Making adjustments to the project plans

I got an inflammation from softening my skins to my right hand/wrist on the beginning of December and was so pissed off that I wanted not to write anything here. I’m still having the same problem, but by using a spatula I can work a bit – but carefully. I can’t actually clasp almost anything and my ability to use the computer is also still very restricted. This means that my project won’t be ready on the end of February, as I planned, but I have to do some things in Finland. I hope I’ll find time sewing the shoes and such.

This kick in the teeth intimidated me to plan what I really can do now. An injury on right hand is very awkward, when all of your work is mostly writing and doing handicrafts with your both hands.

I decided to spin all wool what I couldn’t spin before Christmas now ready so quick as possible. I have to spin only one skein with the spindle and then the weft is done. Unfortunately I have still lots to do with the loom. When I’m ready, I can dye yarn with heather. I hope I’ll begin to weave wool after two-three weeks or so.

Hemp is ready for spinning. I managed to get quite soft fibres out of my stems, but my purpose is not to make very fine yarn, because the apron is an everyday working cloth. If I don’t have enough time to weave my head scarf, I’ll do it on summer while I’m working in a medieval exhibition.

I have problems with softening goose skins. It’s possible that they don’t have enough fat inside. My teacher Aja is incredible kind and has been softening one of my goose skins during this week, because I can’t clasp the softening iron (I got my nice inflammation from that). If I can’t make all of my skins ready, I have to work with them later on spring or summer and sew my leather frock in Finland.

We took my cow hide up from bark bath on 18th December. I try to get the possibility to cut the shoe pattern and begin to sew while I’m still here. I can finish my shoes later in Finland.

I’m not going to try to weave tablet-woven belt, nålbinda socks and make a leather apron here in Bäckedal. Those are things I can do without any leading also in Finland.

Spinning and softening the skins

I am still mostly spinning. I should finish spinning of wool in the  weekend or beginning of the next week and then begin to spin hemp. Hopefully I’m done before Christmas Holiday.

I experimented dyeing with heather and noticed that also the third afterbath is still too yellow, or almost brownish-greenish-yellow. That’s not a colour I really want to my dress! I have to make another try with smaller amount of heather. That will probably happen just before or after the holiday.

I scraped my shoe cow hide today and added more bark. My teacher suggests that we’ll take the hide up from the bath before Christmas that she doesn’t have to come to school during the holiday because of stirring my bark bath… It’s hopefully done then. Softening will happen on January.

Textile course was in the tanning room 3 weeks felting and dyeing, and I couldn’t  soften any skins during that time. Tomorrow I’ll do two goat skins ready for sewing. Probably on Thursday I’ll begin to soften the big deer skin and put at last two sheep skin to the lime bath. Another one will be the front side of my frock, another one the leather apron, if everything goes fine. I’m planning totake all skins with me to Finland and sew the frock during the holiday.

I ‘m beginning to understand how late I actually am (I should do some Christmas presents and relax too) and how much I should work before the holiday period.  Especially the hemp spinning will take it’s time. Trallala, I say.

I’m still here, though too slow

I’m sorry about the silence of these last weeks. First I was very busy here in Bäckedal, because I travelled on 16th October to London for two weeks. When I came back, I got a terrible cold, which is actually still going on a bit.

So, a status update: Because textile course is felting in tat house where we usually tan skins and hides, I can’t do almost anything there just now. I’m only stirring the bark bath of the cow hide every day. It smells terrible, though process goes on fine – the smell which fastens to your hands doesn’t disappear even if you wash your hands about two hundred times after stirring.  Actually, it stays after taking a shower too. It means that I’m continually smelling like a rotting cow to the beginning of January, when I’ll take the cow hide up.

I’m still couching a lot so I try to do light work, which means spinning very actively. I have been way too lazy and, also because of travelling and the cold, have lost more than three weeks of active working time. I also lost some time for felting woollen things for me just because felting is so fun. Trallala. Hopefully I’ll manage to be more energetic.

Hemp stems are also still waiting for braking – the only problem is, that winter has came to Härjedalen and it’s something like -4 Celsius and snow out there, so braking isn’t very pleasant work just now… I can do it inside too, but then I’ll breath all the dust inside my lungs.

I haven’t still taken any pictures about my wool and spinning. I try to remember to do that soon.

Project description, finally

I shall introduce my project to textile class today, so probably it’s easiest to write down here about the same things I’ll be telling there.

I’m making an western Finnish everyday dress based on some archaeological and ethnological evidence. I’m not reconstructing any special grave find. Fabrics found in burials are mostly festive or better clothes with jewelry and tell mostly about richer people’s burial. Clothes worn daily at the Viking Period are not familiar to us. I make my guesses about daily clothing using two main sources:

1) Archaeological evidence. What has been found? What kind of fabrics, materials and models do we have from Viking Age Finland and, if there isn’t any in Finland, then Sweden, Denmark and Norway? I admit that I don’t have enough sources from Estonia or other Baltic countries or from Russia, but I emphazise Western Finlands strong contacts to Sweden at that period.

2) Materials in use. Which were and are the most practical materials? I assume that because of processing fibres to fabric and then to a dress has taken so much time, there has been much more daily dresses made of leather as we have been thinking. Wool has evidently been a very important material: warm, quite easy to handle and relative easy to grow and get. Linen is also overrated as a fabric material – hemp is easier to grow, though a bit coarser fibre.

Frock
The frock will be made of fat-tanned and bark-coloured animal skins (goat, deer, sheep). For colouring I will use willow and fur bark, for fat-tanning sheep brains and seal train oil. I will take the pattern from Danish bog finds and sew the frock together with hemp- or linen yarn.

Syrcotte
Syrcotte is a medieval term for a dress on top. “Syrcotte” doesn’t describe this part of a Finnish dress very well, but I’ll use it before I find a better description. Finnish Viking Age syrcotte-dress doesn’t have any seams. There are probably some variations of the dress: one possibility is to have a peplos-dress like in the Eura costume, a rectangular piece of cloth, which is folded on top and fasten with round brooch or brooches on one or both shoulders. Reconstructed Kaarina costumes syrcotte is made of two different fabric pieces fasten on both shoulders with brooches. All syrcotte types have an apron on them and are thus bound on waist with a tablet-weaved band.

The most common woollen textile type from Finnish grave finds is 2/2 twill (Sz/z, type 12 according Jorgensen 1991). It is found especially from Eura Luistari burial ground and is very typical for Finnish mainland. There aren’t any other similar 2/2 twill types in the same period in Northern Europe – the nearest examples are from Halstatt culture about 1000 years earlier.

The most coarse fabric finds from Finland are from 5/4/cm (warp/loom). Because I’m weaving an everyday dress, I’m spinning yarn which will make about 6-7 yarn/cm in warp and weft.

Both the weft and the warp are combed with viking wool combs. Warp is spinned with an underneath spindle. Because my time is restricted, I’m spinning the warp with a spinning wheel though the spinning wheel came to Finland earliest at 16th century.

I’m dyeing spunned yarn with heather plant and alun. Colour should be strong yellow. After dyeing I’ll set a loom to a warp-weighted weaving loom and begin to weave. I have to decide sooner or later am I weaving a bread peplos-style fabric or a much meager Kaarina costume -styl, two-piece syrcotte.

Aprons
I will make two different aprons. Another is made of bark-tanned leather and don’t have any special pattern: it’s a piece of leather for dirty and wet work.

Another one is a hemp apron. It is a piece of cloth, about 40 cm x 75 cm. Finnish woollen Viking Age aprons have been between 30-45cm broad and 50-90cm long. I’m taking the same model to a hemp apron. I’m using hemp as the material because it is much more easy to wash and use in everyday work than wool. It is also possible that many of Viking Age textile finds are hemp, not linen.

Linen is a plant which needs lots of care and a good soil for growing. Hemp thrives in clay soil and is very easy to cultivate. It doesn’t need rooting up because the leaves are so thick that weed don’t grow under it. It’s also almost impossible to separate linen and hemp fibres from archaeological finds even it has been a tradition to call all fibre-like fabrics as linen. In Sweden there is a survey coming out on the autumn 2008, which will tell more about separating hemp from linen.

I’m processing water-retted hemp stems with linen tools. I brake dry stems and after that scutch them with a medieval-type scutching tool. After that I’ll hackle hemp fibres with a hackling comb and spin them with a spindle (weft) and a spinning wheel (warp).

I’m using hackled fine hemp for the warp, but spinning the weft of tow, the “waste fibres” which stuck into the combs when hackling. So the apron will be made of a bit more coarse material.

I’ll also weave a tabled-weaved band for binding up the apron and the whole dress. I’m spinning the yarn with a spindle and using natural colours of wool for the pattern.

Headdress
I will weave the headscarf with the same warp than the hemp apron. Scarf is about 40 x 70cm piece of cloth. In the headscarf also the weft will be hackled hemp.

Shoes
The shoes will be made of the cow hide. Cow hide is tanned with fur bark and will lay in the bark bath from the beginning of October to the beginning of January. Model of the shoes comes from Viking Age Scandinavia, but I haven’t decided yet, what they will look like.

Socks
If there is enough time, I’ll comb wool and spin thick yarn with a spindle and needle-bind tubular socks. This is also possible to do later.

Forming the idea of my project

I met Ellinor, my project leader, shortly after I arrived today. I’ll take part to the textile course linnen lecture and make a short written description about my project principles. In any case I will be quite much with textile people during this autumn.

Tomorrow we’ll speak about linnen and begin to sew an linnen apron. It’ll be a handy thing to have.

It’s starting soon.

This is my project blog for my six months in Bäckedals Folkhögskolan -handicraft school in Sweden. I beg you pardon my bad English, but I assumed that it would be probably more interesting for both people in Finland and people in school (and maybe some others there abroad) to get information about my costume project. Reading this can be a grammatical nightmare, but you’re warned.

I will make a Finnish Viking Age period dress for a woman. My purpose is to sew everyday clothing, not a “fancy party dress”. That’s why I’m going to use leather as the material for the actual dress, wool for the sark and hemp for the apron. I tan and sew probably also the shoes and, if there’s still time left, weave a mantel and a headdress. I can promise I’ll write about this base idea more when I’m really starting the project.

I’m still in Finland, but leaving on Sunday. I should be in Sveg on the Monday afternoon, if my little (and actually borrowed) car gets me there. Then we’ll see, how this will start.