Me, peering at one of the fabric samples.
Today was a 'free' day and Janet phoned a contact at the Fortress of Louiseberg, a national historic site. Nice to have a local with contacts!
An appointment was made with the archeologist and we drove over to the site and got signed in. As we had no clearance, we had to have the archeologist with us in order to see the textile examples.
There are a variety of textiles, mostly knitted or woven, the weaving fairly simple - plain weave and twill. Some of the fragments are very likely heavily fulled after weaving, or just felted. Impossible to say with just a visual inspection.
However! Researchers are allowed to examine more closely and we were given instructions on how to obtain clearance.
One of the samples I would especially like to see magnified looks like part of a vest with a buttonhole and very possibly an attached lining. The face of the sample (as mounted) looked like plain weave, fairly heavily fulled, with a lining of a lighter weight cloth woven in twill. And both of them amazingly fine.
The knitting, which was mostly stocking or sock fragments, was in incredibly fine yarns.
And this sample of some 'loose' yarns...how did it survive? There is no evidence of a weft to hold them together...they are just there, side by side, all the same quality, probably a two ply wool.
I am so hoping to get back next year and see if I can get clearance as a researcher so they will let me use the microscope and see them really closely.
1 comment:
Really fascinating to see such old fabrics and imagine how they could have survived.
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