Category: Clothing and Equipment

A place to document my kit – things I’ve made or found

Clothing and EquipmentLeave a comment

I can haz tent geometry!!!

Greet Gijsberts

Finally, something that backs up my claim that I am an architect, really, truly I am: A graph paper geteld!  This guy is scaled 1/2"  = 1'0".  It's using a 12' long ridge, with 10' of it over 9' uprights… Here's the "open one side and put on poles view", a la this real tent: that I was talking about here.  I waved the pattern around to various people, and decided in discussion that I wanted a taller tent.  (I have tall friends, and I want to use the raised version of an airmattress.  No, don't try to talk me … Continue reading I can haz tent geometry!!!

Clothing and Equipment, Research6 Comments

More about Frankish Kent (women’s clothes only, sorry)

Greet Gijsberts

I am helping a friend think about 6thc clothing for Crown List, and thought it'd be nice to collect some research images, with my thoughts about how they might be put together. Aillegan is focused on Merovingian – that'd be Continental – but as there's significant influence in Kent by Franks (the marriage of Berthe to Ethelbert in late 6thc), and I've got a couple of really good books about the period, I'm sharing. The books are: Owen-Crocker, Gale.  Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Rogers, Penelope Walton.  Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England. The images that follow are from them. … Continue reading More about Frankish Kent (women’s clothes only, sorry)

Clothing and Equipment, Research2 Comments

The Orkney Hood

Greet Gijsberts

I met Brid, Laurel of the East Kingdom, interested in early period British Isles stuff (particularly Irish) in Thora Sharptooth's wadmal class. This is her in her Orkney hood.  I like hooded capes very much (see the chaperon pattern), and didn't know about this one, so I looked it up, and found this re-creation. I will never be as good as the author in this paper.  Not that I think I have to be, but my word – the fantasticness of the geekery.  All honors and homage are due.  I am terribly impressed. Continue reading The Orkney Hood

Clothing and Equipment, Research1 Comment

Tent building – thinking about getelds

Greet Gijsberts

I have been researching various kinds of wedge tents. I'm very fond of the basic shape – I like the cool simplicity of a light-colored prism, and contrast it in my mind with a riot of woolly and painted-wood color on the ground plane with bedcoverings, rugs, cushions and trunks. I'd found this Regia Anglorum site on getelds – an intriguing design, and one found in drawings of the pre-Norman period.  They show it with one side lifted here, but you can also stake that side down, and open either end of that opening, by using half the bell as … Continue reading Tent building – thinking about getelds

Clothing and EquipmentLeave a comment

String Skirt 7 – Metal bits on

Greet Gijsberts

(Metal tubes on, and as hoped, taking care of the fraying issue.) These were fun to figure out, and not time consuming to do.  Here's some photos of the extant tubes: I just sort of guessed that a nice size would be an inch long, and the pieces I cut to make the tubes are 1/4" wide.  If I had gauge measurements for the Egtved skirt (or actual measurements of the tubes) each would have informed the other, and I'd have a much more precise idea of how far I'm off.  I like making things in sizes of an inch … Continue reading String Skirt 7 – Metal bits on

Clothing and EquipmentLeave a comment

String Skirt 6 – Weaving done.

Greet Gijsberts

Here's how the skirt looks now.  It's 144 cm by 38 cm, fringed area, with ties of 27 cm and 40 cm. Here's the Egtved original again, for comparison. (hey look!  the original ties are very different in length, too!  Hmmm…must think about this, in the backstrap vs. extended weaving configuration issue.) I took the skirt off the loom and despite having used a jig to get the fringes all the same length, the deviation from the mean was more than I expected.  However, the fringes all have to be connected still, and loops constructed, and that will change the … Continue reading String Skirt 6 – Weaving done.

Clothing and Equipment3 Comments

String Skirt 5 – Weaving, and deep thoughts

Greet Gijsberts

(the skirt progresses.  I've got overtwisted doubleplied weft on the spindles, and am extending the weft beyond the tabletwoven waistband by passing the spindle around the dowel on the right.  Periodically I pull the loops off the dowel and allow them to twist up, creating the fringe of the skirt.) One of the things about weaving that I really enjoy is the ebb and flow of the creative work.  There's a crazy dense bit of planning at the beginning – much of the structure has to be figured out just to get started. Then the repetitive work begins, and a … Continue reading String Skirt 5 – Weaving, and deep thoughts

Clothing and EquipmentLeave a comment

String Skirt 3 – The size of the thing

Greet Gijsberts

More gratitude to the Danish National Museum, and their citizens who pay more than 50% in taxes to provide hobbyists like me with cool eye candy, among other good things. So, this page and lots of other places describe the arrangement of Egtved Girl's string skirt thus: The Egtved Girl was dressed in a striking cord skirt. It went down to her knees, was wound twice around her waist and was 38 cm long. This kind of skirt was in use throughout the Bronze Age. Some small female figures of bronze from Grevensvænge, Zealand, are also dressed in cord skirts. … Continue reading String Skirt 3 – The size of the thing