It’s easy for us to take for granted where our yarn comes from and how
it was produced. For the casual knitter like myself, all that needs to be done
to start a project is a quick search on Ravelry or through a book for a
pattern. To acquire the appropriate yarn for the project, one can travel to a
favourite local woolshop and select from a large inventory of ready-made yarns
of various makes, materials and qualities. Knitting is a fun and relaxing
past-time nowadays, and yarn production is left to the manufacturing companies
and those who choose to produce their own yarn out of interest.
During the Viking Age, textile production was not a relaxing hobby.
Yarn spinning, as well as weaving and nalbinding, were important household
tasks that consumed a great amount of time each day. In order to produce
clothing, bedding and other textiles for trade and to keep members of the
family warm in the cool northern climate, immense quantities of wool needed to
be spun into lengths of workable yarn, making spinning a top priority. During
this time period, yarn production was completed entirely by hand. Today, re-enactors
and hobbyists still hand spin their wool using the drop-spinning method that
was employed during the Viking Age, but out of interest rather than necessity.
This blog post will outline the technique of drop spinning that was used during
the Viking Age to produce wool yarns.
Although flax and other related plant fibres were most likely also utilized, wool
was the most common source of yarn during the Viking Age. There were many
factors that contributed to the quality of yarn produced from wool, such as the
breed of sheep from which the wool was shorn, and the section of the sheep’s
fleece from which the wool came from; for example, the outer coat of the fleece
which yields the longest hairs is the most coarse, whereas the inner short
fibres of the fleece are much softer.
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| Viking Age replica spindle whorl |
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| There are many different breeds of sheep today, and the specific breed raised during the Viking Age largely depended on the area of habitation. Image: http://www.wallpaperswala.com/wp-content/gallery/sheep/cute-lamb-wallpaper.jpg |
Once the wool had been shorn from the sheep, it could be cleaned, depending on preference, all
the foreign matter removed from the wool and possibly soaked in water. After
cleansing, the fibres would be untangled and organized using a pair of hand combs
(carders were a later invention). After combing the wool, the fibres would be
hand spun into yarn using spindle whorls of stone, bone or ceramic, with shafts
made of wood, or possibly bone. The method of hand spinning that was used was
called “drop spinning.”
A basic tutorial on drop spinning.
This video shows the basic technique of drop spinning. The fibres were pulled
down and spun together by the weight of the whorl. One could achieve different
sizes of yarn based on the weight of the whorl; lighter whorls were generally
used to make thinner threads, whereas heavier ones could produce thicker yarns.
According to Spindle and Wheel, a blog devoted to yarn crafts from which a lot
of this information was sourced, the average whorls that have been recovered
were about 10 to 14 grams, although smaller whorls are also quite common. After
spinning, the yarn would be wound onto a reel, and could then be used for
nalbinding or weaving. In order to produce adequate amounts of material to
produce textiles for the entire family or for trade, spinning was a constant
activity that required great attention and expertise.
Although we are purchasing all our yarns ready-made for our nalbinding
project, it would be really interesting to try hand spinning wool using the
drop spin method that has been described above. There are loads of re-enactor websites and YouTube videos devoted to making your own spindle whorl and
learning the technique. Perhaps this is beyond the scope of our project, but I’ll
definitely need to try drop spinning myself in the future!
Sources:
FRANSEN,
L., NORGAARD, A., and OSTERGARD, E., 2011. Medieval garments
reconstructed: Norse clothing patterns. Hightown, Lancaster, UK:
Aarhus University Press.
LARSSON, A., 2008. Viking Age Textiles. In: S. BRINK, ed, The Viking World. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 182-185.
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