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).