An Experiment in Making Spiral Wire

I love to work with Tenntråd and I love to make viking age posaments. I try to get as close to the appearance of the remnant pieces as I can. But still there was the problem of the material. Tenntråd is lovely to work with, but it is a relativly modern material. The Sami people fabricate it and work with it in their traditional craft, making beautiful embroideries and braided bracelets and necklaces.
The material at the Birka burials isn't Tenntråd, though. According to A. Geijer the spiral wires used for the posaments consisted either of a drawn gold or silver wire with a round cross section wrapped around a silk core:

"1. Drahtgold oder Drahtsilber: ein massiver, im Querschnitt runder Draht, der durch ziehen hergestellt ist. Es kann in der Stärke recht beträchtlich variieren.
2. Spiralgold oder Spiralsilber besteht aus einem derartigen Draht, der in dichten gleichmässigen Windungen um eine textile Seele gewunden ist, die jetzt aber meist vermodert ist. Diese Seele ist nur in etlichen sehr stark korrodierten Stücken mit Silber erhalten und konnte als Seide bestimmt werden; vermutlich wurde aber überall Seide als Stütze für die Spirale verwendet." (Geijer, A.: Birka III - Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern, Almquist & Wiksells, Uppsala, 1938, p. 68.)

So insdead of using the rather modern pewter wire from Scandinavia I wanted to try making my own spiral silver.
I made some attempts earlier, but since I dindn't have the right tools I was not very happy with the outcome.

The procedure of making the spiral wire seemed similar to that still used today by some Sami craftspeople. Obviously for big scale production of Tenntråd machines are used nowadays, but there are still people around who know how to make the wire by hand. I found this very helpful video from Norway, 1984:
https://www.nb.no/nbsok/nb/6f0a0f1eb2841bd2a98c1358864bb718.nbdigital?lang=no

For my own first experiment I used

• Kromski drop spindle, top-whorl, 85g
• Silver coated copper wire, 0,2mm
• Serafil 20, 100% polyester, z-plied
• Lazy Kate to hold the wire

I tied the core yarn to the spindle and started to wrap/z-spin the wire around the core, very much like core spinning with textile fibres. There were little gaps between the individual coils, so I had to stop after a while an push the coils down with my fingertips to get an uniform spiral wire.

I measured 1m of the craft wire to give me an idea how much spiral wire could be made of this length.
I was able to make 11,8cm of spiral wire from 1m of the silver coated 0,2mm copper wire in about 16 minutes.
I guess the time will improve with skill, this was measured during my first try.

When I had enough spiral wire for a test braiding, I went for a simple P9 Birka posament. The spiral wire I made was not as smooth to work with as the Tenntråd. I guess the copper work hardened while coiling it. So the next step will be to get some fine silver wire and real silk as core material.
But I'm quite happy with the overall outcome and the technique works very well to produce a considerable amount of spiral wire, which is needed to make Birka posaments.

Birka Triangular Braid

During the last couple of weeks people in various viking age related groups on FB kept on searching for the technique to recreate a woollen braid from Birka. Several of these braids have been found, mostly to finish upper edges on apron dresses and most of these braids from Birka have a triangular cross section, as Geijer states in "Birka III. Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern" (p. 128) You can download the Birka books here for free, directly from the Historiska Museet homepage!
Some people suggest finger loop braiding as the technique to achieve the right braiding pattern, but since I din't come across a pattern that would recreate a close enough resemblance to the original piece for my liking, I left it out.
Another possibility would be a different form of loop braiding, recently known as scoubidou braiding.
It is possible to get a triangular profile with this kind of braiding. If you use 3 strands of yarn, you will end up with a braid, that looks triangular from the top, but the problem is, it still turns into a spiral shaped braid, which is not the look of the original braid from Birka.

So, let's try another technique. 5 single strands of yarn, starting with a simple kot and securing it with a pin to a surface of your liking. I like to pin it to the knee and sit somewhere comfy.

I used different colours, so you can actually see what is happening while braiding.

First, put two strands on one side and the remaining three strands on the other side.

Then put thread 5 over 4, 3 and 2, placing it between 1 and 2.

Now, place thread 1 over 5 and 2, placing it between 2 and 3.

Take thread 2 and kind of twist it over 1, so it now is placed between 1 and 3.

 At this point I normally would tighten the whole thing, but I left this step out in this tutorial, as you wouldn't be able to see, what's happening next.
But please, if you try this, now is the perfect time to tighten your braid!

Basically, the braiding now starts from the beginning.

Put strand 4 over 3, 2 and 1, placing it between 5 and 1.

Put 1 over 4 and 1.

Twist 1 over 5, then tighten again.

If you follow these steps over and over again, you will end up with a braid like this:

Front

Back

To show you that this braid has a triangular cross section indeed, I put some pins on the sides of the braid:

Triangular indeed! :D

And how does it look in direct comparison the the original one from Birka?

Well, I guess we have some resemblance there, more than with any of the other techniques.

(Picture from "Birka III. Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern", Tafel 33:7)

 A problem I came across while braidind was not loosing track of where I was, or rather where the threads should be when making a break. I solved this problem for me by using a scrap piece of cardboard and cutting some slots in it, so I could secure all the threads and the braid and start again after the break without any problem.

By using sock yarn weight wool I ended up with about the same size of the original piece.
I think I will use this as part of the new apron dress I'm planning with this lovely wool broken diamond twill soon! :)