My creative SCA journey on stuff I make and research I do…mostly in fibers (wool prep, spinning, weaving, tablet weaving) and glass beads, but could also include costumes, camping, cooking, and any other creative things that strike my fancy.
The last installment in the Laurel Kingdom series! Avacal!
I thought I would do one more Birka pattern to finish the set, this time choosing a design that I couldn’t find a pattern for. It gave me the opportunity to challenge myself to create a pattern from just a sketch. This is the sketch of Birka 2f that I found:
Birka 2f, found in Sweden, dated 8th-10th centuries
I used the Tabletweaving Draft Designer to create the patterns, which can be found at https://jamespbarrett.github.io/tabletweave/. A video to help you navigate the program and learn some of the features can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmPy61SSTP0&t=3s.
4-hole sample and pattern:
It really didn’t turn out how I imagined. It’s not terrible, but I wonder if it would look better using finer threads? That’s something I’ll have to try in the future.
Birka 2f: 4 hole pattern
Skip hole sample and pattern:
This turned out far better! Skip hole pattern. The border is the same but the middle cards create a much narrower piece with more defined designs.
Birka 2f: Skip hole pattern
Avacal is the newest Kingdom in the SCA, formed from Saskatchewan, Alberta and a tiny bit of BC; the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains. Their colors are yellow, white and red.
So there you have it! The final installment of the Laurel Kingdom series! I hope you enjoyed it and will start weaving up your own pieces and creating patterns of your own to share with others. I’m not sure what my next projects will be–perhaps I will go through Tablets at Work and learn all the different types of techniques that have been found through history.
This is the finished piece I made after I figured out the pattern a few years ago.
The Hochdorf Chieftain’s Grave is a richly-furnished Celtic burial chamber found near Hochdorf an der Enz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, dating from 530 BC in the Hallstatt culture period. This is the same time period we also find the woven pieces in the salt mines of Austria that I shared with you a few weeks ago.
Most of the time, we think of Celts being almost exclusively in the British Isles, but that isn’t the only place where this cultural group was found 2500 years ago. The Celts are a collection of Indo-European peoples in parts of Western Europe that included modern day Poland, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, as well as the British Isles. There were also tribes of Celts that expanded as far East as Romania and Turkey.
They are identified by their use of the Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. They had no written language, so there is a lot we don’t know about how they expanded so far and why their culture died out everywhere except for the British Isles, remaining most notably in Ireland and Scotland. Many of the people were assimilated into the local cultures where they lived, logically, but it was the Romans that had the biggest influence of defeating the Celtic peoples throughout most of Europe, and only in pockets of the UK were the Celts able to hold back the Roman armies and maintain their culture and traditions long after the Romans left.
The burial chamber at Hochdorf dates to 520 to 530 BC. It was discovered in 1968 by an amateur archaeologist and excavated 10 years later from 1978 to 1979. By then, the burial mound covering the grave, which they estimate to have been originally 6 m (20 ft) in height and about 60 m (200 ft) in diameter, had shrunk to about 1 m (3 ft) in height due to centuries of erosion and agricultural use.
To completely dispel the myth that the Medieval people were all short and died young, the man found inside the chamber was roughly 6 ft 2 in (187 cm) tall and died at the ripe old age of 40. OK, 40 is young…but six feet TALL! Holy moly!
So this giant of a man, who they determined was a chieftain of a nearby village, was laid out on an a fantastic 9 ft (275 cm) bronze couch with eight wheels inside the burial chamber. He had been buried with a gold-plated torc on his neck, a bracelet on his right arm, a hat made of birch bark, a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, amber jewelry, a razor knife, a nail clipper, a comb, fishing hooks, arrows, and most notably, thin embossed gold plaques which were on his now-disintegrated shoes. At the foot of the couch was a large cauldron decorated with three lions around the brim. This cauldron was originally filled with about 100 gallons (380 litres, or 666 pints) of mead. That’s a party for the afterlife! The east side of the tomb contained a wooden four-wheeled wagon with iron-plating holding a set of bronze dishes—along with the drinking horns found on the walls enough to serve nine people. The items found are kept at the museum Alte Schloss in Stuttgart.
Treasures from the burial mound (reconstruction)
The burial mound has been reconstructed for the museum with replicas of all the goods that were found to really give us a visual understanding of what ancient grave sites looked like, how it was laid out and just how dang impressive it was with all the items that were buried with those who had passed on. During the construction of the museum’s burial mound, the foundations of an ancient Celtic village were found, more than likely the one to which the chieftain belonged. These were, of course, incorporated into the museum. So in the building of the museum’s display for the Celtic Chieftain, they accidentally found his village. Some things are meant to be…and now he’s home. 😀
This dig was featured in a series called The Celts: Rich Traditions and Ancient Myths…and it’s on YOUTUBE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU1dKfMIEUQ&list=PL_Y6Qui9KStOQ9rVrBzOLkJO8hNiDtl8c
This is Hochdorf V, woven by Lise Raeder Knudsen.
In addition to all the riches, there were several pieces of tablet weaving found both on the wall hangings and other textiles. Dr. Johanna Banck-Burgess analysed the textiles and wrote her disertation on the research of the preserved textiles (Johanna Banck-Burgess: Hochdorf IV. Stuttgart 1999). You can read a little bit about Hochdorf IV here: http://tabletweaving.dk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hochdorf-IV-bidrag.pdf. Hochdorf IV (object 1.42) is really complex…A reconstruction was woven using 98 tablets, and 6 cm wide using very fine thread. This is a life goal for me…
Actual learning piece that I struggled with, eventually chopping it off the loom in frustration.
The piece we’re going to look at today is this significantly simpler, jagged diamond piece called Hochdorf 39. This tablet woven border edged one of the wall hangings in the tomb and was made using the skip hole method. I’ve made it once before and it took several tries, three patterns, phoning a friend, and a lot of swearing it get it to work. Hopefully I can show you how to do this in a way that doesn’t cause you to curse like a sailor. If you’ve been weaving along with me, you’ll be familiar with this technique now, so you know what you need. (pencil)
Note: this is not a twist-neutral pattern, but I suspect that you can weave in reverse, as I showed in a previous video. Flip all your cards (S to Z or Z to S), and start weaving from line 32 (or 36–wherever you start) and work your way down to row 1.
We’re getting down to the last few Kingdoms in our Laurel Kingdoms project. This time we’re celebrating the Kingdom of Æthelmearc was created in 1997 from the Kingdom of the East. It covers northeastern/central/western Pennsylvania, central/western New York, and West Virginia. Their colors are gules, argent and or. That’s silver, red, and gold, for the non-heralds out there…or white, red and yellow, if your hoards of precious metals are depleted. It’s been a long, lean year….
This is a biggun…you’ll need 36 cards for this thing. Ready?
This is a piece that is not as well known in the tablet weaving community and information is a little thin on the ground (at least in English). However, we do have this lovely image:
We also have a couple of experts who have put in their two cents on it: Egon Hansen in his book Tablet Weaving (pub 1990 Hovedland Press; ISBN 978-8777390470), and Hans-Jürgen Hundt, who wrote about it in a series of studies on the Coastal Archaeology of Schleswig-Holstein. Hansen suggested it was a 3-1 twill woven in wool and linen, whereas Hundt thought it was a single-color skip hole weave that gave it its texture. Other tablet weavers have tested out these theories and while the jury is still out, I am using a modified version of Hansen’s pattern using two colors.
Guido Gehlhaar from http://www.steinmaus.de/Mittelalter/weben/hansen/elisenhof.html provided a corrected version of the pattern, however it appeared to have a 14 pick repeat. I revised it to a 16 pick repeat here:
This is actually a modified pattern from what I used in the video–adjusting the threading pattern and putting pick #16 in the pick #1 position. It turns out exactly the same.
Edit, 7/5/2021: I was finally able to tinker with the pattern and created a method to reverse the pattern to untwist almost seamlessly. Weavers can just do picks 1-16 until the twist is unmanageable, then weave 17-32 until it is over-twisted in the other direction, then begin at 1-16 again. Alternatively, one could just weave 1-32 and repeat.
And this is the next installment in the Laurel Kingdom Project! The Kingdom of Artemisia was formed in AS XXIII (1997), the 14th Kingdom of the SCA. It currently covers Utah, Montana, southern Idaho and the parts of Colorado and Wyoming that are west of the Continental Divide. Their colors are black and yellow.
Special thanks to Aisling, a German tablet weaver, who gave me some jumping off points for research and provided her own theories about the construction of this piece.
Archaeologists have produced a few tablet weaving pieces in their searches, including this one that was found in the 10th century grave of a woman from Paragaudis. In a book called North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles X (edited by Eva B. Andersson Strand, Margarita Gleba, Ulla Mannering, Cherine Munkholt) there is a mention of this textile fragment that was found in grave 59. It’s a colorful wool band of red, grey and brown, although they are unsure what dye stuffs were used. The pattern of the stylized S motif is known as the ‘serpent’ pattern, which is found frequently in western Baltic countries; known as a žaltys in Lithuanian mythology, it is a sacred animal of the sun goddess Saulė, the guardian of the home and a symbol of fertility. Killing žaltys was said to bring great misfortunes upon the household, so people would find them in the fields, give it milk to befriend the creatures and sometimes even bring it home to keep as a pet, as it promised good harvests and wealth. Snakes in the house. That’s a nope.
I came across this archaeological image a few years ago, but I couldn’t find a pattern with it, so I had to figure it out on my own based on experience…but I’m always up for a challenge! Looking at the drawings, I guessed that it was probably a skip hole weave, based on the little dots on the edges between the S motifs. It looks very similar to a couple other patterns I had seen, so I was pretty sure that’s what I was looking at.
Drawing these sorts of things on paper is not easy…and doing physical experiments would be time consuming and use up a lot of materials, so I needed a better option. Luckily, I had just discovered the TDD! If you haven’t checked out the Tablet Weaving Draft Designer site, you should do that! It’s a very easy to use program, and Catherine and her husband James just did some updates recently, and Catherine made a YouTube video that walks you through how to use it.
So after tinkering with the pattern a bit, I came up with this…and warped it up to see how it looked…and it was a match!
SNAKES!
Today’s Laurel Kingdom is the Kingdom of the Outlands! It was created in 1986 and encompasses New Mexico and Colorado, parts of Wyoming, the Nebraska panhandle, El Paso County and the Hudspeth County in Texas. Their colors are green and yellow. My favorite part is their heraldic banner, which has the same deer on it as the Deer Xing signs. Of course, the banners for An Tir has the Lowenbrau lion.
The original piece appears that it started with 16 picks of diagonal lines, but then follows with 56 picks to the sequence. If you want to weave the diagonal stripes into your piece, you can do that, or you can use one of the other options that I’ve included: a 56 pick pattern (without the diagonal stripes) or a 24 pick simplified pattern. I’ve also included options to untwist the pattern by weaving S motifs instead of Z. Dealer’s choice!
56 Pick sequence, no diagonal linesSimplified 24 pick sequence
In the video, I erroneously identified this as a twist-neutral pattern, but discovered after doing several repeats that the twist was, in fact, building up. I modified the pattern to create a twist-neutral version, which is below:
Twist Neutral Serpents, simplified (24 picks x 2)
For this pattern, you can weave as-is, or you can weave picks 1-24 until it’s over-twisted, then weave picks 25-48 until it’s over-twisted in the opposite direction.
If you want to do the long version, here are the two parts to make it twist neutral.
56 pick version, Part I56 pick version, Part II (reverse)
There are several tablet weaving fragments that were found in the Oseberg burial, and this is one that I designed based on images I have found on the internet. I cannot vouch for its historical accuracy, but it is one interpretation of the design and it looks FABULOUS!
As I mentioned in the previous pattern from the Oseberg dig, these finds date solidly in the Norse era, 834 AD. A large burial mound was discovered at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway. The ship and some of its contents are displayed at the Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy, Oslo. Among its finds were a loom (commonly called the Oseberg loom), weaving tablets, a sled, a cart, animal carvings, quite a number of textile remnants, including a work in progress (known as 34D). The burial contained the remains of two women–one about 80 years old, and the other somewhere between 25 and 50 years old (opinions vary) and she may have been a slave or a relative to the elder.
This weaving piece is being done in the colors of the Kingdom of Calontir as part of the Laurel Kingdoms project–halfway through the list! The Kingdom is made up of the states of Iowa (but not Davenport or Bettendorf), Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Their colors are purple and gold.
Heraldic arms for the Kingdom of Calontir, founded in 1984.
Edit: A comment from Amy Bischoff suggested that I make a couple of minor changes to the pattern to make it twist-neutral! Thanks, Amy! The pattern here is the new-and-improved version.
There is a pair of books written by Bente Skogsaas that has patterns for many other pieces found in the dig if you are interested in doing more of them (the newest book is on my wish list…). She is self-published and is doing all the sales and distribution of the book, so you may contact her directly through Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bente.skogsaas. (PS – I am not getting any kickbacks from the sale…just putting it out there for those interested in adding to their library.)
In the mid 1800s, in the town of Mammen, just outside of Viborg, Denmark, a farmer discovered a grave from the 10th century. Inside was a treasure trove of rich textiles and weapons, laid there to honor a man who was in the service of King Harold Bluetooth. Among the many finds, which included wax candles, silver axes, and silks, was this lovely piece of tablet weaving.
My middle kid, Cam, asked for a piece of weaving for Christmas, and sent me a photo (from Pinterest) with this pattern on it. I recognized it as a period pattern, and knew that I had to share it all with you. She chose the colors–so it’s not part of the Laurel Kingdoms project. And it’s not exactly like the period piece–apparently the original had 17 cards, was made from both wool and a vegetable fiber (probably linen) that degraded, and the pattern was likely done in a brocade technique. However, this double-sided, skip-hole weave is so lovely, I think you’re going to enjoy it!
Because the black threads in this piece were threaded ABBA, it made me think of music from my very young childhood…and I named this piece Mamman Mia. I know…terrible joke, but I’ve been spending a lot of time indoors….the weather is dreary and the endless months of virus lockdowns have taken their toll.
Despite 2020 being the dumpster fire that it is, I have a lot to be grateful for–my family, my friends, YouTube, and my faithful viewers. Here’s to a much better 2021. Thanks for a terrific year!
This is the recreation based on the three extant pieces that were found dating from the 12-14th centuries in Estonia. The fragments are housed in the University of History in Tallinn.
Many thanks to Julia Christie Amor for her draft from which I drew heavily for information: http://www.yrmegard.net/ee/tablets/patterns/tw_artefact_pattern_02
Due to the size of the image, I had to paste it in here in three parts or it would be blurry. I tried a couple different ways and neither of them worked…so three chunks it is.
Parte the Firste: picks 1 to 60.
Note that card #3 should be S threaded, not Z; I had completed it, saved it and started a new project and much later discovered that error. The only way to correct it now is to re-draft the entire thing, which took hours the first time….SO that’s not happening just yet. Just make card #3 S threaded, K?
Parte the Seconde: picks 61 to 120.
Middle bit of the pattern.
Parte the thirde: picks 121 to 184. I discovered that the pattern was missing the last two picks (somehow I didn’t clue in that 182 was not divisible by 4, so the cards would not be back in the ‘home’ position at the end). Oops…not sure if that was my error or that of the original that I was translating from. So, I created two extra picks that I added on afterwards and while they’re not perfect, it creates pattern continuity.
You’ll note the last couple of picks in the above pattern–what should be 183 and 184–were added when I discovered it was missing from the pattern.
Print out all three parts for the complete pattern. I have them on separate sheets of paper so they’re large enough to read easily.
This piece celebrates my Kingdom, An Tir! It was created in 1982, formerly a principality of the Kingdom of the West, it covers the states of Washington, Oregon, Northern Idaho, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia*, Yukon and Northern Territories. Our colors are black, white and yellow.
*A small chunk of BC is actually part of the Kingdom of Avacal…geographical distance and topography being what it is…you know…
This piece is not any more *difficult* than any of the other pieces we’ve done, but there are a lot more picks to complete for each repeat (184, to be exact), but if you take your time, be patient, and follow the directions, you should do just fine.
If you were to ask me for book recommendations, and you have!, one of the books that I will recommend to every historic tablet weaver is Applesies and Fox Noses, Finnish Tabletwoven Bands from Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen.
Applesies–the Finnish Tablet Weaving Bible
This is a collection of 30 patterns ranging from very easy to difficult, and includes period motifs from tablet weaving fragments found from the Finnish Iron Age, which ranges from 500 BC to 1300 AD.
The other comments I’ve gotten from the Tablet Weaving for Absolute Beginners is that the pattern was too complex. If you want to start your first tablet woven band and want a very easy pattern to start with–this is it!
Theodor Schwindt’s drawing of fragment #379.
This pattern comes from a fragment found in the Kaukola Kekomaki graveyard dating from the Karelian Iron Age–as mentioned above. This three-color fragment was found on a dress, a detailed drawing of this 14 mm wide band (slightly over 1/2″) is in Theodor Schwindt’s book, Tietoja Karjalan rautakaudesta (“About the Karelian Age”), published in 1893. The item is labeled as #379.
A variation of Colorful Small Applesies from Applesies and Fox Noses, Finnish Tabletwoven Bands by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, ISBN 978-952-5774-49-8.
Some of you may have seen this pattern or similar ones on Pinterest or come across it in Google searches. The web site for these two amazing weavers is https://hibernaatio.blogspot.com where they have several other patterns. You may panic for a moment because there are quite a lot of words you don’t recognize…yes, it’s written in Finnish. But DON’T PANIC–if you look carefully, you’ll see there is also English written in there! Not this pattern, of course, but on the web site. It’s OK.
You’ll notice that this pattern doesn’t have S and Z written under the pattern, and you’ll also see that the pattern is labeled DCBA…upside down! And the card is COUNTERCLOCKWISE! AAAAAHHHHH!
No, don’t panic. Let’s plug that into the tablet weaving draft designer: https://jamesba.github.io/tabletweave/ and make the bubbles look the same as the image.
There we go! Now, if you’ve watched my previous weaving videos, or if you’re familiar with this notation, you should be able to warp this one up! And if you’re not familiar with the Applesies charting system, you also now have the key for how their notations will translate into warping your loom.
Ansteorra where the wind comes sweeping down the plain…
This next piece in the Laurel Kingdoms project is honoring the Kingdom of Ansteorra (which means “one star”–totally appropriate for the Lone Star State!), which was elevated from a Principality to a Kingdom in 1979, which encompasses Oklahoma and Texas. Their colors are red, black and yellow.
The progress of my woven piece. Looks pretty sharp! The finished size of this piece is 17 mm, just slightly larger than the original (14 mm).
Edit! Updated pattern!! After looking at the extant piece and my pattern, I decided that the little blue <> on the sides didn’t belong, so I adjusted it and came up with this!
Border cards are now the 4 cards on each side which will need to be flipped every few repeats to deal with the twist build up.
As the weather cools in the northern hemisphere (and life begins anew in the southern lands) we are minded of the upcoming holidays and thinking ahead for gift ideas for those we love. If you have a Medieval enthusiast on your list, I may have an idea for you! Have you been shopping for reliquaries and coming up empty handed? Vendors all out of slivers of the one true cross? Finger bones of Saints on back order? Well, never fear, fellow weavers—you can create your own relics–the sleeve of St. Bertille!
Born in the early years of the 7th century, Bertille was born to a prominant family in Soissons, France, about 60 miles/100 km northeast of Paris. As a child, she spent her time in prayer and doing “serious duties”, not wanting to spend time doing frivolous things, and as she grew up, she found the world to be tempestuous and despised it. She found comfort in prayer and conversations with God. About the year 630, shortly after it opened, her parents brought her to the Jouarre Abbey in the city of Brie, about 20 mi/30 km SE of Paris. We don’t know how old she was when she arrived, but I would guess between 15 and 20 years.
She was educated by the Abbess Thelchildis and was known for her humility and self-denial. She was committed to aiding the sick and caring for the children being educated at the monastery. When Chelles Abbey was founded, with tremendous support from Queen Bathilde in 646, Bertille was chosen to be its first Abbess. 20 years later, that Queen retired from Royal service, as her son took the throne, and moved to Chelles Abbey, where she lived until her death in 680. The Abbess died 12 years later, in 692. Both were buried at the Abbey and about 200 years later, both had been canonised as saints. Her feast day is November 5th.
The sleeve and tablet woven trim from St. Bertille, late 7th century.
Among the textiles, at least three tablet woven pieces were found there—although, their garments were moved in the late 9th century, and displayed as saint relics for passing Pilgrims, then later moved again during the French Revolution to spare them from destruction, so we’re not really sure which woven piece belonged to which woman. Despite the rough handling, the fragments held up remarkably well, and so much detail can be seen on them. The pattern I’m going to share with you today is a bit of tablet weaving on what is presumed to be the Abbess’s sleeve. The extant piece is 9 mm wide, made from silk in red, yellow and dark brown. 2/3 of that width is border cards, so this center design is a very fine 3 mm wide.
Kingdom of Caid, created in 1978, comprises the regions of Southern CA, Southern Nevada (including Las Vegas) and Hawaii. Sounds like a party! Their colors are blue and white, but looking at their banner, it also has yellow in the laurel wreath and crown, so I’m adding a third color because this pattern lends itself well to using three colors…so let’s do that! Grab your looms and let’s get to work!
The last video for the Hallstatt 152 skip hole may have been a bit too advanced for a beginner, so here is a very easy skip hole pattern for beginners!
The original band was found in Hægebostad in the southern part of Norway and dates to about 500 A.D. The tablets in the central area were threaded with only two threads per tablet, the border tablets with four.
The three graves at the Snartemo farm were excavated over an 85 year period, between 1847 and 1933, which uncovered a number of fantastic pieces, including a sword, glass beakers, gold rings and more, dating to about 500 AD. Grave II (excavated in 1878) and Grave V appeared to be those of a warrior nobleman, both containing remarkable textiles, including the bands we know as Snartemo II and Snartemo V, the latter being significantly more complex than the former. The simpler band from grave II was woven with 17 tablets in two colors of fine wool using the skip hole technique. It measures 0.9 cm, but colors have not been determined as no dye analysis has been done. Lisa Raeder Knudsen did a study of the extant piece and said, “In Bjørn Hougen’s book “Snartemofunnene” 1935 a drawing is shown, but the analysis is not correct.” More recent in-depth studies have been done very recently; the link is below.
As part of my Laurel Kingdoms project, this piece is celebrating the Kingdom of Meridies, which was created in 1978 from the Kingdom of Atenveldt in the Southeast United States. Its borders currently encompass the entirety of Alabama; almost all of Georgia; a sizeable chunk of Tennessee; a bit of Florida; and small portion of Kentucky. Their colors are black and white.
This pattern is completed by simply turning all the cards forward, throwing the shuttle after each quarter-turn. When the threads become over-twisted or after a chosen number of repeats–often I switch after 12 or 16 repeats–turn all cards backwards, throwing the shuttle after each quarter-turn. Easy as that!
Now, there is the new technique that was found in a recent discovery of a rolled hem. I could type up all the directions and details, but all of that can be found at their web site here: https://www.vestagdermuseet.no/snartemo-ii-narrow-band.
I hope you’re all enjoying this series and learning a lot in your weaving escapades! Let me know if there are more patterns you want to learn!
