Hi all,

 An interesting question came up in a discussion at Outlands A&S and I thought I might bring it here for ideas.  The question was referring to weave structures in period.  What was the rate of occurrence of plain weave/twill vs. what we might think of as more complex. 

 One of things that brought this up was a weave structure that is sometime called the Earl of Marl's canvas.  It is a complex twill fabric used as the canvas for his portrait.  This example is out of period but made us wonder. 

 So I thought I might turn to some of you all and see what you might have found in your research.

Thanks for the time

Jeanne-Marie Dubois

Kingdom of the Outlands

Comments

Sun, 07/11/2010 - 14:49

Rob S. (not verified)

I would love to see an analysis of the types of weaves seen by percent as time progresses in different regions.

I'm sure the results would be very revealing, but it is an absolutely huge undertaking.

I started to collect that sort of information for tablet woven finds, but quickly ran out of steam - even in that small field it will take someone who is better trained in research than I.

Thu, 08/26/2010 - 17:56

Erica J

I've put together a fairly extensive spreadsheet showing when various weaves appear in different cultures! You can see it here.

Thu, 08/26/2010 - 20:54

Sara von Tresckow

To compile structures found in a given period, you'll need to go to archaeological texts. Usually they list fragments by structure and thread count in table form.

Frequency in daily life is hard to determine as the plainer fabrics were often utilitarian and wore out more often than the fancy goods.

Fri, 08/27/2010 - 02:33

francorios (not verified)

Thank you for sharing that spreadsheet!

It's like a tourist guide to the history of weaving.
What about the American continents?

Have a good day!
Franco Rios

Sat, 08/28/2010 - 16:51

Erica J

Your very welcome. I did notice that when I compiled that I did not put in any references, so I'll have to go back through all my books and add those in! I haven't looked at the Americas, but when I go back through my books I'll try to keep an eye out for those! Cheers, Erica

Wed, 01/05/2011 - 23:06

Jeanne-Marie (not verified)

Yes thank you so much for sharing your research.  It is true that the more utilitarian goods are usually worn out and we have fewer pieces of extant fabric. Still we can make some eductaed guesses by what we know as weavers: for instance, plain weave goes faster than twill but twill is stronger. What would I do if making cloth for x?

 

 

 

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