15th century headwear with golden sprang

After making the Lengberg headwear and realizing it was to little I wanted to make a new one. A new one that was more inspired by Lengberg instead of trying to make a copy of it. I wanted to have sprang on it though, because it is something I enjoy making. 

The 15th century is not my time so I started to look at paintings on Pinterest, to get some more inspiration besides the Lengberg one. And I did find some that I liked.

This one is from the painting The birth of Mary from 1495-1505 Master of Mariapfarr; Mariapfarr, Austria, and the midwife is wearing headwear that look like the Lengberg cap. Instead of the white sprang of Lengberg it has a golden sprang piece in the middle. 

This one, The birth of the virgin, by Master of the Crucifixion Triptych, from the early 1490´s. She has a slightly larger sprang piece. Also in gold. 

And this one, that I didnt find the name of. The scene is also of the birth of Mary. And the clothing suggest 15th century. Here the sprang piece is a bit smaller but still in a darker colour. 

My knowledge in the 15th century is very limited but after looking at a coupIe of different paintings it seemse like this cap were used by midwifes. Was it only used by midwifes? Or has the painters used it because it was something the midwifes ofter wore and that would help identifying them in the paintings? It doesn't matter, is that the case I made a midwife cap!

The pattern for the Lengberg cap from the article Enigmatic beauty by Beatrix Nutz, Rachel Case and Carol James was a bit small so this time I made it bigger. But its the same patternbase. I thought it would be fun with another colour of the sprang and after seeing these painting I decided to make it in a goldish colour. The store called it actually pumpkin. The sprang is still made in linen though. I made an easy pattern, just plain interlinking, inspired by the first painting, The birth of Mary.

And this is the result.

 

At the front edge there is a fingerloop braid in white linen, as on the Lengberg cap. I find it practical to use a fingerloop brad for attaching the sprang in the front. The straps might be a little bit to long and next time I make one I think I will shorten them. But otherwise Im happy with it. 

The sprang piece is 35,5 cm long. I made this longer than the Lengberg too because it felted like the last version was sliding up in the back, this one will stay in place under the straps. The sprang is secured with a thread in the same colour and whip stitched at the edge. But I would not put this one in a washing machine...

 

The sprang weaving took four hours including warping, and sprang results in two pieces if you dont connect them in the middle, so two hours for this piece. And the rest of the cap and the fingerloop braid took 5 hours and 45 minutes. So, 7,45 hours in total. I dont do 15th century so this pieces will end up in my etsy-shop and hopefully I will get to see it on someone else at an event soon. 

https://www.etsy.com/se-en/listing/920208544/15th-century-headwear-with-golden-sprang?ref=shop_home_active_1

Marlein on Etsy

I have been quite silent during December. But I have been working a lot on new garments. Corona made my company close its office and I have been working from home. That meant that I could sew a lot more! I placed a large box on my couch and garment after garment went down in the box. If you follow me on Instagram, were I am named skogs_linnea, you have already seen all my newly made stuff. The plan was to start a shop on Etsy. 

And to do that I needed stuff to sell. And today I am proud to present;

Marlein made it

My new Etsy-shop!

You find it here.

In my shop right now there is a lot of linen. I have made three linen 16th century German smocked aprons. 

 

 

 

 

My aprons are made by unbleached linen from Medeltidsmode.The long seams are made by machine but I made the honeycomb smock by hand with waxed linen thread The smocks are between 40 and 55 cm and the width of the aprons between 119 and 150 cm.  

In my Etsy-shop there is also two sprang lace pieces. They are made to be used between the cups of a Lengberg bra-dress. But if anyone wants to use them in another way that fine too of course. 

 

 

The slightly larger one is 11 cm long and 9 cm wide. The smaller one is 8 cm long and 9 cm wide. I closed them with a string and while attaching them to a garment you just open the string. But be careful, it might untwist when the string is removed. I made the pattern but its a very common one that is seen as part of pattern from a very long period of time, from the 4th- to the 19-century. 

 

I also made an undergollar in linen. 

It is suitable for all classes of German 16th century society, for everyday use. Its 78 around the waist with the strings tightened but can be wore by Medium/Large with the strings looser. Its 27 long without the collar. The collar is three cm high. Its closed with strings at the side, collar by hook and eye and a needle at the front. 

 

My plan is to sell 16th century garments, sprang hairnets, sprang lace, shirts, aprons, wulsthauben and ceramics. All that I cant think of would be fun to make. I have not showed any of my ceramics here because it is mostly modern. But if will show up on Etsy. As a start I wont do commissions, just sell all ready made items, but who know. I like to sew, and that means I have to much stuff just to keep for myself. So..Etsy!

That was December...what about January!

Lengberg find number three

During a restoration of the Lengberg castle (East Tyrol, Austria) in 2008 a filled vault was detected below the floorboards. More than 2,700 textile fragment were found in there. This part of the Lengberg castle was probably finished by 1485 so the finds is most likely predating this. Among the finds there were a couple of sprang woven fragments, in different conditions. 

After making the other of the Lengberg finds I just had one left, so I made that too. The original is a narrow sprang strip with a non-stretched width of 2,2 cm and a preserved length of 11 cm. Its made of a slightly finer thread of 0,5 mm and a 48 thread warp, 24 loops. I made my pattern drawn from the Enigmatic Beauty article, that contains the rest of the pattern too. I used the same thread as for the other samples, a white linen thread of 1 mm, so it was a bit to thick, compared to the original. 

The original piece can be found here, in Enigmatic Beauty, an article about the finds written by Beatrix Nutz, Carol James and Rachel Case. This piece in on page 12. Carol James made the pattern.

As for the other sprangpatterns I worked with the blue is a right-edge stitch, the orange is a double stitch and the green is a left-edge stitch. The numbers in the middle of the stitches is how many threads that should be worked before there is another stitch. I dont really think that stitch is a good word for it but it has to work for now, I dont know what to call them, twists? But they are all twists... ordinary stitch, basic stitch, ordinary twists, basic twist? A basic twist is two threads, one from the back going up and one from the front going down. Sometimes it can be difficult to see which thread that is in line, but I noticed that if you look further down the threads always seems to hang in order. So, Im trying not to work to close to the upper part. 

Again its a hole pattern that creates flowers and...what to call it, darts? 

My sprang pieces are 27 and 28 cm long. It differs with 1 cm because I have pressed them together differently. The one on the bottom is shorter and pressed together harder than the one on the top. They are 4 cm width. The original was 2,2 width and the difference is because of the thread, mine is thicker.

The ends are sewn together with the same linen thread to prevent it from unraveling. I might have pulled it a bit to tight though, it depends on what I want to use it for.

This sprang, as for the last one I made, was not attached to a headwear or any other fabric when found. So its difficult to say what it was used for. But it could be a headwear, maybe for a child, or together with more narrow sprang pieces for a decorative effect. 

Now there are no more sprang patterns made from extant pieces that I know of. So I guess I have to make up my own...

Featured in a journal!

My Golden egg project, the embroidered 16th century hauben, has got such a lovely response. And that makes me really happy. Im proud of it and cant wait untill covid is over and I can show it to people for reall. To me its not new anymore even though I never had a chance to wear it in public. But after yesterday it is shown in a way I never thought would be possible. Its featured in a journal!

The journal Hemslöjd is for handicrafts from all over the world, but its writen in Swedish. Their slogan is A world of fantasy and knowledge. Here is their webpage.

And Im on it!

This is a big deal to me and I am so proud that they wanted to write about something that I made. Who would have thought so when I started with the project over a year ago!? Not me any way. 

Here is the article I wrote about the haube.