My Store Shelves

I’m unpacking and setting up my shop!  Yay!!!

If there is anything on those shelves that greatly confuses you, if you go here:  http://spindleshuttleandneedle.com/ , you’ll probably be able to figure out what is what.

Thanks for reading!

This spring, my mom washed an Icelandic lamb fleece for me, one from one of our brown and white spotted sheep.  It is BEAUTIFUL:

Icelandic Lamb Fleece!

See how it nearly has ringlets, and how the locks just shine?

So, since nalbinding is kindof a Viking/ Ancient Scandinavian craft, I thought, well, I should do this whole project the Viking way!  So, I began to comb the fleece, in small bunches, combing from root end to tip end, and discarding all the short fibers and bits with matted-in vegetable matter.  Once the wool was combed, I pulled it gently off the comb, drafting it into a smooth, long bunch of wool, also known as “top”, ready for spinning, and began spinning with my drop spindle.

Spindle and Combs

You can see here I am currently using a set of Louet double-row mini-combs, but I can’t wait until the day I can try a pair of Indigo Hound Viking combs.  I’ve heard people say the Viking combs are really sharp, but they seem like they would be very sturdy, and they look decidedly more traditional than the  Louet combs.  (Nice as they are.)  I am also using my favorite trusty drop spindle, which is a very traditional spindle, made all of wood.  (I liked this spindle so much, I had a woodworker make some for me for my store.  http://spindleshuttleandneedle.com/hatrdrsp.html  They really spin nice, with just enough weight in the whorl to keep spinning smoothly all the way to the floor.)

After quite a while of spinning, I was able to fill my drop spindle to the point where I couldn’t actually spin any more yarn onto it, so I decided to wind the yarn onto my niddy noddy and “kill” the yarn.

Yes, I know, this niddy noddy is put together weird.  Well, due to my love of all things Viking, when I got an Ashford niddy noddy early this spring, I put it together with the two arms parallel to each other, rather than perpendicular like a modern niddy noddy, to reflect this Viking Age find:

REAL Viking Niddy Noddy

Then I skeined the yarn. . .

Icelandic Wool Yarn

. . . and wound it into a ball.

Then I was ready to start nalbinding.

Halfway through my first pair of nalbinding socks, I picked up a neat book in Sweden called “Soma, Nala, Binda” which has a wonderful diagram near the back on how to assemble a nalbinding sock.  Here is that diagram, to better explain to you how I am doing this:

Swedish Book, Swedish Words

Actually, that probably doesn’t explain much.

The best way to start a nalbinding sock is to start with an oval for the toes and work your way up until just by the heel, at which point you stop, leave a tail hanging, and nalbind a circle for the heel.  Once you are done with that, you sew the two together– half of the heel and half of the foot, and then proceed to nalbind around for the cuff of the sock.  Once you have reached the desired height of the sock, you end off, and your sock is done!

Of course, there is a little more to it than that, but that is the basic method.  Here is what I have so far on the socks I am making for my brother, Kyle:

Nalbinding in Progress

Close-up of the Stitches

Here is a close-up of the stiches.  So far I have only just gotten to the point where I stop adding more stitches and start fitting the sock back to the foot.  As I work more on these socks, I plan to post more pictures of my progress.

If you want to do some nalbinding yourself, you can buy needles and yarn here:  http://spindleshuttleandneedle.com/nalbinding.html and I recommend this website (http://viking-history.wetpaint.com/page/N%C3%A5lbinding) for very good instructions and illustrations for a variety of stitches.

Til next time!

I am working on this lovely piece of tablet weaving:

Anglo-Saxon Tablet Weaving

As you can see, sometimes when one starts a new piece of tablet weaving, especially with a new pattern that I have never woven before, the beginning can be a bit. . . rough.  Grrr.  At least this pattern evened out quickly!

I now have about 8 feet of this pattern done.  I can get about 9-10 inches done in an evening if I work hard.  (It’s been a while since I started.)

I’ve been using this lovely wool for the weaving.  I can’t overstate how nice it is to work with, and what a nice fine weave it makes!  I love it.

In other news. . .  In case you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me much lately, it’s because I’ve been busy with life after school, which includes starting my own business!  I have started an online spinning, weaving, lacemaking, knitting, and other textile arts supply store called Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle.  I have books, handmade spindles, shuttles, and other accessories made from Nebraska wood, lovely yarns and looms from Sweden, wool and silk roving from New Zealand, and many other wonderful things!  You should check it out!  In addition to these items, I am also offering custom-made versions of many of the costumes I have featured here on my blog.  (So, if you’ve been wanting one of those linen gambesons or a sweet Medieval dress, you know where to find one!)

I’m going to be busy again in the next few weeks, but hopefully I’ll be starting to do monthly tutorials on some of the crafts I always talk about here– nålbinding, spinning, even tablet weaving!  Soon you’ll be able to follow along and learn new crafts with me!

I’ll close with some pictures.  Pictures are always fun.

Here’s my booth at the “Viking Market” at this spring’s Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Iowa– my grand debut as a company!  Too bad it rained almost all day so I had to keep things in my tent most of the time.

I have spindles and shuttles and wool and linen for sale!

I also taught spinning and weaving at a kid’s camp this summer.  It was a lot of fun!

Teaching the Kids

Back to the website to add more items!  I hope you wander over to check it out and see what I have to offer!

I have entered the 1150′s Swedish Medieval Dress I made this spring for my honors thesis, as I bought both the linen for the underdress and the overdress from fabrics-store.com.  (The blue linen is the nicest linen I have ever worked with!)

So, dear readers, what does this mean for you?  If you have a Facebook account, go here: here and vote for my dress! You can vote once a day until July 11th, so please go vote and vote often!  If I win, I will receive a gift certificate to buy more wonderful linen and make more beautiful items for my blog!

Of course, I had to take some better photos of my dress for the contest, so here is a selection of photos.

I Feel Pretty

Maiden in Blue

Shepherdess

Being a Shepherdess

"Little lamb, who made thee?"

This is now the 1150's. . .

We started off the afternoon with everyone changing into their clothing.  It was a bit of an adventure, as most of my models had never worn such clothing before.  As different as some of it is, I don’t blame them.  To top things off, the men’s clothing was made for my little brother Kyle, so before all this began I had to find men small enough to wear that.  Now, Kyle is 5’8″ by now, but he’s still pretty wiry and thin at this point in his life.  So I recruited three friends of mine to wear the men’s clothes, Thomas, Chris, and Austin, and Karen and Jessica to wear the women’s clothes.

Getting changed was a flurry of questions of “how do I put this on?” and “what is this?” and making sure each person had the right jewelry for each costume and that each costume fit right.  It was a bit confusing, but in the end everyone looked great, had the right size shoes, and we had plenty of time for some outdoor photos.

Timeline of Fashion

Here we have a timeline of Swedish clothing, from left to right.  850′s, 950′s, and 1150′s.  Yes, I know I skipped a century, but I wanted to show a clear difference while still showing that things were somewhat similar.

For the 850′s you probably recognize both costumes.  On the far left we have Thomas in Kyle’s old Viking Kit.  Next we have Jessica in her normal kit with a pale green linen overdress under her apron dress, which is a more Swedish feature.  Norwegians seemed to tend to have just the underdress and apron dress, which is what Jessica usually wears, but we made her look like an early Swede for this!

Next we have Chris in Swedish Men’s clothing from the 950′s.  By this point most men of any wealth at all in Sweden wore baggy pants and shorter tunics to show off their baggy pants.  Chris here has Kyle’s new Viking Kit on, complete with baggy pants and a short tunic and undertunic.  The undertunic is edged with Faeroese  cording and has a button and closure made of the same cording at the neckline.  The blue wool tunic is edged with red and tan tablet weaving in a fretwork pattern around the collar and cuffs.  He’s also wearing my new belt pouch and belt.  I’m next, wearing my Swedish Viking Woman’s Kit from the 950′s.  I have a pleated white linen underdress, a blue linen overdress with embroidery on the collar, cuffs, and hem in a pattern from the Oseberg ship. (Norwegian, I know, but as it’s a simple variation of a herringbone stitch, it’s something that could have been used throughout Scandinavia.)  Over that, I have my red wool apron dress, fastened with  twin tortoise brooches and two strings of beads.  I also have a tablet-woven belt holding a knife made by my friend Chris Andrews, and nalbinding socks and leather turnshoes.

Next, we have Austin in a cavalry outfit from the 1150′s, just at the time of the Second Crusade.  He wears brown wool pants, a long-sleeved linen undertunic and a sleeveless red linen overtunic.  In addition, he wears a narrow belt and a antler-handled pattern-forged knife, also made by Chris Andrews.  It was quite common at this point in history to have detachable sleeves on overgarments for practicality in warm weather.  Karen, last in the line, has similar sleeves on her dress, which is based on some of the garments from Herjolfnes and extant sources such as manuscripts.  As we have very little evidence for clothing from Sweden in this time frame, a lot of it is speculation.  Her dress consists of a loose white linen underdress and a blue linen overdress with short sleeves, with lacing up the sides to fit it to her body.  It’s a lot longer than the Viking dresses, but it is still a work dress– that was just the style.

Menfolk

Women

After we got done taking photos, we had the fashion show, in which I related all of the above information about the costumes.  I also won a prize from the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Department for third place essay for my Honors Thesis.  It was quite an honor!

The following weekend, I went home and my brother Kyle and I did a photo shoot with him wearing some of his costumes and riding our horse, Rose.  Rose is a sweet grey Mustang, and while she has a brand, it is difficult to see because of her color.  First, we took pictures with him in his Medieval Kit.

The Warrior Goes Riding!

Among other things, we learned that while that style of tunic works perfectly for riding, tight pants like that do not!  He managed to completely split out the crotch of his pants beyond repair, first time he wore them!  This led us to our next revelation:  Baggy pants are great for riding!  Carvings from Sweden in the Viking age often shows men riding horses while wearing baggy pants and short tunics, yet that often seems to be overlooked.  Once we were done taking pictures of Kyle in his Medieval clothes on Rosie, he changed into his Viking clothes, and my, what a rich-looking jarl he was!

Viking Warrior!

"You wanna mess with me?"

About the only problem we had for this photo shoot was not having a proper saddle.  As we seem to have a shortage of Viking Style saddles, we used a modern English saddle.  It’s close enough, and looked better than any one of our western saddles would have.  We also used a plain English bridle.  Before we started taking pictures, I was riding Rose for a bit and I fell off. . .

Overall, however, the shoot was a success!  I now have many wonderful pictures of all of my different costumes modeled properly!  A big thanks to everyone who agreed to wear these clothes and pose in front of the camera for me!

Viking Kyle

Oh, protect us!!!

Women Defending the Men

First off, late last year I expanded my skills into some basic leather tooling and working, and created a belt and belt pouch for a class project.  I took the dragon design from this runestone in Uppsala:

Uppsala Runestone

As the stone was actually never completed, I completed the design as I felt it would have been, and came up with this design:

Finished Pouch

I tooled the design on the pouch with a variety of crazy tools and a mallet, and dyed the design red with watered-down acrylic paint.  I would have used madder for the red, but it tried to turn my vegetable-tanned leather green.  I did an intertwined dragon design for the belt, based on my brother Kyle’s design idea, which also turned out quite well.

I also started a new set of kit for Kyle, to go with my honors thesis but also as his birthday gift for this year.  (Every year for his birthday I make him new Viking kit according to his specifications for color and style.)  This year, his new kit consists of a linen undertunic, and dark blue wool over tunic, and baggy wool pants.  Unlike other pants I have made for him before, these are more tailored and consist of multiple pieces of wool in gussets and end at the knees.  From the knees down, there are footless stockings that hook to the cuffs of the baggy pants, over which the legbands are wrapped.  The new tunics are shorter than his old ones, in order to show off the baggyness of his pants.

Baggy Pants, Complete with Belt Loops

With the New Tunics and Shoes

Soon I will be weaving some tablet weaving onto the edges of his good tunic, but until then this is as far as I have gotten.

My next project?  Kit for both me and Kyle from the time of the Second Crusade.  Skjaldborg is going to add some crusading to the group’s activities, and Kyle and I won’t be left behind!

Til next time!

The next morning, the menfolk set to work on hanging the gates for the new gatehouse, and Karen and I began to dye cloth.  John had asked me to do something with a white lamb’s wool caftan he had, so I decided we would try our hand at dyeing it madder red.  That took all day.  (In fact, this process is still ongoing as of today!)  Since we needed a fire, and it was dark and smoky in the longhouse, Karen and I decided to work outside.  Good choice, since the weather was as nice as it was!

Our Work Area

Madder roots are complicated to dye with.  As they contain two colors, a yellow and a red, and since the yellow dissolves more easily in water, one must often simmer the roots for nearly two hours, starting with fresh water each hour, to wash out the yellows and pull out the reds more clearly and avoid an orange color.  So we simmered and strained, and simmered and strained, and finally were able to put the caftan in the dye with the roots, after which it simmered all day, and sat all night, and still ended up a peach color.  (It was frustrating.)  I had to pour out the dye before we drove back home, but saved the roots and set the whole thing soaking again once I got home.  I am happy to say the caftan is more of a orange-ish red now than it was before, and steadily getting darker.

Karen Hard at Work

While we dyed, Kyle and Little John split wood and fixed John’s shoes (they ruined my needle!) and kept us company for a while.

Fixing Shoes and Checking the Fire

Meanwhile, the men were working on hanging the gates on the gatehouse, which is quite impressive, aside from the part where there are not enough ladder rungs for a woman in a dress to easily get to the second floor.

The Gatehouse

The blacksmiths, who had made the hinges earlier, were busy forging rivets to attach the hinges to the gates, while others were hard at work cutting and putting together the gates themselves.  It was a lot of fun to watch, and very interesting.  When we could, Karen and I took breaks from the dyeing to watch the men work on the gatehouse, and also to climb up into the gatehouse itself and get a good view of the land.

Looking out the Window of the Gatehouse

Ground Level of the Gatehouse

Getting the Lay of the Land

The Longhouse and Cookhall from the Gatehouse Window

Of course, as always, there were new pieces and details in my kit, and of course Karen’s kit was all new.  I had a new dark blue wool overdress, and have added tablet weaving to my blue apron dress since Viking Meet.  With a wool dress, I was finally warm enough at Ravensborg for a change!

Warm New Dress

I also had a new tablet weaving belt, which worked nicely with a dress that is otherwise rather shapeless.  I have woven a piece of tablet weaving to edge the dark blue dress, but didn’t have time to sew that on before this weekend.  One thing at a time.  I’ll get it sewn on eventually.

Karen had a simpler dress.  She was portraying a slave captured from Ireland (her idea, not mine, I swear!) and thus had what we would call Hiberno-Norse clothing.  It is a much simplified and much cheaper looking version of most of the women’s clothing I make, and does not have an apron dress to go with it, partially because the Irish didn’t often wear the apron dress, and partially because only free women could wear the apron dress.  Both the underdress and overdress were made the same, the underdress of a cheap off-white linen, the overdress a pale green, and just a little shorter.  She had a braided hemp belt and an apron, since she was working and didn’t want to wreck her dress.  (I wore an apron too for a while when we were dyeing.)  She wore my old Gillie Brogues, a type of Celtic shoe.

She also had manacles.  No joke.

Karen's Dress

Overall, it was a very functional and comfortable dress to wear, or so she said.  I think she was a little more mobile than I am in my tight apron dress, but we were both able to climb up into the gatehouse, so. . .  I think both styles of dress allow for about the same mobility and freedom.

All things considered, it was the about the best weekend I have spent down at Ravensborg so far, even though there was no fighting.  (We were too busy working on our individual projects.)  We had some kids come down to trick-or-treat Saturday night, and we all told stories and sang songs at the feast Saturday evening in the old Viking feast entertainment way.  Sunday morning found us packing up and going our separate ways, already looking forward to the Return of the Sun in April, the next time we will meet at Ravensborg.

And for once, this weekend, it didn’t rain.

Yesterday, I finally started weaving.

I picked out a pattern from my book and changed it just a bit so I could have three colors, instead of the two it showed.  Not content with the very basic patterns in the book, I picked one of the prettier ones further in.  Knowing my limits, I didn’t pick this pattern, but I did choose one in which half the cards are threaded to the right, and half to the left.  I had blue, green, and off-white yarn, and decided to use the off-white as my base, the blue as the pattern, and the green as the accent and the weft.

Tablet weaving is a warp-faced weave, so I had to measure out my warp in the colors for the pattern accordingly– 30 threads in the off-white, 16 threads in the blue, and 2 in the green.  Since the pattern I had chosen would show the weft thread at each reversal of the card-turning direction, I used the same green for the accent and for the weft.   This pattern uses twelve cards with four holes each.

Tablet Weaving Pattern

Once my warp was measured, I combed the colors together, and threaded my cards.  Unknown to me at the time, I threaded them all backwards, so I ended up with a jagged-edge pattern instead of the smooth curvy pattern I had envisioned.  But I didn’t figure this out until I started weaving.

Since I have no loom, I literally tied myself into my work.  I sat on the bed, with my belt on, the warp and working end attached to the belt, and the end of the warp knotted and looped around my right foot.  This looked just a little ridiculous.

Modus Operendi

In no time at all, I was weaving. However, I soon noticed that my pattern wasn’t smooth.  For a while, I thought the book had a typo in the directions, but soon realized my cards were just threaded backwards.  Since the pattern was still pretty anyway, and I had learned from it, I continued for another few hours, until I ran out of warp, and finished a 6-foot length of tablet weaving.

Diamond Pattern

After Weaving About Five Feet

I am certainly going to be tablet weaving more in the future, and will continue to post pictures of my work.

As for the nålbinding I kept mentioning a while back?  I have finished a hat and a sock, but I keep forgetting to take pictures.  I will have some soon, I promise.

Highlight of the weekend for me?  I cooked.  For twenty people on average.  I had a lot of help though, from Jessica, Kyle, and Sean, my “kitchen slave”.  (We called him that because he wasn’t wearing any weapons that morning and got recruited to help me cook.)

Peeling Parsnips

Moving On To Carrots.

The menu consisted of, for most meals, some kind of meat, usually Icelandic lamb, bread, cheese, apples, pears, and dried fruit.  Breakfast had a lot of eggs and bacon.  Yes, this is Viking correct.

With all the cooking I was doing, I didn’t get a lot of sewing or nalbinding done.  However, I did manage to finish some projects right before the meet, including Tim’s Byzantine kit:

Byzantine Warrior!

Really Fierce Byzantine Warrior

I also made fighting kit for Jessica, but managed to not get a picture of it.  I’ll have her bring it here some day and snap a shot of it.  It turned out very nice– Lavender tunic, edged with dark blue, and blue pants.  For her first time fighting and being such a tiny girl, she did pretty well, but got tired early on holding the shield.  Also, her helm was too large.  Next time will be better, I’m sure.

Kyle also made arrows with Develon’s help, for Archery Merit Badge.  (He’s in Boy Scouts.)  They turned out very well!

Kyle With One of His Arrows

Although we didn’t get to do much fighting, it was a good weekend of working on crafts, practicing Viking cooking, and overall fun with the Skjaldborg Vikings.  It’s hard to believe it’s been a year and a half since Kyle and I joined, and it is hard to believe that a year ago, we had no shoes, no wool blankets to sleep under, no spoons or wooden bowls to eat with, and only one set of kit each.  Now, Cody and Jessica have also joined, we each have better kit (I have three sets, even), Kyle and I slept in just wool blankets and linen and sheepskins (warmer by far than sleeping bags, in my opinion), and we have come to realize that Skjaldborg is like a large, amazing, family.

Thanks to everyone who made this weekend so great!

Phil's Awesome Tent

Sitting and Talking

The Forge

Interior of the Hjem

Jessica!

She portrays a Norwegian Viking Lady from about the 950′s, an herbalist to be exact.  (Jessica is part Norwegian, actually, so that is why she portrays a Norwegian, just as Kyle and I portray Swedes.)  This is her ‘finery’, and only kit so far.  Even in her finery, she is not that richly dressed, for a Viking.  Her underdress is linen, and her overdress is fine wool.  Her overdress is my first attempt at a more ‘fitted’ overdress, complete with gores in the sides to make the skirt more full and also make it easier to walk.  I gave her my old brooches, which are pewter, and she has a pewter pendant based off a brooch from 10th Century Norway, and necklace and pair of earrings made from blue glass beads.

A Norwegian Viking Girl

I also had a new dress, which was a gift to me from a friend.  She gave it to me at Ravensborg this spring, and while I had to fix a few tears along the seams it fits well and looks quite nice.

My New Kit!

This New Kit Definitely Fits Better Than my Old One!

It was nice to wear this kit for the weekend, as it was quite warm and both the underdress and apron dress are made of linen.  The underdress is very fitted, made of natural linen, and the apron dress, while not quite as fitted, is made of a finer linen hand-dyed with woad!  I also did a little chain-stitch embroidery on the edges of the overdress to make it a little nicer.  All of my bling goes just as well with this dress as my other, good thing, and it was fun to finally have something new to wear!  (Wear the same dress for five viking events in a row, and you’ll understand.)

On Friday evening, there was a Viking Wedding.  Everyone wore their finery, and a good time was had by all!  Kyle was the sword-bearer for the bride, as part of the ceremony, and did a wonderful job.  (Now, since he didn’t mess up for that wedding, he is terribly afraid he is going to mess something up in my wedding.  I told him not to worry.)

Passing on the Sword

Of course, besides the normal crafts of spinning, weaving, and nålbinding, none of which I took pictures of, unfortunately, there was a lot of fighting.  It was so much fun, even though I only lived through one battle.  One, the whole weekend.  Oh well. . .

Pictures from fighting:

Warm-up Fight!

Shield Wall!

Dying

After the First Round of Fighting

Dev also fought in the gambeson for the first time, and apparently it fights well, if a little warm!  Still, the report is that it is better than chain mail, on account of being lighter.

Fighting in the Gambeson

Sunday morning, we had more fighting.  I did a little better, but still kept losing and dying.  Really, I am a pretty terrible fighter– I just have too much fun to stop!

Trying to Flank and Failing

I am also a happy warrior, it would appear. . .

Dead Valkyrie

Kyle did well fighting as well, and looked quite sharp!

Kyle Ready to Fight!

Of course, there was some time spent just hanging out as well, sitting and talking around the tents.

Get up and fight!

And then they all ganged up on Kyle. . .

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and Kyle and I have a wonderful time.  Unfortunately, Jessica had to leave early, as she was just getting over the flu, but it was still nice to have her there!

Here’s to our second year of going Viking, and may it be as wonderful as the first!

The Fighters!