Carolingian Dress

So, it seems I'm super terrible at making up for blog content. Not that I would be idling around, oh no! It all just ends up on my FB page, maybe some groups, and that's it. Sometimes not even that.
So, let me show you some stuff that happened since the last post here.
Since my lyre playing skills improved, I was asked to participate in the music event at Lauresham. But I only had servant's clothes, and that would not work sitting in the manor, playing an instrument connected to nobility of some degree. So I had to think about some more suitable garments for this occasion. What a pitty! ;P
I spent some time at my father's place, with the big garden. So i put up the dyeing pots and spent some nice warm days bent over the hot bubbling pots, as you do in summer. ;)
I bought some meters of a nice lightweight tabby woven wool, thin wool yarn for sewing and some dyeing supplies like walnut, madder and weld.

First I put up the pot with the weld and dyed the yarn and fabric in a lovely yellow colour.

Then I put in some Iron to change it into a green.

First I thought that I hadn't stirred enough throughout the dyeing precess, but it turned out it was only some residue of the weld seeds and it came off after drying. Yay! :D

Since my piece of fabric wasn't that big and there was much colour left in the pot, I put in soe yarns from my stash, too. I think they turned out great, and the neighbour thought the same, coming over for a little chat. :)

Next was the pot with the walnut dye. It seems I didn't take any pictures during the process, but let my tell you, it lookes dark, like a chocolate sauce. Nom! And I'm pretty happy with the colour of the fabric, too. Again, no stains, just residue, which came off easily.

The real colours are somewhere in between these two pictures, the sunlight made it impossible to get them right.

For the pattern I had a look at the Stuttgart Psalter. The illustrations show a variety of dresses and indicate that the trimmings on dresses might have been more elaborate, the higher the rank of the wearer. So I opted for a simple facing without further decorations for a noble, but not too noble impression. perfect for a manor like Lauresham.

Picture: Claudia Stehle/Sascha Lotz

 And there I sat, all day, playing the lyre. Many peolpe sat down, listened, asked good questions.
Then the rain and thunder came. All the people gathered in the manor hall. A colleague told the story of the Old High German Hildebrandslied and I accompanied her on the lyre.
The atmosphere was great, the sound of thunder and pouring rain outside, story and music within the safe walls of the hall.

Lyre

No. Not a liar...
Since last June I'm the proud owner of a Trossingen style lyre. I've been in love with lyres for quite some time now. I found this beauty at Ars Anglia, where Thomas offers great Instruments.
I fell in love with this lyre and began to play instantly. After some days I decided to change the tuning from dcBAGF to EDCBAG. I like it better for singing along.

To play chords, it is easier to use a band that is wrapped around the wrist and attached to the lyre. I decided to make a tabletwoven band with a floating pattern from Randi Stoltz.

I love the sound of this little Instrument and was amazed, how versatile it is. And beautiful.

I took the lyre already with me for some camps and even for busking in town.

For better transport I made a case from faux leather and a fleece inlet that consists of multiple layers for protection.

And finally, a new video on my long neclegted YouTube channel, complete with lyre and all ;)

Lauresham

Oh my, that was quite a long time without a blogpost. But here we go again :)
It is not that nothing happened in the meantime, rather the opposite, I just had no time to edit photos and put texts together.
So, for this post, let's start with an event I went to last June. It was a craft weekend at Lauresham. Lauresham is the Old High German name of Lorsch, a town that is well known for its abbey and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. Lauresham is a carolingian manor site, where events and experimental archaeology projects take place. They do a great job, especially with the agricultural experiments which include ploughing with oxen.
We went to Lauresham for the craft weekend, where I was asked to demonstrate tabletweaving.
We were allowed to live in the houses for the weekend and it was such fun!

For the weaving demonstration in the weaving house I decided to go for the tabletwoven brocaded band from Maaseik. It is still not completely done, there are more patterns that I need to write down, so there will be enough to do for this year's craft weekend. I was surprised how well the weaving went. I only had to weave back about three times, and no long sections. I was weaving along while simultaneously explaining the different techniques and especially the brocading to visitors and they all seemed very interested.
I was allowed to put my work on the museum's Oseberg style loom. An interesting experience, on the second day i switched the stool I was using to one with a backrest ;)

 Before the event I hade to make some carolingian clothes, as most of my dresses only fit in a scandinavian context. So I went for a simple combination of a linen underdress and a woollen overdress with shorter sleeves, as can be seen in the Stuttgart Psalter. My first version still had a pretty large neckline and the sleeves were a bit wide and didn't make weaving exactly easy...

So for this year's events I made another dress. Still very simple but I adjusted the pattern to my needs and now I am pretty happy with the outcome :)

 I will be showing tabletweaving again on the craft weekend, which will take place on 9.-10.6.2018 in Lauresham and I'm very much looking forward to doing so!


And since Lauresham is just such a beautiful place, here are some photos for you which I took last weekend: