Chalton Shuttle

There is a line drawing of a shuttle on page 36 of Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England. AD 450-700 by Walton Rogers described as "a bone band-weaver's shuttle, around which the weft would have been wound, from a 7th century settlement at Charlton, Hampshire".

There was some effort a few years ago on the SCA-Card-Weaving list to track down the original object, but details surrounding the 1970s dig seem to be lost to the mists of time.

At Canterbury Faire earlier this month, I had a discussion with a gentle I hadn't met before about this picture. He was a woodworker and spent quite a bit of time over the event working in our encampment, where we had various crafty things going on. Near the end of the event, I came back from somewhere or other to find the below item beside my loom. I didn't see him again to thank him! It's things like this that make Canterbury Faire really special.

This shuttle is wood rather than bone. It is about 10cm long. The flat edge can double as a beater (although the item does not have a lot of heft to it). I have not had a chance to use it yet.

Comments

  1. SingingdragonMay 14, 2020 at 12:20 PM

    The full name of the Author of that book Is Penelope Walton Rogers.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Anglo-Saxon" Belt

Image
UPDATE: it seems this pattern probably isn't Anglo-Saxon after all, but medieval . Warp: Red, green and white silk Weft: Green silk Pattern: Woven in diamonds Cards: 32 Width: 1 - 2.5 cm Length: 140cm What's new: not brocade OK, so this isn't a brocaded pattern. I'm getting more and more keen to try the various non-brocaded techniques and sometime next year I expect I'll drop the "brocaded" from the blog title. Not yet though because I have 3 brocaded bands queued up after this already. This pattern comes from a belt from Anglo-Saxon Cambridge. It is described on page 122 of Collingwood (2002 edition), page 53 of Hansen and on Þora sharptooth 's site. Reproductions by Þora sharptooth and Shelagh Lewins can be seen online. This pattern was calling out to me at this particular time because like the Mammen band it involves quarter-turning alternating left and right cards. It is the only non-brocaded piece I've done so far other than the bas
Read more

Oseberg Loom

Image
Here's the long-promised post about the Oseberg loom made for me by Iarnulf. Here's a link to Plate 13 from Osebergfunnet Vol. 2 with line drawings of the loom. Iarnulf has copied the dimensions closely. The wood is spruce and macrocarpa while the original was beech. The loom stands about a metre tall and is just under 2m in length. Here's a photo, taken before it was oiled. It feels great to be weaving on a documentable loom. Because it breaks down into pieces it's also very convenient for taking to camping events. The goodly length means you can go for a long time without having to reverse your twine direction (As I've mentioned before, it does make it very inconvenient for setting up in the living room!). If I had one complaint it would be that the crossbar is right where my knees want to be when sitting on my chest seat which means I can't have my lap directly below where I'm weaving so the bobbins can drop there when not in use. This could easil
Read more

Birka 6

Image
Warp: Dark green silk Brocade: Spun sterling silver (Devere) Pattern: Birka 6 Cards: 21 Width: 1.2cm Length: 2m This band is for Bjorn, in return for the replica Viking beater in the previous post, as well as a bone pickup stick and some antler bobbins which I will blog about shortly. It is very similar to the other Birka patterns I have done. Bjorn supplied me with some 28 gauge sterling silver wire to use for the brocade, but I couldn't make it turn corners sharply enough. You can see my attempt to use it at left in the picture below. When that failed I turned to Devere's sterling silver metalic thread around a cotton core. It is very nice to work with, my favourite brocade thread so far. I used it double stranded. Bjorn liked the band, originally intended for cuffs around his tunic, enough to commission more of the same- this time to go around the neck- in return for a chest, so I'm about to start on a second metre of it.
Read more