An Independent Scholar

That is what Mistress Ose calls herself when contacting museums for information.  Now that I have finished my first letter to a museum requesting information about one of their items, I suppose I may use the same title.  The letter is now in the hands of someone who will translate it into French for me.

The museum, Musee-Alfred-Bonno is in Chelles, France, what looks like a small town east of Paris.  As such, I'm not going to assume their curator speaks/reads English, hence having my letter translated.  I will mail them both versions just in case I'm mistaken.

A copy of the letter follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am an independent scholar who is interested in one of the items in your collection.  I am hoping you are able to tell me more about it.

I am curious about the embroidered purse pictured below.

My only information about it is what is included with the photo:

Date: 1170-1190

Material: Silk threads on linen

Size: 10 cm x 13 cm

There is much I would like to learn about it as I am interested in trying to recreate it in order to learn more about embroidery techniques of the Middle Ages.  I am hoping you will be able to provide answers to the following questions:

- First and foremost, is it possible that you could email me high-definition photographs of the front, back, and inside of the purse?

- Is the stitching truly worked with silk threads and the base material actually linen?

- Is the purse lined?  With what type of material?

- From the photo I found online, I have been unable to determine what embroidery stitches were used.  Do you have any information about this?

- The buttons on the side and the drawstrings seem to be a type of weaving over a solid disk.  Do you know the material of the disk? The type of thread used for the covering?

- Do you know what type of threads were used for the drawstrings and the carrying strap?

I thank you for your time,

To regular readers of this blog the photo of the bag will look familiar.  This is the next step in being able to reproduce the bag.

Keep your fingers crossed the letter doesn't get lost in the mail when I send it, probably in January (janvier) to avoid the Christmas zaniness in the postal system.

~ Marjorie (said with a French accent this time)

A knotty solution ... NOT!

Pondering bags again.  Specifically the sliding closures on the drawstrings of the German bag.

A Google search for "reliquary bags" brought me to this page, http://www.larsdatter.com/pouches-drawstring.htm which led me to the Belgian Art Tools and Links site, http://balat.kikirpa.be/search_all.php.  The recommended search for "bourse" resulted in pages of items, some of which were actually what I wanted.  The photos of bags in the rest of this post are from this site.

 I noticed a series of bags which had some sort of woven object on the drawstrings that looked like it would slide up to keep the bag tightly closed.

Object number: 43493 http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=M194705&objnr=43493&nr=77

 

Object number: 43477 

http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=M194635&objnr=43477&lang=en-GB&nr=71

Object number: 43186 

http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=M194697&objnr=43186&nr=63

The word "knot" did not occur to me until I zoomed in on one and realized it's resemblance to the knot at the end of the paracord bracelet I'd made for my husband.

I reviewed the video I used to make this knot, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ9VL2IVlFM&index=13&list=FLeqTsg8HLrOl-9iTM3zSZ3Q and it quickly became apparent that this was not the correct knot, it could never be made to slide.

I continued the hunt for the right knot back on Google, this time searching for "medieval knot", and found gold in the form of a blog post titled "Tassels&Co: Turk's head knot basics" from Medieval Silkwork: http://www.medievalsilkwork.com/2015/07/tassels-turks-head-knot-basics.html.

Now armed with a name for the knot I searched and found lots of info about it, including many descriptions and videos on making one.  The most helpful to me was this series of pages: http://www.hought.com/art.6bth.1.html.  You need to make sure you click on parts 2 and 3 to get the full instructions.

Even so, it took me many tries to find the right thing to start wrapping it around (my finger), properly decipher right-handed directions for my left-handed brain, and then shrinking it down to a more reasonable size.  Here is my first Turk's head knot:

I'll make a second and put them on the drawstrings of the brown bag, just to see how they work.

This was all a delightful side trip in the world of medieval bags, but it does nothing to help me with the conundrum of how the disks on the German bag were made. 

It's looking very much like material is wrapped around a disk of some type (metal), based on the above button.  The material seems to have worn off part one edge of the disk.  The material also seems to have the same texture at the embroidered skirt on the lady.  Could the material be covered with embroidery?  I must write the museum!

~ Marjorie 

Bags

I have been contemplating bags, fabric sacks for carrying whatever needs to be brought along.  There is, of course, the 1170 German bag I will be reproducing when I understand the techniques involved.  Then there's something Ose told me, that when Baron Master George Emerson True was learning different stitches, he would practice them by making bags to hide his wallet, phone, and other modern devices he wanted to disguise.  Sewing bags also allowed him to work on something small and unobtrusive during court.

I was at the coronation of Brennan II and Caoilfhion II this past Saturday.  As we all know, Coronation is ALL court.  I gathered material, thread needles, scissors, etc. and started a bag during morning court.  The German bag is approximately 3" x 5" and this first bag is quadruple the size at 6" x 10", big enough to hold my fast-acting inhaler and tube.  I used brown linen, modern thread for the seams and bottom hem and Pearl Cotton for the trim and decorative stitches.

Construction proceeded thus:

- Pulled threads to straighten edges of material, keeping the selvage on one long side.
- Folded along short edge to create a piece half the original width and the same length as before.
- Sewed the seam with a running stitch using the modern thread, right sides together.
- Finger-pressed seam allowance (1/2") open.
- Turned right side out on itself so that one opening has a folded edge and the other has four raw edges.  The folded edge is the top, the other the bottom.  The bottom edges I folded in to encase the raw edges.
- While both ends were still open, sewed on a length of monks cord made with #5 Pearl Cotton

- Overcast the folded bottom edges with #8 Pearl Cotton (see above).  (I'm left-handed, hence the backwards look to my stitches for most of you.)
- Used a stab stitch because of the number of layers (8) to make a strong bottom seam to the bag, going one direction then doubling back to fill in the stitches on the other side. (see below)  This seems to be how the German bag is made.

- Lastly, overcast the folded edge at the top with #8 Pearl Cotton.

The monk's cording for the drawstrings is made and waiting for me to test my theory on how the German bag was closed...

~ Marjorie

Projects

I have a belt.  I am very proud of this belt.  I'll never use it to hold up my jeans, it's way too long.  It will, however do an admirable job of indicating my new, lowly status.  The belt is green, and was given to me by Mistress Ose Silverhair.

I am now her apprentice.  {Squeeee!!!!!} 

(Okay, I promise to be more dignified for the rest of the post.)

Mistress Ose is a fiber-arts/spinning Laurel, whereas I will be focusing on medieval pattern making, clothing design, and sewing techniques.  It will be an interesting journey as I set aside "modern" habits and thinking to learn how to parse paintings and duplicate drawings to recreate clothes of different places and times.  I already have two new projects to work on along with two older projects to finish.

My first major, long-term research project will be to recreate this 1170 German purse/bag:

It's silk thread on red linen, with some sort of buttons along the edges, a drawstring, and a separate cord for it to hang from a belt.  It's a whopping 10 x 13 cm, basically 3 x 5 inches, big enough to hold modern ID cards and some money, not big enough for my HTC One 8 cell phone though.  That's okay.  I'm working on minimizing how much weight hangs from my lovely green belt.

There will be a lot of research and learning of techniques involved with this project.  I'll be writing the museum (Alfred Bonno Museum in Chelles, France 

http://www.chelles.fr/Culture/Musee-Alfred-Bonno) to see if they can tell me more about the buttons, lining, embroidery stitches, cording, and more importantly, send me high-res photos to inspect details myself.  The embroidery looks like split-stitch at first glance.  I have to master that.  The cords are probably some form of handloop cords I don't know.  And those buttons... I have no idea what'll be involved in recreating them, but I'm quite certain it's not a skill I currently possess.

My second major project, which has a more immediate due date, is to create patterns for a 1470's Flanders outfit for Lady Ruth Baraskya.  I'll have more details as we progress on this project, but it will involve drafting patterns for a chemise, a lined kirtle, and an overdress.  Ruth will do the sewing once I come up with the patterns and an order of assembly for her.

The two hands-on sewing projects I'm finishing are my first completely hand-sewn dress and my cloak.  The dress is a basic 12th century rectangular dress with triangular gores in the skirt and gussets at the underarms.  I'm still unsure of the final sleeve design, large, swooping open sleeves versus tighter, arm-fitted sleeves.  In either case I'll be doing beaded embroidery around the neckline.  I'll show research and other pictures in a future post.  The cloak project is just adding more material to my half-circle cloak to make it a 3/4 circle to fit me better.  I'll also be lining it and appliqueing my device onto the back.  (For those who speak heraldese: Vert, in saltire two needles threaded, argent, and on a chief invected Or, three crosses bottony vert.)

I apologize for the overload of information on this first blog.  I'll write more often and in smaller bits in the future.

Thanks for listening,

~ Marjorie