Tag: Fall 2025 Online Display

Mari Clock van Hoorne — Lacis Cup Cover

I used the running stitch (often referred to as Burrato). Linen Stitch was also commonly used for lacis pieces though I did not use that stitch for this project.

The extant pieces I was able to find generally used linen net and would be decorated with linen or with silk and metal threads. The piece I used as primary inspiration was a Chalice Veil, The Met object 08.48.108. This chalice veil was made using silk and metal thread on a linen net.

My ground fabric is lacis net 7 of cotton which has 7 knotted meshes per inch. I used cotton instead of linen because cotton is available commercially. My piece is made using silk thread because I wanted this cover to be colorful.

Cup Covers are not exactly like the Chalice Veils that were used in medieval Europe. Chalice Veils were generally larger than the popular SCA cup cover as they might have also covered bowls and plates. The piece immediately below (with the unicorn) has dimensions of 22 1/4 x 22 1/4 in. while my piece is about half that size.

Additional Documentation and photos: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T5GuBF4HbHIYdAwKZlDTXhWhqyXhPS5u/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103849751791663771298&rtpof=true&sd=true

Carrick MacSeain — Small Ale for the Stone

This recipe comes from the Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight, Opened, a compilation of period recipes for ales, meads, and other beverages. This is a “small ale”, which is a low alcohol beverage consisting of malted barley, hops, water and yeast.

In keeping, as closely as possible, with period practices and ingredients, I obtained the water used from a local spring, the hops were give to me by a local gardener. I stripped the cones from the bines and dried them in the sun. The yeast was barm (the foam or head  from a fermenting wort) from a previous batch of ale, as was common period practice and noted in the recipe. Everything was cooked on a wood fire. Fermentation was done in a stainless steel keg, with an oak spiral added to simulate the conditions of cask fermentation.

Optional Additional Links:  https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Carrick%27s_Small_Ale

Muirenn Ingen Ciric — Interpretation of the Køstrup Band and Experimenting with Soumak Weaving Structure

  • Name and Title: Baroness Muirenn Ingen Ciric
  • Title of your Project: Interpretation of the Køstrup Band and Experimenting with Soumak Weaving Structure
  • Location: Quintavia
  • East Kingdom Wiki Link: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Muirenn_Ingen_Ciric
  • Category: Textiles

This 12 inch band was woven for the occasion of Ástríðr Músi’s Laurel ceremony, Opening of the Inn at Coldwood AS 59, to be worn by her across the top of her smokkr in a similar manner to the original find, excavated at Køstrup, Fyn in Denmark in 1980-1981.   My work was based on the pattern drafted by Agnes Raaness, found in the find writeup by Hilde Thunem.   Ástríðr requested this piece specifically because she loved the way that the colors and designs looked like the weaver had fun experimenting with leftover materials, so other than making the replica band symmetrical and removing symbols that felt too close to ones I wouldn’t wish to wear, I had fun choosing colors and playing with the shapes provided in the pattern.  I wove this piece in silk, unlike the original wool find, and used a standard 4-hole technique to weave the band itself (where the find used 2-hole tablet weaving).  The background color used was dark blue, both because that is the color the wool in the original find was dyed, as well as being the color of silk I have the most of (other than white) – I opted for the thinner blue thread for the background weaving to help the surface design “fill in” and have a more solid appearance, as the surface is woven with a thicker thread than the background.

         I initially thought that this was a brocade pattern – one where the design is woven across the top surface of the band by lifting and lowering the topmost layer of warp threads, allowing a secondary/non-structural weft thread to show the design.  However, I learned very quickly in my testing of this pattern that that was not the correct technique, and it would not work.  In reading through Shelagh Lewins’ notes on her construction of this band (Copyright © 2017) I came across a mention of her technique: “I like the effect of the thick motifs made of shorter brocade floats, which I wrapped underneath so it was really more like soumak.”  which led me to look into what Soumak was.  A very brief diagram in Collingwood’s The Techniques of Tablet Weaving (Copyright 1982, 2015) showed me that Soumak was similar to brocade (in that the design visible comes from a weft thread, instead of the warp patterns), but it wrapped laterally around the warp threads, looping around them to create a design that is visibly raised above the surface of the band itself.  This resulted in a delightfully textured band with very clear and easy-to-see designs.  Because the Soumak does not need to be “anchored” under an adjacent warp thread to keep it stable, you can see that designs can be woven directly up to the edges of the band without the need of border tablets, which is much harder/impossible to accomplish with other techniques.

Optional Additional Links: 

https://urd.priv.no/viking/kostrup.html

https://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/gallery/kostrup_notes.htm

Cecilia Pisano — Trapunto “C’est pas faux” inspired by the Tristan Quilt

  • Name: Cecilia Pisano
  • Title of the project: Trapunto “C’est pas faux” – Inspired by the Tristan Quilt
  • Location: Baronnie du Havre des Glaces, Québec
  • Category: Textile

Trapunto “C’est pas faux” – Inspired by the Tristan Quilt
This piece was created using the trapunto technique, inspired by the famous Tristan Quilt, preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This work is considered the oldest known example of quilted embroidery (boutis). It was made in Sicily, during the second half of the 14th century. Trapunto is a form of raised embroidery, achieved by padding certain motifs. In this project, I aimed to reproduce the materials, tools, and methods as faithfully as possible to their historical counterparts.

The process starts with two layers of linen fabric, a finer one for the top and a slightly coarser one (woven more loosely) for the backing. From the underside, padding is inserted into spaces carefully opened between the threads, using either cotton wadding or, as in this case, carded wool. The narrower motifs are worked using the corded technique, in which thick threads of wool are drawn between the fabric layers to create texture and contour. I used backstitch for outlining the designs and running stitch for the filled areas. The thread is handspun linen, spun by myself from flax plants that I cultivated, processed, and prepared entirely by hand. I love the journey from fiber to fabric! One small drawback: unwaxed linen thread tends to fray easily, so I had to work with short lengths of thread.

The Tristan Quilt illustrates the story of Tristan and Isolde, the legendary Breton lovers. Several excerpts of the text are embroidered in charming Gothic letters. I decided to keep the Breton context while adding a personal twist: instead of a passage from the tale, I embroidered the character Perceval’s iconic line from Kaamelott, the French medieval comedy series:

“C’est pas faux” (Nun è falsu, in Sicilian)

These first steps in trapunto work have already inspired new ideas, I’m planning a more complex and ambitious piece in the future. For now, however, I no longer have access to this one… because my cat has claimed it as her official cushion, and she defends it fiercely!

Jasper de l’Estoile — Giving Balls to the Girdle Purse

All throughout our time period belt bags were seen, and as we get later in years the kidney pouch appears to be everywhere. The suggested design of this ubiquitous item doesn’t make sense given the value of leathers, and the utilitarian purpose of the item. I have a theory that the extant examples and the drawings of the item reflect the environmental shaping effects on the item, and not the original construction of the item.

I intend to demonstrate that an efficient rectangular pattern and pouch usage will produce the same kidney shape we see in extant examples of the kidney pouches. This will include actual construction of kidney pouches and subjecting them to various levels of environmental exposure and usage. 

From there I will explore reasons that could lead to the adoption of a pattern that can waste >30% of the source material. 

The expected areas for exploration: 

  • What other products were being produced from the same leatherworkers?
  • Was there a resource constraint that prevented the efficient design, like hide size or quality? 
  • Was there a traditional source that the leather kidney pouch replaced, such as using stomachs or bladders? 
  • Was the shape a status symbol as much as the adornments were?

This project was prompted when I went looking for a belt pouch pattern to make some new pouches for my household, and saw how much leather scrap the available patterns would produce. In modern leathercraft getting 85% utilization out of a hide side is pretty average after trimming around tanning marks and hide defects. Losing another 30% to inefficient patterning was too much to just ignore. To illustrate the absurdity, a hide side today is $200 for an average 25 square feet, throwing away 8 square feet or more ($64+ worth) just feels senselessly wasteful, especially when a more efficient pattern could yield an additional 1-2 pouches per hide side. This illustration doesn’t include the additional labor costs and production complexities of curvier kidney shaped pattern design.

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