Grey wool Viking cap with wool tablet woven trim

Well, well, well. It's now a week past Baron Wars and I've decided that instead of putting off everything until the week before an event (before we need it) I should just keep working straight through, as time allows. Thus...I present my nice little done in a day (or maybe two) project. This hat is a simple cap made up of 6 triangular pieces, based (apparently) on an item in the Birka find. I can't seem to find any primary source now that I'm looking for one, on this, just that I always see them and have read that they are based on a find. Hmmm...anybody have a source for this?
At any rate, I first sketched out a little pattern piece to make sure the pieces would all be even, note the lighter inner lines as a rough idea of seam allowances.

Then I made a mock up out of some felt I had laying around, to check for fit and everything. All seemed to be fine. YAY! Yes, it looks funny in this picture, but it really does look fine on a head, so happy with the fit and look, I'm moving forward! (Note that I have not hemed the bottom of the mock up, so the real one will not be as long.)

I then cut out my pieces of the wool. The wool is nothing special, just some remnant we bought from Smoke and Fire out in Waterville, OH (http://www.smoke-fire.com/) on a recent trip out there. It's rather light weight, but being that MOST of the events Randy might wear this cap at won't be terribly cold, I figured this was as good as anything for this simple hat.

This project was actually born out of the recent horrid weather we experienced at Baron Wars (Ft. Meigs, Perrysburg, OH). It was so cold and wet and windy, we were miserable! I figured then that a nice cap, and eventually some nalbound mittens (or maybe just some simple ones sewn out of the same grey wool) would really help to take the chill out of the evenings and at events like Baron Wars.

I'm tablet weaving a quick little trim with the intent to put it on the hat, but that may or may not happen, depending on how I like the colors on it. This is just a 10 card, threaded in pattern, all forward turns. This is 100% wool yarn in the colors orange (sort of burnt) and a sort of "natural" (might have been called linen, can't remember). I very much like the band, but I'm not sure how I'll feel about it on the hat. I think it's likely too thick, at 1 inch wide.

I am going to hand stitch the cap, as it's such a small piece, and I'd like to have some visible stitching, and also be able to tack down the seams on the inside nicely. While I'm not going for any kind of reproduction with this cap, hopefully the finished product will be passable and look vaguely "viking."

I should have the finished product photo up sometime tomorrow or Sunday. Then it'll be on to my embroidery project for the neckline of my gown. While my husband is going Viking, I'm going early Irish from the time period around the founding of Dublin. There is soooo little known about clothing and textiles from that culture and time that most of my garments are based on artwork and primarily the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow. I've already been chewed out by people who believe that I should just pick another time and place that we actually know something about...but that wouldn't be doing justice to my family history. So, screw them and their naysaying! I have sketched a spiral/circle design to embroider. It's very Irish and is based mostly on a dress fastener I found in a book (Treasures of Irish Art 1500 BC to 1500 AD.) I'll give the specifics on that all later, when I actually put something of that project up here.

I have a natural coloured linen gown that I will be putting the design on, and I had HOPED to work it in wool but not being able to find any at local crafting stores, AND finding that Michaels had moved all of their DMC linen floss to Clarence, I decided instead to scoop that up. As to the historical accuracy of that, I find it likely doubtful? But I don't really know. I know that DMC claims with recent innovations to have created the FIRST EVER linen embroidery floss, which wouldn't lend itself to a long history. However, linen thread does have historic presences so I don't see a reason why someone wouldn't have done some sort of embroidery in linen. Besides, I LOVE the muted natural colors of this thread, and it was on sale. What's not to love, right? RIGHT?

Back me up on this one!

Tablet Woven belt (teal, maze and natural crochet thread)

My current foe is a tablet woven belt done in size 3 crochet thread (cotton). The colors are teal, "maze" (a pale yellow) and "natural". It's not visible in the pictures (and hardly visible in person) but the light colored parts consist of 3 sections, the outer two are maze and the inner is natural. The pattern I'm using comes from Guntram's Tabletweaving Thingy at http://www.guntram.co.za/tabletweaving/. This particular pattern is called "Shadow Weave" and my husband and I worked out color changes and a few tweaks to the pattern, but the design is not ours. Oh, this is a threaded in pattern.

The turning sequence is not difficult -

1-8 F, 9-10 B, 11-20 F, 21-22 B, 23-24 F. picks 1 and 2
1-6 F, 7-12 B, 13-18 F, 19-22 B, 23-24 F. picks 3 and 4
1-4 F, 5-14 B, 15-16 F, 17-22 B, 23-24 F. picks 5 and 6
1-6 F, 7-12 B, 13-18 F, 19-22 B, 23-24 F. picks 7 and 8

then the whole thing just repeats..again, and again, and in my case, again for what seems like eternity. Unfortunately there are some mistakes in the band, as you can see below, I lost my place and so there are too many "weaves" in this portion. There are also occasional long floats that aren't SUPPOSED to be there. I just missed a thread.

The back of the work is really just a mismash of colors and not all that pretty. I guess it looks kinda cool though. Definatly not something worth showing off, however. This is not a doubleface pattern, that's for sure!

(Sorry the pictures are so dark, the flash was whiting out the design on the weaving, and without a flash they were a bit too dark.)

This is definitely not a perfect piece, but hopefully it will look decent as a belt and suffice for the time being until I can move onto more accurate materials such as wool and silk.

I learned to tablet weave from the Internet with a little clarification from a kind woman at the Dublin, OH Irish Festival who was there with a historic recreation group. While I understood the general gist of how it worked I had some gaping holes in my understanding that she helped me work out.

It was her, ( I wish I knew her name) who gave me the ideas to get my materials started. I'm the kind of person who wants to go whole (hedge) hog wild off the go and get all historically accurate components. This really isn't economical or practical however. While I wanted to go get bone and wood weaving supplies and start working in wool right away, she rightfully pointed out that I could begin weaving much cheaper and also get in some practice with cheap tools all while making sure I actually could do the art and would enjoy it! (Smart woman she is!)

So, for those who either didn't think of it or need a little push - here is my original "kit" A deck of playing cards (which actually IS historically accurate...just not for the Viking time period) a wooden chopstick (beater) and those annoying fake credit cards I get sent in the mail constantly (also old gift cards, reward cards, etc.) cut to make a quiet sturdy shuttle. Total Cost - $0

The cotton crochet thread is easily available in a variety of colors and reasonably priced. If you work in size 3 (like I did as I began) it's quite easy to see mistakes, make lots of visible progress and finish pieces rather quickly. (Yay!) so I defiantly suggest this tactic for anybody wanting to get tablet weaving. You can get tablet weaving for less than $6, for two - three colors of crochet thread.

Recently added to my kit is a wooden loom...thing...that my husband built for me. It's not the prettiest girl at the dance, but she'll do. It's just helpful to keep things all taught and in place so that I can easily set a project aside without worrying about it getting tangled and all. I believe the cost for this was somewhere around $15 and maybe an hour of work. My husband would remember better. It works quite well for what we need it for, however it has since come to my knowledge that I could have had something that worked similar in an easier design. The bar on the weavers end spins and holds it's tight place with a series of pegs, so that the finished work can be rolled up to keep it out of the way. There are 4 other bars that can be used in various manners to wrap the warp around to keep it taught.

All in all I've decided that I do like tablet weaving and SOMEDAY I will replace my sad playing cards with some pretty wood tablets, I believe. My next project is another belt, also in crochet cotton (for cost effectiveness) for my husband. I intend to put words on it, viking ships and knotwork designs. This next project will be my first venture into double face tablet weaving, which shouldn't be that difficult as I already have the patterns worked out. However, I am going to be making a wool 6 piece Viking cap for my husband quite soon, and I would like to weave some trim for that in a rather fine wool. I'm thinking simple bordered chevrons. Maybe THAT will be my NEXT tablet weaving project. Hmmm....

Back to work!