How To Make Cards For Tablet Weaving From Things You Probably Have At Home: a CosTutorial!
Medieval Brocade Tablet Weaving
This past weekend was CoSy, or the Costube Symposium, four days of videos on a huge range of subjects either directly about costuming and recreating material culture, or about the costuming community as it currently stands. I released the above video, a tutorial about how to basic brocade tablet weaving, and I also participated in a couple of live panels, one of which is also hosted on my channel, which was a round table of plus-sized costumers and how we navigate our hobby.
What an 18 months….
Is it any surprise that I didn’t do any blogging since the pandemic hit? Probably not.
But!
That doesn’t mean I’ve been inactive. In fact, I’ve done quite a few things, and I really need to catch up with it all over here.
The biggest new thing would be that I started a YouTube channel! It covers all of my costuming and material culture creating, not just SCA work, but I have been on a medieval kick lately, so that’s what most of my recent videos have been on, and I have a few more planned for the near future that also fall under the SCA time period umbrella.
my SCA/medieval video playlist
I think my favorite of the videos I’ve posted for it so far, and what I was very excited to receive, is the video for my Award of Arms, which I received just about a year ago in August via Ethereal Court. And because it was presented virtually, I could just clip that part out of the full video and toss it up on my channel, along with the unboxing of my scroll once it was mailed to me!
Creative ADD and a bit of navelgazing
I won’t lie, I’m horrible about keeping up with social media. It’s been closer to a year since I posted here than not. But documenting what I’ve done is always been a weakness of mine, in 12+ years of being a historical costumer. Part of it is imposter syndrome. Who would be interested in seeing what random nobody me has done? Part of it is, I have to admit, laziness. Keeping up with social media takes time and effort. time I could be spending doing something else. Or nothing at all, sometimes. I also definitely get distracted by new ideas and wander off in a new direction very easily.
All that to say, I’ve been dabbling in leatherwork! Last June I made a belt pouch nominally for my husband when I can talk him into coming to events, but I’ve also used it myself a couple times at events I’ve gone solo to.
It’s one large pocket in the back, that I made sure was large enough for his cellphone, modeled by my pusheen tape dispenser, and two smaller front pouches.
I’ve also made a bunch of very basic circle drawstring pouches for holding various things, like my gaming chips and all the wire work rings I wear for events.
The round chips and pineapples are from Dames a la Mode, while I picked up the leaves on amazon or eBay, I don’t remember now. To make them more individually me, I dyed them with some liquid RIT dye, rather than keeping them plain white mother of pearl.
And finally, the project I’m working on right now!
This is mainly my test shoe, with the basic shape taken from one found during excavations in Poland. When I get it finished I’ll put up a detailed posted with references. My hands are getting sore though, so I’m taking a short break!
Catching up
I can’t even say I haven’t been doing anything lately, because I have! I’ve just been bad about posting, but that’s a tale as old as time, hmm? So here’s a big photo dump of a couple recent projects, and then some navel gazing about plans and future projects.
I happen to live right down the street from Jomar, a store that I like to describe as the love child of a thrift store and a Ross, born into a warzone. It isn’t just stuff that fell off the back of the truck, the truck then reversed and ran it over. BUT. And it’s a big but, they do get mill end fabrics, and there can be some gems tucked in amongst the knits and poly dress prints. I picked up 16 yards of this lovely pale purple cotton twill for $2 a yard. It’s most definitely not a bottomweight twill. It’s very soft and drapey. So far I’ve made a basic kirtle from it, but I plan to make an overgown with wide sleeves, a hood, and possibly something else with it eventually. I want some layering options, basically.
I also made a D shaped veil out of some beautiful windowpaned linen, a wimple out of plain linen (which I didn’t wear), and a pair of copper wire hairpins. I also wove a green silk headband on my inkle loom, and used an Applesies and Fox Noses pattern to tablet weave a belt.
This past Sunday was the Barony of Bhakail’s Commons, and I dragged my husband along with me for that. And since he is my living Ken doll, I had to outfit him properly. I picked up some crazy linen on eBay for a tunic, and also made him a leather belt pouch and a bycocket. I also forgot to take a picture of him all done up until the end of the day, so he’s a bit rumpled, but you can still see the full effect! He’s also wearing my black ring belt, my Buckland Cross medallion, which was the site token from our investiture back in December, and a pair of ye-oldey pants I got on Wish for him.
And now for a bit of future plotting. I’ve loved printmaking since I was first introduced to it in high school. Albrecht Durer has long been one of my favorite artists, and when I was in Nuremberg in 2011 I went to visit his house, which is now a museum. The first time I participated in the SCA I even chose a German persona because of that. I still want to focus on printmaking now, and my current interest lies in gaming. I was just given two large applewood boards, and I already have plans for both. One will be a deck of German-suited miniature cards, the other will be the Game of Goose. Well, some of it will be the Game of Goose. I don’t know yet what I’ll do with the rest of that board. One of my barony members has already offered use of her printing presses for when I’m ready as well. I’m not sure which of this I’ll work on first, but I’d like to try and get one of them carved and ready to be printed by the end of the year. We’ll see how it goes!
Photos? Who needs photos?
Mudthaw was this past weekend, and I did in fact get my outfit made for it! And I got exactly zero photos of it, oops? Though it’s just as well, as I forgot most of my accessories. I’ll get it all on another time with all the bits and pieces for some proper photos.
I did snap a quick picture on my dressform beforehand, just to make sure the layers were hanging right before hemming it all. (No, I am not seven feet tall, my dressform is just on a low table, for making hemming and skirt leveling easier.)
What’s there: the bottom layer is a soft red Eura style underdress in linen. Why did I make a Scandinavian style underdress for a Slavic persona? There was a lot of cross-trading all across the Baltic Sea, and I imagine clothing cuts would’ve traveled to some extent as well. (And standard T-tunic style dresses are just plain boring to sew. The Eura dress offered some interesting seaming.) That is tied around the waist by a plain red inkle-woven band, not visible under the overdress.
Over that is a knee-length tunic in a navy linen with a windowpaned diaper weave, adding a little bit of visual interest to an otherwise plain garment. I don’t know if this type of weave is accurate to the 10th century, but I was stash-busting with it. It’s worn with a blue and yellow inkle woven broken checkerboard band.
At Mudthaw I also wore the wide red and blue head band with a set of copper temple rings, and I had a red suede belt purse that I kept my necessities in. The purse was a very last minute project, and I need to do a little bit of tweaking to it before I use it again.
Mudthaw itself was fun! I spent most of the day outside in the lists, learning MOLing so I’m not quite so lost when I need to do it myself for our Barony’s first tourney in two months. Gotta have champions for Pennsic and whatnot.
My next two events will be Crown Tourney and Dining Alfresco in the Court of Henri II, the first and second weekends in May respectively. For crown I will probably just wear this outfit again, but for dining I think I want something fancier. I’ve got several yards of a blue and ivory cotton brocade floating around, maybe I’ll make a Burgundian gown with it. I’ve got some time to decide at least, and a non-SCA costume event before both of those that I really need to get sewing for.
Starting At the Top
Schedule permitting, I’m planning to go to an event at the end of the month, and I’m hoping to have a full 10th century Polish outfit wearable for it. Can I get it all pulled together in two weeks? Stay tuned, because no one knows!
Step one was to make myself some temple rings. Between Wednesday and today I made four sets of varying styles, as well as wove two narrow bands and mounted two sets on them. A third, wider, band is still on my loom, but I should be able to finish it tonight.
All the wire and tools!
I used three different wires in the making of all of these. The first two sets are made with a 12 gauge copper colored aluminum wire. The third set is made with the 12 gauge, along with 20 gauge copper wire, and the last set is made with 16 gauge brass wire. For tools I used wire cutters, needle nosed pliers, silicone pliers, and bent nosed pliers, along with a narrow heavy cardboard tube for shaping.
First up:
I made a set of six simple S-bend rings. Using the needle-nosed pliers I bent in the distinctive S-curve that gives the style it’s name, then wrapped it around the cardboard tube to form the ring itself. For this set I opted to simply cut the excess wire off, leaving these rings open at the end. I then sewed them onto a narrow linen green and tan band I’d woven on my inkle loom, using a basic separated checkerboard pattern.
Second set:
This is a Rus style, rather than Polish, (Severin, if I’m remembering correctly) but it’s just a simple spiral with a loop at the top. I haven’t attached these to a band yet, I’m not sure if and when I will.
Third set:
This set was fun to make! I’m honestly not sure exactly where this style traces back to. I actually saw a set in silver on Etsy and liked the look of it, so I copied it. I used the 20 gauge copper wire to make a long spiral, wrapping it around a spare piece of the 12 gauge wire. After sliding it off the piece, I then took it and rewrapped it around the 12 gauge to make the coiled spring in the second picture. From there it was easy to just slide it onto an already bent ring! While I originally made these as S-bend closures as well, before I sewed them onto the band I trimmed the extra curve off, making it a simple eye closure. The band was woven in black and white to imitate an embattled border on either side. Since this is also a slightly fancier style, I also intend to baste the front of the band to a veil, once I find my fine white linen. The stash seems to have eaten it.
Finally:
I just made this set a little while ago, out of 16 gauge brass wire. These are also a simple S-bend style, but I made these with a closed loop, unlike the copper pair above. The plan is to whip them onto the band I’m currently weaving, which is much wider than the first two I made. I’m debating basting it onto a veil as well, though probably not a white one, unlike the above band.
Now that I’m rolling in temple rings, I need to make the clothes to go with!
An Intro?
I’m horrible at talking about myself, but let’s give this a try anyway! I’m Societally known as Andruta Jezofyna, or at least I will be once I get my name submitted and approved. My interests are all over the place, clothing and time period-wise, but I’m working on focusing on 10th century Poland for my main persona.
I was first introduced to the SCA in 2005 by a coworker, and dabbled off and on in the now defunct Canton of Forestgate in Mercer County, NJ. Life happened, and I fell out of things for a while. After getting married and moving across the river into PA, I decided I wanted to take a more serious try at things. So I joined up with the then-shire, now Barony of Buckland Cross in Bucks County, in July 2017.
The purpose of this blog is to keep track of the various projects and pursuits that catch my eye as I journey through the past!