Iron age inspired hairnet

There is a lot of nets in my life right now. Im in love with my sprangframe and its about all that I do. I have worked most in linen, made three linen 16th century german hairnets. But I have also tried silk, that was so far the most difficult material to work in. The first try-out I made was in wool. And a couple of days ago I went back to wool. I wanted to learn how to make holes. The first thing I did was a small bag. And after that I went bigger. 

I made another hairnet inspired by a Iron age hairnet found in a bog in Denmark, Bredmore i Himmerland. I know! I made something that is not 16th century German. It was fun, okey!

This cap is from 800-500 BC. Its mostly called The Bredmose cap. Here is the original. The photo comes from the homepage of the Danish National museum. And you can find it here.

The hairnet was found on a bog body, the so called Arden woman. She had her hair up on the back of her head and covered with the hairnet. 

This picture comes from here.

 

I have not found any documentation except for the pictures of it. So I dont know the amount of threads and the exact pattern. So I just used it, the shape, as inspiration. The holes are not that difficult to make so therefore I think that they could have used them too, even if there are none in this one. I dont know how big it is. There are a lot of different variants of hairnets from the period out there. 

Mine is made in grey wool. Its a loose 2-ply thread. I had it at home and I dont know where I bought it. I used 60 threads. The pattern is four rows of s-twists and then a slit, four rows of twists and then a slit, and so on... My head is 57 cm around, but it would propably fit someone that have a slightly bigger head too.

 

 

The drawstring is connected to the middle of the sprang textile. Its where you closing the sprang up, to hold the twists together. Without it, the twist would completely untwist. Therefore all sprang textiles have a clear center like that. 

 

When you make a sprang it can be difficult to press it together the same on the top as on the bottom. Therefore when taking it out of the frame the sides can be different in size. Mine was. I used the bigger part as the back and the smaller around the head. The side that was slightly longer was to long to have around the head.

The bottom part of the sprang textile is drawn together. It also look to me like the back is sewn together a little from the drawn part. In the picture below I have marked it with a red circle.

The front edge seems raw to me. They have just taken it of the sprang frame. Therefore I did the same. 

Now it feel like I really need to go to Copenhagen to look at it myself. Austrriki Viking age clothing has a picture of it on there facebookpage.

Another sprang hairnet

I have had a couple of amazing days. Normally I would be at medievalweek in Visby right now, but, as we all now, times are a bit different. Instead I went visiting friends. They have a big garden so we put up some tents and had some good food and some good company. I also had a lot of time to finish another sprang hairnet.

I could not resist and put up another warp right after the last one. And together with the lovely Hille we showed the nets side by side. 

This one is made a bit different than the first one. Its sewn together along one of the longsides and have a drawstring on the shortsides meeting at the neck. I covered the edge with a binding in green thin wool. 

The drawstring is a fingerloop braid. I was making it in camp, while waiting for my hair to dry after a lovely bath in the lake close by. This picture is...well...thanks for 16th century headwear that is normally covering my hair...

The fingerloop braid is made in the same linen as the hairnet. 

 

I really wanted to try the hairnet on Hille because she has lovely thick long hair. And it fits!

And together with the net I finished last Monday.

Hairnet number two is much better made, not as uneven as the first one. I´m learning! 

Im wearing my net with a wulst underneath and Hille is wearings hers with just her hair. 

I used my first net for the first time together with my renaissance clothing and it felt great.

And tried it with a hat!

Im sorry for the quite crappy mobilphone-pictures. 

There were a lot of good food..

And some sewing. My kind of vacation!

 

When I got home I tried the second net with the wulst and it worked out just fine too.

 

Sprang hairnet

Sprang is a technique of making a fabric on a vertical frame using only warpthreads. The warp is fixed around a cord at the upper and lower end of the frame. The threads make crossings with each other by pulling the back ones to the front and dropping the front ones to the back. Because the warp threads are fixed at both the top and bottom the pattern occur at both ends at the same time. The technique gives a stretchy, very netlike structure and was therefore used for hairnets, among other things. The technique has been used when a stretch fabric was required.

The technique can create a very tight weave, especially if they were made by wool. This technique is very old. The period which these hairnets flourished lies between c. mid-4th and mid-8th century AD, according to a publication made by the British museum. Sprang fragment found in excavations were often thought to be woven.

But! The sprang technique was not uncommon during the 16th Century either. In Olaus Magnus Historia om de nordiska folken from 1555 the nordic woman is praised for her knowledge about textile work and especially the "whitework, that is called sprang" (my translation).

There is also examples from the artworld, a lady working on what could be a sprangframe in a Lucas Cranach painting. This is a part of a painting called Education of the Virgin Mary and was painted between 1510-1515.

There is also this drawing " Planet Venus and her children", from the early 16th century, shown in the book Die textilen Künste, by Leonie von Wilckens. Its a lady that is possibly doing sprang on a sprangframe.

I attended a net knotting class at an SCA-event almost a year ago. It was fun but it did not really feel like something that I would put the effort needed in to master. But sprang could be something that I could do! So for a handicraft exchange I asked a friend to make me a sprang frame.

I saw this picture on pinterest and thought that she was working on a sprang frame. And I showed my friend that was going to make the frame for me.

She is not.

She is doing sprang on a weaving loom from the Osebergsship.

The pictures comes from here.

That was not what I thought I asked for. But to have a copy of the weaving loom from the Osebergsship is not bad either...

And it is obviously possible to do sprang on it too...

Here is my frame.

After I got it home it did not take long before I tried it out. I started with a small warp with 30 wool threads.

At first I did not understand the meaning of the sticks. Until I made and error, and because of my lack of stick I needed to redo the whole thing. The sticks helps you separate the warpthreads and you could just take up the latest part you did wrong. If you do something wrong you will see it in the next round or in the next after that. Therefore, use the helpsticks.

Next try went better.

It worked fine, but there is a couple of errors in it.

How long do you think I waited until I put up another? It was...maybe 15 hours.

This time I tried linen. 60 threads. And I made it longer. If it worked I might be able to use my trial and error-piece for something.

The helpsticks is good to make the rows even too. Here you can see it clearly, when I made a row without one.

It worked! There is a couple of errors in this one too, mostly around the edges. For the next one I need to be more careful, to see that all the threads is in order. But it is actually big enough to make a net out of it.

A good thing with this technique is that you dont need a speciall frame for it. Any kind of squared frame would do.

Hairnets were common among the higher social classes of the 16th century in Germany and nearby countries.

Here we see one on Queen Ann of Hungary and Bohemia.

And one on this lovely lady painted by Christop Amberger 1522.

And here from a drawing made by Urs Graf 1514.

I dont know who this lady is but she is so clearly show that it is possible to have a wulst underneath so I wanted to show her picture anyway.

Im not saying all of these hairnets are made by the sprangtechnique but I say that it possible to make nets with it. And that it was done.

So, out of my squared piece of linen sprang I made a hairnet. Many of the ladies in the paintings looks like they have a wulst underneath. This theory is also presented in the article Nets-Knots-Lace Early 16th century headdress from East Tyrol by Beatrix Nutz. So I made a separate one that is possible to use under a see-trough net.

 

I made a fingerloop braid to pull three of the sides of the net together and ty it around my head.

Next time Im going to try to make the net smaller, both the whole garment but also the holes in it. And maybe try a more difficult pattern! And threads that are a bit more stiff, the net is a bit soft and dont get the exact look. Maybe some kind of metalthread.

Sources:

https://www.academia.edu/5403707/Sprang_Hairnets_in_the_Katoen_Natie_collection?sm=b

https://www.academia.edu/24731033/Radiocarbon_dating_of_linen_hairnets_in_sprang_technique?sm=b

https://www.academia.edu/37891586/ATMSII_Linen_Sprang_from_Lengberg_Castle.pdf

http://www.stringpage.com/sprang/sprang1.html

http://housebarra.com/EP/ep07/11sprang.html

Tutorial http://honorbeforevictory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sprang-tutorial-handout.pdf

https://sashweaver.wordpress.com/tag/sprang/page/3/ Socks!

http://www.spranglady.com/blog/previous/3

Nets-Knots-Lace Early 16th century headdresses from East Tyrol by Beatric Nutz.

Die Rekonstruktion eng anliegender Bekleidung aus Antike und Renaissance by Dagmar Drinkler

Historia om de nordiska folken by Olaus Magnus

Språngning by Tine Abrahamsson