Learning more narrow wares stuff
Jan. 26th, 2007 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abendgulesA couple of weeks ago my copy of Take V bowes departed arrived, to my great excitement. I'd heard about this book first at a MEDATS conference, when one of the authors spoke. The description is
Tak v bowes departed is an in-depth study of Article 4, British Library Manuscript Harley 2320. This treatise, which dates to the fifteenth century, gives instructions for making forty different braids of varying complexity.
I'm really pleased to have a new resource to draw on, to make authentic bands and laces, and to try out wide decorative bands for purses and other small items.
I'm a bit disappointed in some areas though.
Some observations about trying out the two-person braids, and braids in general:
Tak v bowes departed is an in-depth study of Article 4, British Library Manuscript Harley 2320. This treatise, which dates to the fifteenth century, gives instructions for making forty different braids of varying complexity.
I'm really pleased to have a new resource to draw on, to make authentic bands and laces, and to try out wide decorative bands for purses and other small items.
I'm a bit disappointed in some areas though.
The book does not directly cite the original instructions for all the designs, except in short exerpts - they use the original names (which aren't explained), but don't include the text.
IMO, this is a bit like writing a redacted period cookbook without including the original recipe, or explaining your redaction.
There's only one or two pictures of the original MS, and a drawing of one of the damaged illuminations.
My only guess is that possibly they didn't have copyright for the text, as the MS belongs to the British Library.
But wouldn't the BL want one of its manuscripts to be explained and published?
Isn't it better to have some of it out there, of use, rather than locked up in the library?
As I said, it's only a guess.
Another disappointment is the factual description of the MS - lots of detail about how medieval books are assembled (creating vellum, assembling folios, stitching books togther). I'm not sure why.
The MS isn't about bookbinding, it's about fingerbraiding.
To me, details about medieval bookbinding (which I can learn elsewhere) aren't nearly as interesting as the topic of making narrow wares, about which a lot less is written.
Wouldn't it be more useful to either provide complementary information about research into womens work as narrow wares producers?
The authors are members of Soper Lane, a reenactor group that specializes in recreating 15th c urban women workers, isn't this a natural forum for publishing their research?
How about info about the materials - how did you source silk in the 15th century? How much did it cost, compared to other materials?
How was it dyed, how was it stored, how much raw material would you need to create how much lace, etc. etc.?
Kay Staniland has sourced a lot of this kind of excruciating detail from wardrobe accounts, so I know some of it is available, at least on request.
There's a lot of related info in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, about how much X material her silkwoman needed to make Y products, and how much it cost.
Admittedly, this book is < 100 years later, but it could be an interesting comparison. There might be similar records for a 15th c. monarch, just waiting for publication.
The instructions themselves are reasonable. I realized early on that one basic method covers several of the simple 1-person braids. If you learn that method, and its variations, you've effectively learned 5-6 braids with different colour and style variations. There's one main method change, and the rest are changes of setup - how you set up your coloured cords on your fingers determines how they turn out.
All the techniques involve passing loops through each other, more often than between each other. Since passing them between each other also works, this is just one method of doing braids, that was documented by one (or two) people in this book.
I've now tried out several braids, including a two-person braid, worked withfrrsawyer successfully. The instructions are for 'self' and 'partner', with 'self' doing most of the braiding work, 'partner' having a lesser task. Interestingly, the partner's loops get taken up faster than the self's, so gradually the length of the loops change, which makes braiding awkward.
You could start off making the partner's loops longer, but you'll still have a fiddly time working with loops that are of uneven length.
It took 45 minutes for two of us to produce a length of cord about 12" long. We stopped once it became too awkward to keep braiding, and the tension was changing more obviously. You tend to start out loose, and get tighter as the loops around your fingers shrink.
IMO, this is a bit like writing a redacted period cookbook without including the original recipe, or explaining your redaction.
There's only one or two pictures of the original MS, and a drawing of one of the damaged illuminations.
My only guess is that possibly they didn't have copyright for the text, as the MS belongs to the British Library.
But wouldn't the BL want one of its manuscripts to be explained and published?
Isn't it better to have some of it out there, of use, rather than locked up in the library?
As I said, it's only a guess.
Another disappointment is the factual description of the MS - lots of detail about how medieval books are assembled (creating vellum, assembling folios, stitching books togther). I'm not sure why.
The MS isn't about bookbinding, it's about fingerbraiding.
To me, details about medieval bookbinding (which I can learn elsewhere) aren't nearly as interesting as the topic of making narrow wares, about which a lot less is written.
Wouldn't it be more useful to either provide complementary information about research into womens work as narrow wares producers?
The authors are members of Soper Lane, a reenactor group that specializes in recreating 15th c urban women workers, isn't this a natural forum for publishing their research?
How about info about the materials - how did you source silk in the 15th century? How much did it cost, compared to other materials?
How was it dyed, how was it stored, how much raw material would you need to create how much lace, etc. etc.?
Kay Staniland has sourced a lot of this kind of excruciating detail from wardrobe accounts, so I know some of it is available, at least on request.
There's a lot of related info in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, about how much X material her silkwoman needed to make Y products, and how much it cost.
Admittedly, this book is < 100 years later, but it could be an interesting comparison. There might be similar records for a 15th c. monarch, just waiting for publication.
The instructions themselves are reasonable. I realized early on that one basic method covers several of the simple 1-person braids. If you learn that method, and its variations, you've effectively learned 5-6 braids with different colour and style variations. There's one main method change, and the rest are changes of setup - how you set up your coloured cords on your fingers determines how they turn out.
All the techniques involve passing loops through each other, more often than between each other. Since passing them between each other also works, this is just one method of doing braids, that was documented by one (or two) people in this book.
I've now tried out several braids, including a two-person braid, worked with
frrsawyer successfully. The instructions are for 'self' and 'partner', with 'self' doing most of the braiding work, 'partner' having a lesser task. Interestingly, the partner's loops get taken up faster than the self's, so gradually the length of the loops change, which makes braiding awkward. You could start off making the partner's loops longer, but you'll still have a fiddly time working with loops that are of uneven length.
It took 45 minutes for two of us to produce a length of cord about 12" long. We stopped once it became too awkward to keep braiding, and the tension was changing more obviously. You tend to start out loose, and get tighter as the loops around your fingers shrink.
Some observations about trying out the two-person braids, and braids in general:
There's no guidance on how to start and finish braids neatly. The authors include instructions on a 'contstrictor knot', to hold the loops together at the top, but nothing about how long to continue, or how to finish. This is the oddest part of fingerbraiding for me - you're stuck with knots, which don't strike me as very neat ways to finish your work and prevent fraying.
Possible solutions:
1. Whip the ends the way ropes are whipped, to prevent fraying before cutting the ends. This would produce a neat, serviceable finish, and would help you push them through lacing holes.
2. After whipping the ends, finish them with aglets.
The need for a permanent finish might explain the popularity of aglets, at least for 16th century clothing. Their purpose, as a way to finish a lace, might have led to their eventual use as pure decor in the Tudor period, when ribbons and ties and cords take more prominence.
Narrow wares are hugely labour intensive - two skilled people took 45 minutes to produce something that wasn't long enough to use in a costume.
With practice, we could probably speed up, and work on longer lengths, to make something functional like a point for hose or doublet.
It suggests to me that this was time consuming work as well as skilled - no wonder it was womens work!
We were using a fairly fine cottolin 'string' - thinner than butcher's cord, thicker than sewing or embroidery thread.
Reeled silk is extremely fine, and would have to be plied many times to create a cord even as thick as this cottolin.
So an awful lot of silk would actually go into silk cords and silk tabletwoven braids, even quite narrow ones. It would be wonderfully strong, but quite costly.
So perhaps cords, ribbons and braids represent a bigger investment in an outfit than I realized before.
Even skilled braiders end up with waste material.
As the loops get smaller, you tend to pull tighter, even when you're trying to avoid it, and the tension of the cord changes - loose at the top, tight at the bottom.
So people either put up with cords of uneven tension (which wouldn't change their function a lot, I think, just their appearance),
OR
braiders ended their cords sooner than I have, and were resigned to losing larger lengths of loops in the manufacturing process.
All processes have some waste. However, I wonder if perhaps this waste led to making tassels, by saving the waste loops, and bundling them into a decoration?
I know if I was paying through the nose for silk thread, I'd want to use each and every scrap of it.
Hmmmmm.
Braiding is hard on the arms, and the body - you have to stay put, almost unmoving except for your fingers, for at least 20 minutes at a time, quite possibly longer. My wrists were really feeling the effect of braiding two days in a row, and both Siban and I were stiff from sitting in one position. You defnitely need to practice to do more than an hour's work at a time.
Perhaps medieval people had fewer repetitive strain injuries, if their lives were more active overall - even an urban dweller has to chop wood and haul water, walk to market, etc. But I'm guessing that women who braided for a living felt the effects of working over a lifetime, just as weavers would.
Possible solutions:
1. Whip the ends the way ropes are whipped, to prevent fraying before cutting the ends. This would produce a neat, serviceable finish, and would help you push them through lacing holes.
2. After whipping the ends, finish them with aglets.
The need for a permanent finish might explain the popularity of aglets, at least for 16th century clothing. Their purpose, as a way to finish a lace, might have led to their eventual use as pure decor in the Tudor period, when ribbons and ties and cords take more prominence.
Narrow wares are hugely labour intensive - two skilled people took 45 minutes to produce something that wasn't long enough to use in a costume.
With practice, we could probably speed up, and work on longer lengths, to make something functional like a point for hose or doublet.
It suggests to me that this was time consuming work as well as skilled - no wonder it was womens work!
We were using a fairly fine cottolin 'string' - thinner than butcher's cord, thicker than sewing or embroidery thread.
Reeled silk is extremely fine, and would have to be plied many times to create a cord even as thick as this cottolin.
So an awful lot of silk would actually go into silk cords and silk tabletwoven braids, even quite narrow ones. It would be wonderfully strong, but quite costly.
So perhaps cords, ribbons and braids represent a bigger investment in an outfit than I realized before.
Even skilled braiders end up with waste material.
As the loops get smaller, you tend to pull tighter, even when you're trying to avoid it, and the tension of the cord changes - loose at the top, tight at the bottom.
So people either put up with cords of uneven tension (which wouldn't change their function a lot, I think, just their appearance),
OR
braiders ended their cords sooner than I have, and were resigned to losing larger lengths of loops in the manufacturing process.
All processes have some waste. However, I wonder if perhaps this waste led to making tassels, by saving the waste loops, and bundling them into a decoration?
I know if I was paying through the nose for silk thread, I'd want to use each and every scrap of it.
Hmmmmm.
Braiding is hard on the arms, and the body - you have to stay put, almost unmoving except for your fingers, for at least 20 minutes at a time, quite possibly longer. My wrists were really feeling the effect of braiding two days in a row, and both Siban and I were stiff from sitting in one position. You defnitely need to practice to do more than an hour's work at a time.
Perhaps medieval people had fewer repetitive strain injuries, if their lives were more active overall - even an urban dweller has to chop wood and haul water, walk to market, etc. But I'm guessing that women who braided for a living felt the effects of working over a lifetime, just as weavers would.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 03:33 pm (UTC)I have been doing a little finger braiding for button loops and I find it quite soothing. Good work for car trips I think!
Keep up the good work!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 05:11 pm (UTC)The waste problem has always puzzled me too. Modern needlework instructions tell you to waste a huge amount of thread and, in spite f it being much cheaper than it was in the 15th C. I still find that I have much shorter ends left than I 'should'. I agree - if I was spending a small fortune on the threads I'd use every possible scrap of them as well. I like the idea of tassles - that would make a lot of sense, using the waste rather than having to buy new.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:26 pm (UTC)This would also mean that you could use something a bit thicker for the part where your fingers go which may be easier on the fingers if the tension is high.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 04:35 pm (UTC)The tension differences between start and end are one of the ways researchers, archeologists, etc. can spot that a braid is a finger-looped one rather than another technique.
I look forward to seeing your experiments.
Some transcriptions for original texts are available online
Date: 2007-02-12 02:38 pm (UTC)However, some of the braids have been published in CA earlier and the Tak V Bowes / Soper Lane website even includes a link to this: http://www.fingerloop.org/ and especially http://fingerloop.org/patterns.html. The site does things in order of complexity (although I prefer to classify braids differently, but that's my problem), but I find the Tak v Bowes charts much easier to follow (although make sure you get the corrections from the book website, there are at least two braids where charting is wrong, but written instructions are ok).
To get for example the transcription of the original text for 'grene dorge' (which makes a nice Drachenwald braid...), see http://fingerloop.org/patterns.html#n06
Johanna