Croy Wire Chain & Experiments in Wirework

So, I gathered a little more information about the "silver wire ribbon" from the Pictish hoard. For one thing, it is also known as the Croy chain--important, this. Why? Because it gave me another search term that led me to yet more information. I found a quote from 1978 in a 1980 article on the origins of knitting. The quote compared the Croy chain to a similar one found at Ballinaby. I suppose it's worth repeating here:

I find them to be of identical looped structure, made from long lengths of wire, which at first sight strongly resembles stocking stitch. Both are in the form of flattened tubes, that from Croy having 16 'stitches' per round (7 stitches and 6 rows per cm) and that from Ballinaby having 6 'stitches' per round (6-2/3 'stitches' and 7-1/2 rows per cm). Although the fabrics strongly resemble knitting, on examining them under the microscope I found the structure to be different. Whereas in knitting the loops are usually drawn through those of the preceding row, in these cases the loops have been drawn through the two preceding rows...

One frustration I had reading this entire article--which was otherwise fascinating--is that I don't in fact know how to knit. What very little I know about knitting wouldn't lead me to believe it is very similar in technique to the style of trichinopoly I was taught in which one end of the wire is threaded through the loop above and drawn through...whereas knitting seems to involve using a continuous ball of yarn manipulated by knitting needles.

Anyway, the part that really made me raise my eyebrows was the comment that the loops had in this case been drawn through the two preceding rows, not just one row. Because the technique I was taught drew the wire through only the preceding row.

So, of course, nothing would do but to try out the logistics of drawing the wire through the two preceding rows. It seemed...unlikely. But I am ecstatic with the results.

In the close up picture here, you see along the bottom my sample length, only a few inches long. The left half of it uses the technique I first learned, looping through only the immediately preceding row. The right half of the chain switches to looping through the two preceding rows. As you can hopefully make out, it makes it much more tight, more complex-looking, and surprisingly more even-looking as well. I also liked the look of it one draw hole earlier--it had a different look, hard to describe. This size got far enough the have the outside edges of each loop/stitch meet in sort of V. One size larger they hadn't yet met, giving a different effect.

Above is the beginnings of another such piece with more "stitches" around--seven instead of five, I believe. Using the same small stick, this makes it significantly harder. The five stitch around through two rows technique was shockingly easy. Going up to seven stitches is now harder than my original technique. The stitches are so close together that I have to take care with each stitch to go behind only one stitch not it and halfway through its next-door neighbor.

Getting it started was also a pain. I knew I'd have to go only one row up for the first couple rows, but I started in on the back two rows plan as soon as I could--which was too soon. I ended up going back to single-row-back technique for a couple extra rows to stabilize the whole thing before giving it another go. Still, I have high hopes for it turning out in the end. Many imperfections are forgiven once you pull these things through the draw holes!

Next up will be making one that is wider. I got a new wider dowel and just need to cut it down to a manageable size. I don't know how to add more (bigger) holes to my draw board since I didn't make this one to begin with. Maybe one of the guys will know...

Wire is A Bit Like String...Except When It's Not

Copper corrodes. Who knew?

I wanted a project while the toddler I was watching was (blessedly) taking a nap, but I didn't feel like bringing the Birka tablet weaving project of doom into the same room with said toddler. She might have been sleeping at the moment, but it never lasts, now does it? And as soon as she's awake she can be relied upon to bee-line straight for whatever you least want her to get into. The idea of my cards getting tangled and twisted atop their inherent complexity makes my blood run cold with horror.

So, instead, I pulled out my wire stuff. Referring to this craft is problematic. I've seen Viking wire knitting, Viking wire weaving, trichinopoly, Viking wire chainwork, continuous wire something-or-other, etc. One of the earliest extant examples of this craft happens to be Pictish--more on this later, I hope--and there are examples elsewhere, so calling it "Viking" anything is a little odd, though by far they had the most extant examples. But that is actually the most consistent element of the name, right beside "wire." Anyway, whatever you want to call it, I pulled it out...and discovered that the last piece I'd been working on, which happened to be copper, was busy turning my stick green. Another finished copper piece in the bag was also turning green. And one of my tools (actually filtched, er, borrowed from someone's tool box... *whistles*) is rusting. So it looks like I have some wire and tool maintenance in my future. I know people have copper jewelery...or is it all alloys and specially treated? Probably. But people *used* to have copper jewelery... So there is more research in my future.

I've also been thinking in the direction of wet felting again. I made a wet felted bag at West-Antir war that was pretty spiffy if slightly lopsided. I've been thinking of making a felted bottleholder to disguise a regular glass bottle and give it a strap for greater ease in using it as a water bottle at events. It might be interesting to try a leather costrel one day for greater authenticity, but I don't know how to make one and I can't afford to buy one, so I'm stuck brainstorming with what I can make.

What Was Typical Medieval Tablet Weaving? Don't Look at Me!

I finished my inkle weaving project. I think it took about 7 distracted hours in total, including warping, much faster than most of my tablet weaving projects. Sometimes the warping alone seems to take that long! Nevertheless, there's only so much you can do with plain inkle weaving, and if I start doing picked out pattern work, it won't be fast any more.

I've been trying to do research, yet again, into actual medieval techniques and patterns and usages of tablet weaving, especially in the British Isles. There is, of course, the "rare" threaded in diamond pattern from an Anglo-Saxon find. There is also a 12th century collection of five tablet-woven seal-tags which apparently include at least one, maybe more examples of "rare" threaded in patterns as well as "rare" use of the double-face technique. I've only seen various people's discussion of the article discussing these 5 examples, however, and modern reproductions of two of them (one threaded in, one double face) and I'm working on plans to track down a copy of the article which sadly appears not to be available online. What is difficult to discern in a casual search (casual here meaning lengthy but confined to the internet) is what tablet-weaving techniques are typical!

I have quite a good book about brocaded tablet weaving that discusses typical and unusual forms and techniques of brocaded tablet weaving right down to breaking down what percentage of extant bands were what width (nearly half were half an inch or less, by the way!) and used what fibers (silk and wool for most of it with spun gold or silver normal for brocading; linen vanishingly rare). But the book doesn't compare brocaded tablet weaving with the rest of the larger pool of tablet weaving.

Anyway, this fruitless exercise devolved, as it often does for me, into trolling through the online archives of museums in search of individual extant finds that I can analyze and compare myself. This time I picked the British Museum which is sadly short on medieval tablet weaving from Britain though it has some truly amazing pieces from the 19th and early 20th century from various far flung corners of the world. The one that really boggled my mind had geometric designs on one side and words woven onto the other. Doing one or the other--fine. Doing both at the same time? My hat goes off to that long-lost weaver.

Anyway, I'll get myself to a library and see if this proves more fruitful than the last time I did this about 4 years ago. And I'll try some more museum trolling. You never know what you'll find doing that. My most recent revelation was Pictish wire knitting. I knew the Vikings did it. I knew it was extant elsewhere on the continent. And, in fact, I'd seen this bit of wire work before, but long before I'd ever heard of trichinopoly or cared what it was particularly. It had looked complicated and beyond me and I don't do much playing with metal of any kind. But I learned trichinopoly a few months ago and took to it eagerly. And since I have a particular interest in the Picts--my chosen culture in the SCA--it was exciting to find that one of the earliest extant examples of the form was in fact Pictish.

Anyway, time to put it down for a while and try again tomorrow.