Apron dress trim inspired by the Birka bands; 800-975 CE Sweden

I really enjoy tablet weaving and after completing my greenbelt I was looking for another project to practice and grow my tablet weaving skill. The Aethelmearc Wardrobe Project was the perfect excuse. I loved the idea of working together with a group of people to make a complete outfit, so I volunteered to weave trim for the top of the apron dress for Her Majesty, Queen Juliana Delamere.

The partially completed band on the loom.

Weaving in progress

Historical background

Archeological research conducted by Hjalmar Stolpe in the years 1871 to 1881 showed with all certainty that the Viking settlement Birka on the island of Björkö in the Lake of Mälar in present-day Sweden was the commercial center of Sweden during the Viking Age. For almost two centuries, from about 800 to 975 CE, Birka served as an important trading center between Viking age Scandinavia and Western Europe and with the Orient through the trade routes in Russia. Die Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien commissioned Holger Arbman in 1931 to catalogue the enormous wealth of artifacts found in the Birka archeological sites. Agnes Geijer republished an extensive survey of the textile fragments from the Birka graves. This publication contains a complete chapter on the Birka bands (see Figure 1 for examples of some of these bands).

Technique, material and design

Virtually all the Birka bands are woven on tablets with four holes. A large variation of designs can be created by using differently colored threats in the different holes and turning the cards in a specific order, backward or forward, as individual cards or in groups. An alternative, and for me a more attractive, way of creating a pattern is by brocading with a contrasting color or with gold or silver thread. The bands that inspired this project are of the latter type. They consist of: (a) the basic ground weft that binds the warp threads together, hidden by them in the usual way, and (b) a second, brocading weft of double drawn silver wire, creating the actual pattern or design. The brocading weft consists of a pattern of floats and hidden sections by passing the weft underneath one or more warp threads of one or more cards.

Most of the Birka bands show a mix of repeating patterns, like diamonds, stars, swastikas or geometric patterns of diagonals lines (Figure 2). Giving the nature of the project I wanted to combine a typical Birka pattern with the Aethelmearc escarbuncle. I started out creating a pattern for the escarbuncle. The number of tablets determines the resolution of the pattern and to capture the details of the escarbuncle I decided that 75 cards were needed. I then searched for patterns that would make a pleasing match with the escarbuncle and that could be modified to fit on 75 cards. I initially gravitated towards a combination of diagonal lines and crosses as seen on several Birka bands and an intricate pattern found on the B22 band (Figure 3, top). The downside of this combination was that it would result in only three escarbuncles over a length of 17 in, two of them likely partially covered by the shoulder band broaches. I therefore decided to skip the B22 band pattern in favor of a combination of only the diagonal lines with crosses and the escarbuncle (Figure 3, bottom).

Using 75 cards for the band is about three times more than used for the typical Birka bands, so I used a finer silk thread to partially compensate for the number of cards and keep the final width of the band somewhat closer to the extant pieces. Both the warp and the structural and brocading weft are store bought 60/2 silk, which resulted in a width of about 30 mm and a warp count of 100/cm. The warp tension was approximately 10g/thread resulted in a weft count of 32/cm. The final woven length of band was 17 in.

Figure 1: Examples from several bands: Left: (1) B6-7, grave 965, (2) B21, grave 943, and (3)-(4) B19, grave 965; Right: (1) B17, grave 735, (2) B22, grave 824, (3) B11, grave 943, (4) B14, grave 845, and (5) B10, grave 1076.

Figure 2: Examples of several patterns: Left: (1) B5, (b) B9, (c) B14, (d) B16, (e) B17, (f) B2, (g) B7, (h) B13, and (i) B12; Right: (a) B6, (b) B22, (c) B20, (d) B19, and (e) B21.

Figure 3: The initial design (top) and the actually used pattern (bottom).

Weaving the belt

The band was woven on a warp weighted tablet weaving loom that I designed and build for an earlier project. The loom is designed to use on the top of a table, with the warp ends weighted down and dropping freely over the fixed rod at the end of the loom (Figure 4, left). The other end of the warp is attached to a ratcheted rod, which stores the finished band. The initial warp length was about 80 in, enough to create the required length of band for the current project as well as an additional piece that I want to weave based on the first design. Any surplus length of warp has to be braided or looped to keep the warp ends suspended freely above the ground. With the initial warp length I could avoid this by using the loom in the long direction of our kitchen table as shown on the right in Figure 4. Hence, I started weaving in this fashion and switched to the usual setup on the left in Figure 4 after the unwoven part of the warp was short enough to hang freely.

Figure 4: Loom setup used as intended (left) and as initially used for this project to accommodate a longer warp (right).

The warp was created one card at the time, threading back and forth twice per card. The cards were warped alternating S and Z (to eliminate fouling of the warp threads during turns). The brocading weft passed under two of the four threads of the cord creating a smooth and uniform underside. As in the original bands, all cards are collectively rotated forward one quarter turn for each successive passage of the ground and brocading weft. The unfinished warp ends were periodically untwisted to eliminate the build-up twist.

Figure 5: A test weave to check the pattern dimensions and the tension in the warp.

Figure 6: The finished trim, the test strip, and the loom setup for the second band.

Figure 7: The completed second band.

Figure 8: Closeup of the finished second band.

Learning points

The correct tension in the warp is crucial for the final weft count and the “look” of the brocaded pattern. The initial setup and tension created a pattern that was slightly elongated in the warp direction. A thinner structural warp thread would likely have reduced this elongation, but since that was not available to me and the distortion was modest, I decided to move on with the current setup. After completing about 13 in of
finished band I changed the weaving setup from the initial setup (Figure 4, right) to the one for which the loom was designed (Figure 4, left). To my surprise, this increased the tension sufficiently to narrow the band from about 30 mm to about 26 mm. This was clearly not intended and serves as a good lesson to stick with a setup for the duration of a project or to carefully monitor the tension and width and adjust the weights if needed.

Find a downloadable version of this post at:
https://www.academia.edu/35090763/Apron_dress_trim_inspired_by_the_Birka_bands_800-975_CE_Sweden

Bibliography

Arbman, Holger (1940) “Birka I: Die Gräbern”, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (Uppsala).

Burchardt, Silvester (2016) “Who’s afraid of brocade” (class handout)

Collingwood, Peter (1982) “The Techniques of Tablet Weaving”, Echo Points Books & Media (Vermont)

Geijer, Agnes (1938) “Birka III: Die Textilfunde aus then Gräbern”, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (Uppsala).

Stolpe, Hjalmar (1878, 1880) “Meddelanden frän Björkö”, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitetsak-ademiens Mänadsblad.