop to lift the working area off the table surface so that the cards could turn.  If it worked for warp-weighted looms...?  Once the free end of the work hits the ground, I can re-clamp it higher up, either avoiding the brocade or only clamping after I've wrapped it protectively in something.

Setting up for silk

I neglected to report out on my progress on the wool band - it's done!  I have pictures, and a complete post mortem will be forthcoming.  Biggest takeaway was that I've probably been pulling my weft too tight since... well, since always.

I would not have thought that I'd say this, but I kinda sorta want to do it over again (yes, in the wool!) to apply some of the lessons learned.  Not... not right now, though.

So with the wool off the cards, I started to set up for silk.  After some dithering, I've decided (possibly unwisely) to head directly into brocading with my broad plate.  Past experience says that if I bollocks it up, I'll know pretty quickly, so I can use just a short piece of brocading weft and see if it's working.  If it's not, I'll do what I do lo, those many years ago when I first tried brocading: give up and weave a plain band. Then maybe go back and ornament it.

My head measures about 23.5" around, if I measured right, so +33% + 12" means about four feet of warp. (Actually... no, it doesn't. 24 is 2/3 of 36, but 33% of 24 is 8. D'oh. Well, better too long than too short!) I put two chairs 4' apart, attached binder clips to the backs of both, and wound my Webbs burgundy 60/2 silk from White Wolf and Phoenix around them.  (I had to tie it down with a knot to start, and cleverly tied it around both the edges of the clip's lever arm, so that it would be easy to snip off.)

Figure 1: Warping clip on chair

Figure 2: Tying warp around clip for easy cutting and removal

I didn't do the warp all in one go - I got anxious that having too many fine threads out would tangle.  I removed the warps in pairs from the clip that did not have the tie-down, snipping them free of the remaining warp and then snipping any doubled threads.  Still holding two bights at the other end, I folded them into lark's head knots and slid them onto a craft stick for safekeeping - a little bundle of four strands for one card.

Figure 3: Two 8-foot strands of silk, doubled, and tied with lark's head knots to a stick.

Then I became anxious that having all of these bundles with free ends would result in terrible tangles.  So I thought I should get the cards threaded onto them, pronto.  There was much wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth until I used another clamp to clamp the craft stick to one of the chairs. Suddenly I could comb out a set of warp strands and not have my anchor come along with!  Card threading proceeded swiftly after that, with the warps wrapped into little loops and laid neatly alongside their cards.

Figure 4: Cards laid out with warp coiled by each one

Another lesson learned: Do not wear a fuzzy, loose acrylic scarf while working with silk in a low humidity environment.  Nothing bad happened, but the static electricity build-up had the silk threads moving themselves around...

I set up a sort of bastard Oseberg loom using side tables, clamps, and bits of wood.  A wide-toothed comb held in a clamp served as a warp separator - this was very helpful for the initial set-up, but when it finally fell over and lost all the strands during weaving, I didn't try to set it back up again.  I went slowly, taking the warps from one card, clearing them from the group, laying them in one gap of the warp separator, and setting their card to one side.  It took a long time, and I only had eleven cards!  I was, at this point, beginning to think that silk was sort of evil and persnickety.

Figure 5: Improvised loom. Clamping the work end directly to the table didn't work, so I later added a 1" square length of wood to elevate it.

Figure 6: A "pocket knitting" device held by a small flashlight clip. Feel free to use your own comb and clamp combination, or an actual warp spreader.

Somehow, when removing the warps from my two-peg set-up, I managed to cut a few rather short.  The completed warp - carefully tensioned card by card, and sometimes strand by strand - measured only about 36" from craft stick to knot.  Crossing my fingers that this will be enough for a 23" band.

Starting the weave

The fillet whose pattern I'm copying had a brocaded section about 10" long.  That's about right to reach from veil-edge to veil-edge on me, so I have a section of plain silk band to weave first.  11 cards, alternately S- and Z-threaded, to get the standard plain ground of lines of tiny chevrons.

WOW.  For all the hassle and worry that the silk would tangle and knot and become impossible, actually weaving it once it's set up is NICE.  Especially compared to the wool!  Sheds magically clear!  I moved a table lamp so that I had light right on my work, and followed Spies' advice to measure every pass or two of the shuttle. (And you can DO THAT with silk!  I tried it with the wool, but everything was so fuzzy I couldn't really decide on where the band started or stopped on the ruler.  The silk is nice and straight and fine, and lays boom, right on the ruler divisions.)  My band seems to have settled down to 9mm.  And I am holding that within 0.5mm, I'd say! To me, this band looks good, better than anything else I've done, I think.

I'm not sure what I'll do when I can no longer comfortable reach the weaving.  Move to backstrapping?  Try and wrap it around the wood bar that it's currently clamped to?  The way the clamps are, I'd have to turn it 360 degrees; if I turned them around, I think I could do a 180.  It's a 1" square piece of stock, and I've already done about 2.75", so I should be able to manage that.

Thinking ahead to finishing

I have my "Cologne princess" silver hooks.  Rereading Chadwick, I see that one of the Bifrons finds had gold rings at either end of the brocading - about at the temples, where other small rings have been found in graves.  Walton-Rogers or Owen-Crocker (I forget which) mention these, and wonder if it has something to do with how the veil was affixed to the fillet.

I am not going to try and stuff the entire edge of the band onto the hook.  I thought about that, when I saw the lark's-head knots, but I think it would just wrinkled and scrunch the band.  I think I will make the band a little over-long, if I have the warp for it, and sew the hooks to spots a bit up from the band-ends, and then finish the band ends.  (Makes me think of the... Queen Emma? illumination, that shows some sort of long dangly bits coming from under her headdress.  Ah, here it is.)  Gold rings only if I can figure out what they're for.  (Maybe... tiny little annular brooches used with fine pins?)

Flat gold threads!

I don't even remember what I was Googling for that brought me to The Warp Factor, (EDIT: the spelling of 'Snartemo,' I think) but I followed a link in that post to Gina-B's silkwork blog and discovered a magic keyword: goldwork!  There is a needle art out there that uses gold threads.  And while they seem to mostly use variously coiled threads, there is one kind called "broad plate" that is just a narrow strip of metal.  No. 6 broad plate is 2mm wide, and No. 11 is 1mm wide. Just what I want.

Armed with this knowledge, I've been able to locate Berlin Embroidery, a shop on this side of the Atlantic that carries No. 11 broad plate.  Hurrah!  The modest cost of a yard of this stuff ($7.50US for 2% gold, $4.50US for 0.5% gold) is well worth not having to Exacto-knife strips of aluminium to an even 1mm.

Pentathalon Update

Somewhere along the line, I got convinced that there was a Pentathalon at 12th Night.  I think I was just confused, but I have a lot of projects going on right now...

• Kentish crystal ball in sling.  I used twisted wire for the sling, which isn't a good historical pick (although it is pretty!).  After reviewing my Pinterest board for these things, I may see if I can do any chasing on the aluminium band I bought to make something more appropriate.
• Snartemo II band - moving along well.  Working in wool is sort of awful - so sticky!  Undoing errors is hard.  I think I wove one or two iterations of the design with a 1-turn offset error, which I've corrected. Accidentally narrowed the heck out of the band on Sunday. :/
• Brocaded band - got the burgundy silk yesterday!  Not going to warp it up until the wool is done. Wish the silk was a touch more purple, but it is what it is.
• Artifact belt - My strap end is on its way, and I won an auction for a really cruddy belt buckle.  If it's too pitted and corroded to use, I have one on order from Raymond's Quiet Press, too. I've done a little reading on bronze artifact cleaning and restoration.
• Beaded necklace - have gone through my Faversham grave catalogue, making color copies of the reconstructed necklaces, and have tried a few stringings with the beads I have on-hand. Not happy yet.  Bought some amethyst beads on Fire Mountain Gem's Cyber Monday sale, woo hoo!  Also, real silver hooks for the brocaded band, like the Cologne princess's.
• Doing a little poking into the boxes found in the Faversham graves, and what wood (beech) and hardware (nails, L-shaped brackets, lock plate, handles) would be needed to make one.
• Linen robe - the linen thread came. No other forward progress on this one.
• Lay of Guthrun - hoping to do a recording of this this week for my online class. May be with harp instead of lyre.
• Thor's Wedding - Urg, still needs so much work and a few more readings of the source material.

Adventures in brocading

The gold-colored aluminum foil came.  It was only colored on one side!

First I tried folding it over into a strip colored on both sides.  I managed to do that, getting a strip about 2mm wide.  That did not brocade well.  The turns were awkward and they didn't lay right.

So I cut a 1mm strip and used it for a bit.  That worked pretty well!  But as the strip went back and forth, you could see the silver underside.

I suppose the next step is to see if I am dexterous enough to fold a 2mm strip of foil in half?  I don't think there's good odds of that, but I'll give it a go.

The other options are to lay out the $40 to buy a sheet of 5mil brass, or to use craft wire.  (Some of the Continental pieces from this era used round wire, including the Cologne princess.)  I could afford the brass, but I sort of hate to spend money on top of the money I already spent for material that is only somewhat better than what I have now.  But the clamoring perfectionist in me is rather insistent, too...

Buying stuff

Last night, I experimented with slicing up some of the sheet metal left over from the Roman curse tablets project and weaving it into the brocaded band.  A very different experience from using the metallic thread!  I've ordered a sheet of ArtEmboss lightweight aluminium in a gold color - if I can manage it, I think that would be a better way to do the brocaded band than using modern gold thread.

I've put a bid in on another Anglo-Saxon artifact - this time on eBay.  Metal detectorists sell their finds there, and they're generally way cheaper than the fancy auction I bid on for the strap end.  I've got my eye on a belt buckle to go with the strap end - will only run me $20-30 if I get it.

Also ordered linen and silk thread for the Kentish gown.  Still waiting to hear from White Wolf and Phoenix about the 60/2 silks they carry, for the tablet-woven band.  And I need to decide if the worsted wool yarn I got at Pennsic is what I want to use for the belt, and what pattern I'll use, and whether or not I'll brocade that, too (and if so, with colored wool or with more metal?)

Hurray for Amazon points - only the linen thread is costing me money out of pocket!

Silk Thread Adventures

My spool of silk thread was from Belding Brothers, which stopped selling it under that name in 1925.  So the thread is close to 100 years old!  I didn't know that until after I'd chopped it up for card weaving.

I gave up pretty quickly because of tension problems - the thread seemed to be snapping under even modest tension.  That seems weird, because silk is usually very strong.  Maybe because it's old?  Maybe it didn't snap, but it slipped out of the knot?

I'll give it another go, but #100 thread seems really fine.  I should go and check Spies' book to see if she has any recommendations on materials - I've found silk embroidery floss on the Web that might be better to use.

Gold Brocaded Fillet

I've also been working on a Kentish gold-brocaded fillet, following along the technique laid out in Nancy Spies's book and the patterns described in 'Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids' by Crowfoot and Hawkes.

• The proper balance between thickness of the ground threads and thickness of the brocading thread is not immediately apparent.  I got lousy results until I doubled my brocading thread.
• Try the recommended brocading thread first.  (I started with something I picked up at a remnants shop that looks a lot like historical 'spun-gold' but it didn't work well. The thread Spies recommends works so much better!)
• Still having some problems with the ground thread crowding the gold thread.  Maybe I need a thinner ground? Or triple the brocading thread?

None of the Kentish bands had surviving textile fragments.  The Taplow band (a belt or harness, in a man's grave) was of wool; I do not really want to try and card weave with wool fine enough for a fillet.  I could go with undyed linen thread - that may tally with the Wisigarde fillet.  And I can check that since my copy of the exhibit catalogue came, oh joy!  I also have some really old silk thread at home (I picked it up at a flea market 20 years ago, and it's on wooden spools) - that's much finer than I'm used to doing card weaving with, but it could be a neat experiment.  And if it works, I can get silk thread in an appropriate color - woad blue or imperial wine-purple, maybe.