Handspun Handwoven Floor-Length Cloaks
Executive Summary & Table of Contents
This is documentation for four different projects, all being entered in A&S Faire this year. The first three categories listed are to be considered for the Divisional Championship in Division II; the tablet weaving is a separate entry. The categories are:
1) Costume: Single Component
2) Spinning
3) Weaving: Loom
4) Weaving: Tablet
Since all the projects are interwoven with each other, the documentation refused to gel until it was all combined into one mass document. Page numbers refer to the original printed pages.
The Fleeces and Warp Thread are discussed on pages 2-3, giving an introduction to the raw materials being used for the cloaks, and discussing the condition of the fleeces when purchased.
Fleece Preparation is covered on pages 4-5, with a description of washing the fleeces, and combing, carding, and especially drum-carding, the fiber.
Spinning the weft thread is discussed on pages 6-8, briefly covering a short history of spinning, and discussing the reason for choosing to spin the thread as it was created. It should be noted that I have calculated that there is approximately four and one third miles of weft thread, spun by me and several volunteers. I spun 75-80% of the weft thread, including the samples presented here. One sample was spun on a drop spindle, while the other was spun on an upright spinning wheel.
Loom and Selvedge Tablet Weaving are discussed on pages 8-13. Some particular problems I had while weaving, and the solutions I came up with, are covered. The fabric, when measured coming off the loom, was over 40 feet long. After washing and light fulling, the final length allowed the cutting of six 6 foot sections, and left an excess of 9 inches.
Cloak Construction, particularly dealing with the supplemental tablet-woven bands added to the bias-cut edges, including the sewing together of the outer shell of the cloak, is covered on pages 13-15.
The final section on Cloak Construction, discussing the necklines and sewing the lining, is on pages 15-17.
The Bibliography is on pages 18-19.
Handspun Handwoven Floor-Length Cloaks
Two years ago, I was given the honor of being named Baronial Artisan for my Barony. The position is the Champion of the Arts & Sciences to the members of the Barony, and each Artisan has a duty to create an artifact for the barony.
My goal for my project has been the creation of two floor-length cloaks for Baronial regalia. The intent was to weave the cloth from handspun weft (and commercially purchased warp), then construct them in as period a manner as possible.
The Fleeces and Warp Thread
I chose the wool from East Friesian sheep for the handspun weft. The East Friesian sheep is a period breed, raised now as a milk sheep for cheese. They have long been admired for their size and milk production. In 1530, East Friesians were mentioned in the Vatican Archives as larger than other sheep and able to raise up to 5 lambs. Their wool, however, has been virtually ignored by modern spinners, since it is of a medium texture (30-37 micron count, 52-54 Bradford count), with few unusual characteristics. It is excellent for outer wear, and while it is rarely marketed as a wool for spinners, fleeces aren’t that uncommon and can be reasonably priced. (Raffino, 2002)
An example of a typical lock of East Friesian wool. Look at the staple length and the nice crimping of the wool.
22/2 100% Scottish Shetland wool, buttercup yellow
The warp thread is commercially-purchased 100% Scottish Shetland wool. The size of the purchased thread is 22/2, not very thin but not bulky. The color is buttercup yellow, a color easily achievable by dyeing with, for example, weld. (See Buchanan (1995, p 102-103), Grierson (1986, p. 219-221 and pl. 6) or particularly Rosetti (1969, p. 115) for color samples and recipes for the yellow possible with weld.) Woven with the white thread produced from the East Friesian wool, the resulting fabric is a very pleasant light yellow twill.
I purchased three fleeces of East Friesian wool as raw, unwashed fleece, via eBay. Obviously the original owner had not heeded Palladius’ advice in On Husbondrie:
(Palladius, 2000, Book 8, verse 13)
He certainly didn’t keep his ewes’ fields free from briars. All three fleeces were full of vegetable matter, with one in particular filled with large clumps of thistles. Even once washed, the wool still had a lot of dirt and vegetable matter included in it.
Fleece Preparation
I washed the wool using Dawn dishwashing liquid and Orvus Paste soap in the hottest water available. It was allowed to cool for 15-20 minutes, then the wool was spun to get the water out. Hot rinse water was added, and the wool was allowed to soak for 5 minutes, and again the water was spun out. This process was repeated, usually 2 or 3 times. Despite what the picture shows, much of the dirt was washed out. Larger pieces of vegetable matter were still caught in the fibers, however.
To get out the rest of the vegetable matter, I carded the wool using, for the most part, drum carders. While drum carders are far from being period equipment, again I made the choice on the basis of expediency. I did not have the legion of children often available in medieval time for combing and hand cleaning the fleeces. Hand carding was tried for some of the fiber, to compare results, but this process takes a long time to do well, and using the drum carder certainly helped to process the wool more quickly, while causing little loss in processing quality.
Most of the drum carding was accomplished over the course of approximately six months, with the help of volunteers and the loan of a second drum carder. We discovered that tweezers (and a good eye) are the best way, in many cases, to get the worst of the vegetable matter out of the fibers.
One fleece was so filled with vegetable matter that drum carding was not enough to get it clean. I finally tried a first pass on cleaning this fleece with my Viking combs. Since Viking combs are designed to pull the longer fibers away from the shorter, this had the effect of knocking out much of the straw that was caught in the wool, and produced cleaner wool very easily, speeding the processing of that fleece considerably.*
Examples of each type of cleaned fiber -- hand-combed, hand-carded and drum-carded -- are shown here. [actual examples in hand -- picture needed]
*I am amused, at times, by the obsession we have in the present day with getting every speck of vegetable matter out of our wool. We know that wasn’t necessarily possible in period -- in fact, archeologists have used the vegetable matter remaining in fabric [seeds, small bits of chaff, etc.] to place the origins of fabric that had been traded to foreign lands. For example, cloth that originated as wool in Scotland, and thus had seeds from native Scottish plants embedded, has been found in remote corners of Europe, obviously brought there by traders.
Spinning
Once a supply of carded wool was ready, I passed it out to several volunteers. Each was told that the thread needed would be fairly thin and smooth. While the volunteers contributed greatly to the cache of spun thread, I was still responsible for probably 75-80% of the thread that was used in the weaving.
The thread for the weft in the project was spun, for the most part, on a flyer and bobbin modern spinning wheel, though certain portions were produced using a drop spindle. I chose to hand-spin only the weft thread for the cloaks, as I wanted to make the project as much a group effort as I could. I passed out cleaned and carded fiber to several volunteers, and taught interested people how to spin on a drop spindle, if they wanted to join the project.
I had two main reasons for choosing to spin only the weft thread by hand. Knowing that the spinning abilities of some of the spinners I would be recruiting (and training) would not be up to the strength required for warp thread, I wanted to use their thread in the low-stress portion of the weave. Also, spinning the warp thread would have delayed warping the loom for many months, since the warp required nearly 7 miles of thread, which would have taken many months to hand-spin. By purchasing the warp thread, I was able to present a much more manageable (though still large) project to my helpers.
The skeins displayed here for judging are examples of my personal spinning -- one is wheel-spun, while the other was spun on a Turkish drop spindle. [actual examples in hand -- picture needed]
Spinning was the most common activity of a medieval woman’s life, as there was a constant need for new clothes, bed linens, blankets, etc. The only way to provide them was through the production of new thread and new cloth. Spindle whorls are ubiquitous in any archeological site (see the variety of whorls found in London [Egan, 1998, pp. 256-261], or the spindle whorls found in Greenland [Ostergard, 2004, pp. 45-52]) Images of spinners using drop spindles, both top and bottom whorl, and, later, spinning wheels (usually quill wheels) are easily found throughout medieval times. Books of instruction for women (e.g., Markham, 1986, pp. 146-152, specifically paragraph 18) often included detailed instructions on the correct manner to process wool for spinning, spinning on a wool wheel, and ultimately, weaving.
Luttrell Psalter, f. 193 (Backhouse, p. 48)
The weft thread is Z-spun, with a reasonably consistent diameter of 1-2 mm. Threads of this size are quite common in many cultures in medieval times. (See the charts of thread sizes in Bender-Jorgensen, 1992, Crowfoot, et al., 1992, and Ostergard, 2004.) My thread was spun with a fairly short draw and a fairly tight twist, producing a smooth, semi-worsted yarn. Since the warp yarn was slightly fuzzy, I was hoping to keep the weft thread as smooth as possible, given the fiber involved, in the hopes that the fabric would not full too intensely when washed, and shrink to such an extent that there would not be enough fabric to finish the cloaks. When the cloaks were cut and sewn together, there was less than a foot of waste fabric in the end of the woven cloth. (Note: When the woven fabric originally came off the loom, it was over 40’, yet the length of the fulled fabric, in the end, was only 36’ 9”.)
As each bobbin was spun, the thread was wound off into balls suitable for long-term storage. Often they sat for several months before being used for weaving. While no particular care was taken to set the spin, there were very few tangles during the weaving, and the final cloth shows no effects from the lack of further processing.
Conclusions (Spinning):
I am very happy with the thread. My spinning has improved greatly over the past two years, and I am much more confident with both my wheels and my drop spindles than when I began. I am no longer at all daunted by the prospect of facing a dirty fleece and processing it all the way through to finished cloth. And I hope I was able to promote spinning as a fun activity among some of the other members of my barony. With luck, we may get some more fiber artisans from my efforts.
The main problem I had while processing the wool was keeping more of the fleece -- and trying to clean it -- than was truly necessary or actually practical. The fleeces clearly needed more skirting than I was able to give them -- they had been jammed into sacks, and no care was taken in the arrangement of the fleece. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to sort out the locks. With my next project, I should have more time, and not need to hurry my processing as I did here. By maintaining locks, and washing them more carefully to minimize processing problems, I may have fewer problems with combing and carding, which will ultimately make my spinning easier and my thread a little cleaner.
Loom and Selvedge Tablet Weaving
Once a large enough cache of spun thread was accumulated, actual weaving could commence. The loom I used is a 36” wide, 4-harness jack floor loom. This is a size that would have been reasonable for a period loom, and was the widest loom I had available to me.
The horizontal loom arrived in Europe around 1000 AD. It represented a great advance in technology over the vertical, warp-weighted loom, making it possible to weave long lengths of cloth at speeds that were totally unattainable on the older, more primitive looms. Treadle looms of this general sort can be documented well back into period, with the earliest clear illustration being from an early 13th century English manuscript. There are many specific details have changed over the centuries, but the early medieval horizontal loom is much like today’s modern loom in basic appearance.
(Broudy, p.141)
I warped the loom to its full width, with 20 ends per inch (~8 ends per centimeter), in a 15-dent reed. The intent was to get as wide a fabric as possible given the equipment available, and to produce a fabric of moderate density, but not so heavy as to be stifling if worn inside for a Baronial Court. Since I wanted to make a wedge cloak -- taking a measured length of fabric and slicing it on its diagonal, in order to make the greatest use of the fabric -- making it as wide as I could weave meant I might save myself having to weave yet a greater length. I chose, for symmetry, to plan for six wedges per cloak, each to be 6 feet long. That meant I needed at least 36 feet of woven cloth, after washing and fulling. I knew the weaving would take up even more warp length -- the simple shifting of the threads up and down, as they are woven results in some shortening of the warp -- and I had no way to accurately calculate how much take-up to allow, so I allowed for at least 30% to be very generous, and measured out a 48 foot warp.
I chose to weave a simple 2/2 twill. This is a very common weave, that can be documented throughout medieval times and in many settings. Since I was planning this for baronial regalia, I needed to keep the project as generic as possible, to make the cloaks appropriate for whatever persona future Barons and Baronesses might use. A 2/2 twill would fit anywhere at any time, given how ubiquitous this weave is in archeological finds throughout Western Europe. For examples, see the charts of documented woven pieces in Bender-Jorgensen (1992), Crowfoot, et al. (1992), and Ostergard (2004).
Threading and treadling pattern: 2/2 twill (adapted from Davison, 1971)
I wanted to ensure the selvedges of the cloth were as strong and solid as possible. One problem with twill fabrics is a tendency to stretch on the bias. (Think about how tight a newly-washed pair of jeans is, and then how they gradually become much more comfortable. This is a consequence of the twill fabric stretching to better accommodate your body.)
I had read of tablet woven selvedges being produced in period -- more usually on a warp-weighted loom than on a horizontal loom -- and tablet weaving has the advantage of being very solid and non-stretching. While some instances have been documented of tablet-woven selvedges being woven and added onto fabric after the cloth has been woven (see Knudsen, 1998, for example, dated to the Roman Iron Age) , there are many more instances of tabletwoven selvedges being woven along with the fabric. (See the many examples cited in Hoffman, 1974.) Many “paired-twined” selvedges (i.e. tablet woven selvedges made using two threads per tablet, instead of four threads) are noted in Crowfoot, et al. (1992 -- see particularly the charts of selvedges in the chapter on wool textiles, pp. 26-76). I chose to use four threads in my tablets for the added stability and non-stretch qualities it would give my selvedge.
I warped the tablet woven selvedges separately from the rest of the warp, as the take-up from tablet weaving would be noticeably greater than for regular weaving. Threads in regular weaving are moving up and down past each other, while in tablet weaving, threads are twining around each other, producing small, four-ply ropes. This results in greater take-up, so I very generously warped each tablet with 60 feet of thread -- more than enough no matter how much take-up there might be.
All the selvedge tablets were S-threaded, to minimize the chance of the thread unplying itself while weaving. I wove the selvedge with the tablets constantly turning toward me, so twist built up fairly quickly. Because these threads were warped separately, I could pause between each bobbin and untwist the warp. In all, this added some time to my weaving -- I could weave several inches in 15 minutes, but needed another 15-20 minutes to work out the built-up twist.
I had several problems to solve, as I started weaving the fabric. At first, the warp was very fuzzy and sticky, and it was difficult to get a clear shed to weave through. I tried using a sizing/hair detangler on the thread, in hopes that it might lessen the clinging of the threads, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I finally decided that the harnesses of the loom simply were not rising up high enough to produce the shed I needed, and I made several adjustments to the set-up of the loom:
1) I raised the loom up onto 2x4 lumber, to allow the treadles to travel further down and the harnesses further up.
2) I clamped a spare back beam onto the loom, to raise the path of the thread another couple inches and give more clearance; and
3) I adjusted the ropes pulling the harnesses so that they were as long as possible, giving the treadles more slack to work with. Ultimately, this worked, and my sheds cleared after the first few feet of weaving.
Another problem I had, early on, was threads breaking in the tablet on the far left edge. Since it didn’t seem to be any one thread in particular that was breaking, I was at a loss to figure out why they all broke seemingly at random. Closer examination of the reed in the loom finally revealed that the last dent was narrower than any of the other dents. Since I had no way to widen the dent, and little desire to constantly repair broken warp threads, I decided to sacrifice that last tablet, and weave with 5 tablets on the left selvedge and 6 tablets on the right selvedge. This proved to be more than adequate for selvedge width.
An interesting consequence of using the tablet woven selvedges was that the tablet weaving regulated the tightness of the regular weaving. Tablet weaving requires more space between the wefts of each pass, since the twisting of the threads around each other takes up more space than the bending of the threads in the regular weaving. The tight weaving of the tablet woven edge kept the regular weaving reasonable loose, by comparison. (I am a fairly heavy beater, as can be seen by the firmness of the tablet weaving, yet the fabric is not stiff, but drapes fairly nicely.)
The fabric was woven over the course of a year, with Real Life intervening several times to slow my progress. (Breaking my arm certainly slowed me for a couple months.) Ultimately, the fabric was declared “done”, due to approaching deadlines, and was cut off the loom and measured. The original length off the loom was over 40’. The width averaged nearly 34”. I had not reached the end of the warp, when I took the fabric off, so I was interested to note that the waste still on the back beam was only about 4’ long. I might have been able to weave another foot or so, but I was very near the end of the warp when I quit.
Once off the loom, the fabric was washed and lightly fulled in a large tub on my back porch, waulking it in much the same manner as described by Gordon (1982), though without the fuller’s earth. While the fabric might have been fulled more, I didn’t want to risk fulling too heavily, and losing too much length in the process. (See the Note on p. 6.) The effect of the fabric in the current condition is good. The squares in the following photos are 1” x 1”.
Conclusions (Weaving - Loom):
Overall, I am quite please with the fabric I produced. It is a good “coat” weight, ideal for a cloak, and the drape and hand of the fabric is quite comfortable. I can tell which sections I wove early on, and which were woven later, when I was more experienced. I can also see where I changed bobbins, as I wove, as a result of using handspun weft from different fleeces. I am certainly no longer daunted by the prospect of taking on this large a project, though I will probably wait for a year or two before attempting anything quite this large again.
Cloak Construction
(particularly related to the supplemental selvedge)
Using a design that makes the most efficient use of the fabric, the cloaks were cut in wedges from the cloth. A 6’ length of cloth was measured and cut, then folded diagonally and cut between the corners. Each cloak has six wedges, one from each length, so variations in weaving are spread throughout both cloaks.
Since one of my main concerns for cutting the fabric was the tendency of the twill to stretch out of shape, and since I was also concerned that the fabric might fray on the cut edges, I decided to add a supplemental edge to all cut edges by tablet weaving an extra band onto the fabric. This is certainly documentable as a period practice -- see, for example, the several examples noted by Crowfoot, et al. (1992). The band is stitched to the fabric as it is being woven (see the diagram, Crowfoot, et al. (1992), p.161), and secures the edge from fraying and strain.*
*Three different ways to do this can be documented: 1) Stitches made consistently in one side of the new band and out the other, forming a tube of tablet weaving over the edge of the fabric; 2) Stitches made back and forth across the tablet weaving, and stitched directly into the edge of the fabric, with the fabric being cut before the new band was woven; and 3) Stitches made back and forth across the band, and stitched slightly in from the cut edge of the fabric, indicating that the band may have been woven before the fabric was cut. I chose to use the third method for the curves and a variant of the third for straight edges.
As with the main selvedge, the supplemental band was warped with all the tablets in an S configuration. The warp was stretched between the ends of a short band loom. Only three tablets were used on the band, as the need was only for a secure edge, not any width. For the straight seams on the cloaks, this supplemental band was woven and stitched to the fabric 1/8” inside the edge after the edge was cut. The reinforced edge was then stitched to one of the selvedges of the woven fabric. The selvedge was then doubled over the edge and the supplemental band and stitched down, so that no cut edge or supplemental band was left exposed where it might fray. Once the fabric edge was secure with the extra band, it was safe to be sewn and stressed by seaming. Each wedge was sewn into one or the other of the growing cloaks, as soon as the supplemental band was finished.
The supplemental bands are still visible for your examination along the cut edge of the scrap pieces of fabric.
The “shuttle” used for this portion of the tablet weaving was a hand-made brass needle of a style commonly seen in period. For weft on the edging band, and to stitch the band to the fabric, I used the leftover warp thread from the main weaving.
Once all the wedges were sewn together, the hem was measured and marked, and the supplemental tabletwoven band added to the edge where the hem would be cut. The neckline was fitted and marked, and a free-form tabletwoven band was added along the neckline cutting edge, before any cut was made. The neckline is the area that receives the most strain, and is most easily stretched out of shape. If I had waited to stitch over the edge, I risked the neck stretching while I was tablet-weaving. Since it proved to be fairly simple to tablet-weave without cutting the neck edge, I chose to do that. Making the freeform turns was the trickiest part, but that was solved by tying a supplemental thread onto the warp at the point where the turn was to be made, and using that to hold the warp under tension from the new direction.
Conclusions (Weaving - Tablet):
I am pleased with this experiment in using tablet weaving for a purely functional, not a decorative, use. Tablet weaving is one of the most solid, non-stretch forms of weaving possible, and should help the cloaks maintain their shape for many years. Being able to show two different functional uses in the cloaks is particularly satisfying, as this use, while common in period, has not been exploited to any extent by modern weavers. “Free-form” supplemental bands, such as those stitched around the shaped necks of the cloaks, would also have a decorative use, possibly resulting in a pattern design much like that of a narrow braid or a couched thread on the surface of a fabric. I hope others will find all this an inspiration for their work, especially on important pieces that need to retain their shape.
Cloak Construction (cont.):
Much of the work in constructing the cloak was accomplished before the wool and the silk sections were sewn together. Once the stabilizing tabletwoven trim was in place on the straight seams, I sewed the selvedge to the cut edge, with the edge offset enough so that I could then come back and fold the woven edge over the cut edge, and further stabilize the seam with a flat-fell seam, a period seam type. (See the seam types diagrammed in Ostergard, 2004, specifically figure 64 b on p. 98.)
When the outer wool shell of the cloak was done, the lining, of silk noil, was cut and sewn together. As the silk fabric was wider than the handwoven wool, the lining required only four full-sized wedges and two half-wedges on each edge, instead of the 6 full-sized wedges of the wool. As with the outer shell, the seams of the silk was all handsewn, using silk noil thread to minimize differential shrinking between the thread and the fabric.
The silk noil lining fabric was another choice made on expediency, but based on reports from period practice. While silk noil would not have been used as an outer fabric -- the noils would have been rejected as flaws -- it certainly would have been acceptable as lining fabric. It would have provided the period owner with an economical way to have a silk-lined garment, without costing more than the budget would allow.
With all the supplementary bands in place and the lining sewn together, the hem and neckline of both the outer shell and the lining were cut to shape. The shoulder seams of each were sewn with flat-felled seams for reinforcement, then the necklines were sewn together,. All hems were sewn as double-folded hems.
As noted on page 13, above, the yellow wool outer fabric was all handsewn using leftover thread and a handmade brass needle purchased from a friend. This worked quite nicely, and the needle seemed to sharpen more the longer I used it with the wool -- I suspect it was being polished by the rubbing of the fibers.
The white silk noil lining was also handsewn, using silk noil thread I had purchased for weaving. I wanted to match the thread types to their fabric to prevent any differential shrinking between thread and fabric, whenever the cloaks might be washed in the future.
At present, I have edge-stitched the neck opening and tacked down the lining at the seams, as the lining was riding up inappropriately without the stitching. Eventually, the front edges of the cloak will also be stitched in this manner. This has been skipped for the moment to enable easier examination of the seams and the free-form tablet weaving.
Conclusions:
The overall project to create handspun, handwoven cloaks for Baronial regalia has been a success. While it took much longer than originally anticipated, with several attacks of Real Life intervening, everything has finally resolved itself, and the Baron and Baroness were quite pleased with the cloaks when they were presented. There are still a few “finishing touches” I want to add. The most important is to construct garment bags for the cloaks, so they can travel a little more safely to and from events. I am certainly no longer daunted by the prospect of taking on this large a project, though I will probably wait for a year or two before attempting anything quite like it. In the mean time, though, I can look at the cloaks with pride.
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