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The Online Froissart

"Jean Froissart’s Chroniques cover the period from around 1326 to around 1400 and are the single most important medieval prose narrative about the first part of the Hundred Years’ War. "

Visit the online froissart and examine the Miniature Commentaries for many nice depictions of people of the 14th century - great for research!

Take a look here:

http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/onlinefroissart/apparatus.jsp?type=context&context=miniature_commentaries

1340s France Man Carting with Dogs - DOCUMENTATION! YAH!

I have two big dogs.  I want them to cart for me, as they are stronger than I am, and sometimes events are quite a haul to unload.  Carting dogs - hmmm.....

Voila!  Dog carting!  This illumination originates from the British Museum manuscript, Royal 10 E IV, commonly called "Decretals of Gregory." (Folio 110v) circa 1340 AD
The entire manuscript can be found here:
http://prodigi.bl.uk/illcat/record.asp?MSID=6549&CollID=16&NStart=100504

And here is the link for the photo above:

http://prodigi.bl.uk/illcat/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=32756

How cool is that!

More great manuscripts can be found at the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.
Take a look!

http://prodigi.bl.uk/illcat/introduction.asp

Fantastic Embroidery Reference Sites!

I am finding so many great embroidery blogs and reference pages from members of the SCA and other medieval living history groups from around the world, I decided to make a blog entry to keep track of them all!  While I will post blogs about specific crafts as I dabble in them, this list below should be useful for almost any medieval textile research and examples you might be interested in researching.  I will continually update this list as I go, so these will be easier to find.

Enjoy!

Sabrina de la Bere:
http://www.bayrose.org/AandS/Ventures.html

Historic Needlework Resources
http://medieval.webcon.net.au/index.html

Best Blog for Medieval Textiles

I have been following Medieval Silkwork for several years, and they always seem to have all the answers to questions I have regarding my medieval projects.  Quite a resource - it will take you days to go through it all!

See it here:

http://m-silkwork.blogspot.com/

Racaire is My Hero!

Racaire is a fabulous seamstress/embroiderer that participates in the SCA in Europe.  She is one of the most prolific and talented people I have run across while searching for high level fiber medieval craft online, and I drool over her photos every day.  I would like to say I'm her #1 fan, but she has so many fans across the web I don't think I would make it on the top ten. ;)

Here are a few links to view her work:

Flickr acct:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/

Her Blog:  http://embroidery.racaire.at/

Her Homepage:  http://www.racaire.at/cms/home.html

How to Make Gimp Cord with a Drill

Found this deep in a forum, but it seems like handy instructions for making gimp cord quickly.

Here are the instructions:

First, in order to use a drill, you need someone else to hold the drill, or you need to only work with very small lengths.

Start with short lengths- a drill isn't ideal and takes some getting used to.

Get a cuphook - the type you can screw into shelves - put this into the drill instead of the drill bit, to hold your thread.

cut a piece of string, tie it into a loop, and put this loop onto a fixed point (such as a clamp on a table)

This acts as a swivel, taking up some of the excess twist. Or you can get a swivel from a fishing supply shop.

Cut your length of core material - you'll need at least two lengths of the same so that they can twist together. Fasten one end to the loop, the other to the hook on the drill.

Your covering thread should be fine and free flowing. By this, I mean if you can use say three spools of covering thread, and have those spools on a spool rack on the floor it works pretty well.

Fasten your covering thread to the hook on the drill.

Have you helper stand so that the core thread is taught, but not too tight. That person will have to slaken the tension when required, or the core thread will snap eventually. (Another reason why shorter lengths are better ).

You stand to the side of this core thread, holding the covering threads loosely at a right angle to it. As the drill spins, the covering threads will be taken over the core thread - you need to guide them and slowly move along the length of the core thread, holding the covering threads out evenly.

You are effectively guideing the covering threads - but the twisting of the core threads is what is doing the work of covering, not you.

This method does use the basic principles of the traditional equipment, and can work quite well with practice. The fishing swivel and tension on the core thread is where the biggest difficulty lies, getting it right seems to be more of a practice thing then a technique secret!

Oh, and if you get fed up - here's a supplier of rayon gimp in lots and lots of colours! -http://www.silkenstrands.co.uk/catalogue_other_gimp.htm

The original post can be found here:

http://www.et-tu.com/soper/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=forum&board=tassels&op=display&num=178&start=0#2