Contains articles related to viking rus research and exploration.
I have completed weaving eight yards of the madder warp/brown weft combination. That is enough, I feel, to make the Rus kaftan. The rest of the warp is being woven with a higher contrast light brown/old gold weft. I have set a goal to have finish this project on the loom by the end of the year. This project has been quite challenging and not very fun as evidenced by the many months it…
Its been a few weeks since I last posted. I was at the part of the project that wasn’t terribly exciting. I finished threading the loom. That took about 6 days of working a few hours each evening. Then came time to beam the warp. Oh. Em. Gee, guys. What a pain! It took me and my helpers (four of them!) about eight hours over three days to beam this thirteen yard warp. Remember…
To find and read all the entries for this project, you can go here. In the last week, I’ve made some important decisions to the plan for weaving the Rus Kaftan cloth and made quite a bit of actual progress on moving the project forward. The first thing I decided to do was to make the warp narrower and longer. This decision was predicated on the desire to reduce loom waste and to make it a…
This week, we started making wooden trenchers based on ones in the Oseberg grave finds. I don’t have a lot of information on the extant trenches like size and the type of wood from which they are made. We are just going off this one picture I was able to find. In the wood shop, we had some nice 5/4 X 9 inch fir boards that were bought for a different project and never used.…
Started measuring the warp threads for the Rus kaftan point diamond twill cloth today. I am 1/3 of the way done, as I took long breaks to teach a friend some beginning lampworking techniques and to brainstorm viking age food options for some upcoming reenactor events. I’ve decided to weave at a 37 inch width rather than the full width of my reed. I hope it will reduce the time needed for threading and also…
Part 1 of this series can be found here. The yarn I ordered arrived today for the Rus Kaftan cloth project. I am very pleased with the colors. The reddish color is exactly the dark maddery red-orange I was hoping it was from the little bit on the sample card. I was inspired to calculate the warp length I will need. My process is a little different in that I work backwards from the amount…
Now that the big road trip is over, its time to get a new warp on the loom. My next big project is going to be cloth for a Rus Kaftan for my husband. The yarn I’ve chosen is Jaggerspun Maine Line 2/20 worsted wool. I’ve ordered three pounds each of two colors – Sable, a warm, rich medium brown and Bittersweet, which is a dark rusty red. I’m hoping to have a bit of…
I’m at an SCA event this week where the weather is sunny and gorgeous, something that is somewhat rare where I live. It’s a perfect time to take pictures of my camp. I hope you enjoy this new gallery.
I’ve been wanting to make a short viking coat (sometimes called a Klappenrock) for my husband for some time. The jacket is loosely based on the cross over coat worn in some of the dancing man depictions as well as various other stone carving and artifacts. I started out making a couple of sketches. I’m terrible at drawing, but I like to get my ideas out on paper so I can work out some…
Recently, I was inspired to create a four panel hat. It’s something that I’ve been meaning to do forever and just never got around to it. A friend showed me a couple caps she made and another friend has been talking about the fabric she is weaving to make caps so that is probably where some of the motivation came from. Thanks, ladies, for getting me off my butt! That night the muse bit me hard…
