QPT2 - Non Rigid Heddle Brocade

Brocaded Non-Rigid Heddle Band

QPT 2014

Entrant: Kaolin Konalsdottir

Category: Textile Arts – Inkle Weaving

The Project

I chose to make a non-rigid heddle (a.k.a. Inkle) brocade band, using a brocade pattern from the early period. The loom is a basic inkle loom. The heddles are lengths of string looped around one of the pegs of the loom.

Materials:

Linen thread

Gold Metallic DMC embroidery floss

It is my hope to use this piece as either trim for an outfit or possibly, assuming I manage to get enough length, as a belt for a dress.

The Inspiration

While doing research on appropriate trim for an early period persona, I came across images of brocade trim made with tablet weaving, silk, and flat silver or gold ribbon. I wanted to make something that would fit both my persona, a crafts person in early Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, and was some I could make myself.

While researching the brocade technique I came across an article on early period metallic trim by Carolyn Priest-Dorman “Metallic Trims for Some Early Period Personae”. There were several patterns in the article but the one I liked the best was the Birka 6 pattern.

Deviations from Period

I chose to make the background out of linen rather than silk. Silk is quite far out of my budget at this time. Linen and wool are period fibres that could have been used for the background fabric for bands, though little if any have survived. A fine linen was easier to find than a fine wool so I chose the linen.

Another material choice I made was to use metallic DMC embroidery floss rather than the wide, flat ribbons more commonly seen in brocade. This choice was based on availability and cost. It is likely that I was not using the correct search terms for the wire but I was not able to find anything that looked like the extant examples.

I did initially try to use jewellers brass wire but found it was stiff and prone to kinking making it hard to use effectively. Hammering it to flatten it only made the wire more brittle and impossible to use. Fighting with my materials seemed as daunting as fighting with my techniques so I dropped the wire idea and chose a flexible metal looking fibre instead.

The biggest deviation from period was the choice to use a tabby weave (one up, one down) for the background, rather than tablet weave. I am not as comfortable with tablet weaving and trying to learn to brocade on a tablet woven band, while trying to manage the weaving itself seemed daunting to me. Instead, I chose a background that I was far more proficient with. This way there are no mistake in the background to detract from the brocade pattern itself.

The Process

My first order of business was the take the black and white pattern and convert it into a graphed image that I could then use for the pickups. This involved estimating the number of warp threads based on the width of the single dots. Once that was done I simply copied the pattern to the graph paper and colour coded it to make it easier to see the pick ups themselves.

A border was added to the pattern to hide the loop around of the metallic thread. This made the pattern a total of 20 warp threads wide. The tape at the bottom of the pattern is sticky on the two ends and keeps me from loosing my place in the weaving process. I move it to the current line, working my way up from the bottom, to make a full repeat.

A few straight tabby weaves were done, before the actual brocade began, to give myself a border at the beginning of the band. During normal weaving this is the area were the width of the band is set by gradually pulling the weft threads tighter in each subsequent pass.

In the case of brocade, there are two shuttles. The first carries the background fibre, in this case the red linen. The second carries the brocade fibre itself, this time a DMC embroidery floss. I should have made a few passes with just the background fibre instead of both the background and the brocade fibres.

The loose threads you see in the back ground of this image is one of the unwoven layer of warp threads and not mistakes or dropped warps.

To make a single pass of the background weft, the shed , the space between the heddled and unheddled warps, is opened by pushing down or up on the unheddled threads, a weaving sword is pushed into the space and twisted to cleanly open the shed. With the weaving sword I use the shed is approximately 1.25 inches wide allowing a clean pass of the shuttle.

The weft is pulled through leaving a small loop on the side the shuttle was passed from. At this point the weaving sword, or weft beater, is used to push the new weft tightly against the old ones. After the threads are firmly packed the short loop is gently pulled tight.

The order of operations is to make one pass of the background colour, followed by a single pass of the brocade colour. Back and forth along the length of the weaving.

Un-heddled warps being pushed down

Un-heddled warps being pulled up.

A clean open shed, ready for a shuttle pass.

The process for doing the brocade is a little more involved. First, all the warps have to be side by side before the pick ups can be done. This prevents the accidental picking up of extra warp threads.

 Then using a pointed stick, each warp thread that the brocade fibre goes UNDER, is picked up. If the warp threads are bunched up it is very easy to pick up the wrong number of warps, and you will not know until you have reached the left side of the pattern. Having a border made it much easier to see if my counts were off, as I always had to drop two and pickup three.



 The stick is used to lift the picked up warp threads and the weaving sword is slipped through the shed once more. This weaving stick is knife shaped, square on the back side and wedge shaped at the front, to make it easier to pack each pass of the wefts. This makes for a smoother band and helps the brocade really show nicely against the background colour.



 Beater in Place.




As with the background weft, the brocade weft is packed tightly against the previous pass of the background colour while there is still a short loop on the side passed from. This is then taken up before the next weft pass.

Side loop being shown.

What I learned

• The initial end of the weaving should only be done in the background colour. This will give a smooth selvage at the beginning and make it easier for the addition of hardware if needed.
• The width of normal inkle weaving is pulled tight enough that the weft passes can not be seen. With brocade that is not the case. The warp threads need to be equidistant, laying neatly side by side, to allow the brocade weft to show correctly. Comparing earlier repeats that do not show the pattern as well, to later repeats that do show the pattern fairly well you will notice quite a bit of difference between the width of the band – 3/4 inch compared to 7/8^th inch. It doesn't seem like a lot but the wider section looks much nicer than the narrower section.
• The brocade weft needs to be thicker than the background weft. I figured this out during the first few passes of the brocade. A single twist of DMC floss barely showed against the background. After I removed the initial passes and doubled the DMC floss the brocade showed much better.
• As much as the doubled DMC floss looks okay, I want to use a single, thicker weft for my next brocade band. Where the two floss lay beside each other in the pass the brocade effect is much smoother and more noticeable against the background. Where the two twists of floss cross over each other in the pass the brocade is less noticeable and does not fill out as nicely.
• As silly as it seems one thing I learned is to double tie my warp threads. In the process of sliding my band forward a couple of the warp threads became untied, making those warps loose. I managed to retie one but was not able to find the other end of the other thread. As a stop gap measure I pulled the loose warp snug, tied it to another warp and place a wrapping of masking tape around the ends to keep the warps evenly snug.

Conclusion

I really like the colour of the gold on the red and if I get enough yardage I think it will make a very lovely trim for a court tunic. I hope to find a more suitable brocade fibre than doubling up DMC floss. I think a thicker gold cord would look much better than the floss.

I have seen images of other peoples efforts where they used a flat wire but have yet to find a source for this. If silver and gold wire was not so expensive I would try once more to make my own flat wire by hammering out would wire.

I think now that I have learned the basic technique for brocading it is time for me to try brocading a tablet woven band. With any luck I will be able to find a nice thin wool thread to use for my warp and background wefts. With a fine enough background thread a single length of the DMC will look good and allow me more practice before investing in gold or silver flat wire.

References

Historical Relevance

1. CROWFOOT E, HAWKES S. Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids. York: Archaeology Data Service (distributor)Available at: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-769-1/dissemination/pdf/vol11/11_042_086.pdf. Accessed November 13, 2014.
2. Metallic Trims for Some Early Period Personae, Carolyn-Priest Dorman, Cs.vassar.edu, (2014). Metallic Trims. [online] Available at: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/metaltrims.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].
   
3. Walton Rogers P. Cloth And Clothing In Early Anglo-Saxon England, AD 450-700. York: Council for British Archaeology; 2007. pg 96-97
4. Mayhew C. Viking Age Tablet Weaving. 1st ed.; :13.

Techniques

5. JOHNSON N. Pick-Up Or Brocade Weaving On A Simple Heddle Loom. 1st ed. Available at: https://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/tw_3_2-03.pdf. Accessed November 15, 2014.
6. Cook M. Tablet-Woven Brocade. WeaveZine. 2008. Available at: http://www.weavezine.com/content/tablet-woven-brocade. Accessed November 13, 2014.
7. DeGarmo T. Inkle Weaving. Degarmonet. 2005. Available at: http://www.degarmo.net/inkle/notes/brocade.html. Accessed November 13, 2014.