Pouch - 12th century, homespun

This is a pouch I made from my home spun (s/s), hand woven material. The lighter colour is hand dyed with marigolds (no mordant) and the darker is the natural wool shade. I did use a spinning wheel to do the spinning, not a drop spindle. The strings are finger loop braided and the top and bottom are brocaded, again using the hand spun wool in yellow (very faded now!) and the natural brown. Little tiny pears dot the centres of the flowers.

It is a 12th century design, taken from the alter cloth fragment (Schuette, "Art of embroidery" , 81-84, alter cloth (Rhineland c 1170 - 1180). We had used the style of the alter cloth to produce wall hangings for Krae Glas, and this part of the design was not used on the Krae Glas hangings. I fell in love with the design, and its use as an 'all over' motif was brilliant. Done in satin and stem stitches. The wool was fairly 'bumpy' being my handspun stuff, but it was great to have started with nothing but lumpy bits of smelly sheep and produce this! The brocading is pattern 66 from Ecclesiastical Pomp and Circumstance page 183. the difference being that I did nto use gold for the centres of the motif (original was band in dark brown with the centre of the circles in gold). The bankd is from Gernam, and its function was unknown. I chose it because I thought it complemented the overall motif and (also importantly) it was thin and easy to produce. Tablet weaving, amongst its many uses, was of course, used on bursa (or reliquary pouches) (Ibid, p. 34). The top is also tablet woven, I used a split on the weave to leave open the holes for inserting the closing strings. Convenient, and no eyelets to sew. I have some extra wool left over, and will probably do some tasslels for the bottom of the pouch (after I've finished a few other projects).

Sun and moon - John of Thanet Panel

To go with the Badge of the Order of the Dragon, I had previously made the 'sun' and the 'moon' from the John of Thanet Panel (circa 1300 - 1320), about two years ago (ish??)

They decorate the front of the cloak, the dragon badge will go on the back. The original was done on silk twill, embroidered with silver gilt, silver and silk thread. Mine are on linen, top couched and using jap gold and "silver" from Lincraft. Hm... close(ish).

The sun and moon had previously decorated sleeves of a tunic for Peregrin and had been through the wash several times, which (fortunately) didn't destroy the embroidery too much. Again, I was playing with the or nue, especially on the moon, where the blue rays are wrapped around the silver to give the effect. The red on the sun is split stitch, as are the faces.

Cuffs for Theodric

"The speed at which oranate items had to be created is well domonstrated by an order on 8 Spetmber 1352 to the armeurier au aRoy et brodeur Nicholas Waquier for a horse covering and room hanging of velvet ornamented with fleurs-de-lis. The pieces were to be compelted by All Saints (1 November) and in that time 8,544 embroidered fleurs de lis had to be produced and attached to the various items involved" Staniland, Kay, Medieval Craftsmen, Embroiderers, p. 30.

Well, not quite at the same standard, but Killian and I did manage to produce a set of embroidered cuffs for Theodric in just under 2 weeks (not bad for modern, working women). I'm down to my last two rondels. The brief from Meisje was for lots of triangles, and I thought that she wanted them to swirl (turn in on themselves) four times, and leave gaps in (using 2 strands of 1 mil jap gold) and to be only 1.5 cm tall. I scratched my head at this and thought it would be ok to do if they were a bit larger. So the suggestion was made to have the triangles turn in just twice, with one strand, which is quite reasonable to do. The draft ravens also had a double line inside, with boxes and crosses - thinking 'bling is good' and that's too fiddly, I decided to fill in the ravens. Lost the detail, maxed the bling, and it's very Maaseik (8th-9th century, Bundey and Tweedle, re-creation photos in Helen M Stevens, Timeless Art/Myth and Magic) . I hope it's aligned with Meisje's vision, it's going to be a stunning piece of garb.