The wooden pieces Nigel is working is going to be a bag. A number of bag handles like this were found in Hedeby dig.
The warp-weighted loom is a project I started many years ago. I enjoy weaving but the warp-weighted loom was slow and tedious to me so it has been hard to finish. So for this completion I am going to finish it. Another reason I put off working on it is that we had a rabbit. You go so what does a rabbit have to do with finishing it. Well, he like to play with the bags that were the weights. He loved pushing the bags back and forth and when he got bored with that he would chew on the the threads. So every time I went to weave I had to fix the weights at the bottom which took time away from weaving. The yarn for both the weft and warp is raw silk. That is what we had that was close to a period yarn. I wove 12 inches today.
Catherine finished about 14 inches of card weaving today. The reddish yarn, Catherine dyed with madder root. I finally got a red. All of the other times it was orange or orange brown. The right temperature and fresh madder was the key to getting it right The yellow yarn is dyed with osage orange sawdust. This sawdust came from a person making long bows. The brown yarn is natural and was spun on drop spindle.
The trousers were copied after ones found in Damendorf in Northern Germany. They are similar to the Thorsbjerg found in bog in Denmark. I simplified the pattern because I did not add the square that is in the back of the pants. I did not see the need for that and the pants fit well without it. I also did not add any gussets. The legs were also made looser because Nigel wanted them that way. The pants looked that had a belt but Nigel wanted them to have a drawstring so they could be adjusted and it is easier to go to to the bathroom.
