Viking and Anglo-Saxon Textiles

I began a project, many years ago, to weave a set of Wickelbander. Admittedly I did abandon the project, due to poor choice of warp threads. Hopefully I’ll be putting this back on my to do list soon!  I did however do a bit of research before warping my loom. Here are my notes on Wickelbander.

From Peter Beatson

• Extant samples vary between 75-100 mm or 3-4  inches  in width
• Structures
  2/2 warp chevron twill with and without matching repeats (non-matching repeats is most common)
  2/1 warp chevron twill
  2/2 broken lozenge twill
  2/2 diagnol twill- this actually isn’t one I’m familiar with as twill is a diagnol in general, so I’m not sure what he means by this.
  tabby
• Warps are z spun for strength and weft threads are most often s spun
• unbalance warp to weft ratio, although he notes that the British Isles are close to 1:1
• Reversal of weaving direction occurs between 6-10 warp threads
• Colour combinations
  dark warp with light weft and vice versa
  Purple found in York and nearly all London bands
  Blue found in 2 London bands
  Red found at Elisenhof and Hedeby
  Yellow also found at Elisenhof and Hedeby

For more information on many Viking related topics visit this wonderful site.