Any Lord of the Rings fans out there (or a crazy idea that fell into my head)

In the book The Medieval Tailor's Assistant, it talks about the kind of cloth that would be available in the middle ages.  The one that interests me the most is what they call woollen cloth (which isn't necessarily related to the definition of woollen we use today with a very specific kind of fibre prep and spinning).  

This interests me because it's the kind of cloth I want to make for this project, so I'll share some of the book here (bold mine)

Wollen Cloth - Any woollen cloth or blend with a visible weave, tabby or twill and a more or less hairy surface.  The threads should be well packed together, though cloth intended for lining can be flimsier.  A density of 6-15 threads per cm is typical for a working garment: a higher density is for finer garments...  

Tabby is the same as plain weave, which is a lot of what I weave these days, but I do hope this project will be in a 2/2 twill.  So I'm glad this fits with my idea.  

The density of "6-15 threads per cm" (or about 15-38 threads per inch) I assume is in one direction and not referencing a "thread count" like we get when buying bedsheets and counts both warp and weft in a given inch.  Another note is that this density is AFTER fulling.  So let's assume a balanced weave (both weft and warp have the same density), of 15-38 epi - finished measurements.  Assume 20% shrinkage for an on loom measurement of 12-30 epi.  

That seems quite coarse but would probably be good for outer layers.

For example, a cotton tea towel I've woven are usually set at 16-24 epi.  Most of the blankets I've woven are closer to 10epi.  

While she hasn't attempted Goldberry's dress, the seamstress at Making Rivendell in the Desert has completed a number of garments inspired by LOTR which she wears everyday. You would probably be interested in Eowyn's Refugee Jumper, which made really efficient use of the cloth.

progress!
I bought some vintage yarn from a friend's stash that I think will be perfect.  I don't know if it will be enough for a dress with sleeves, so I'll have to work around that.  The dark green yarn is especially soft.

Next steps
- make a sample dress so I can get a basic pattern to work with
- save up so I can buy the thread and aglets and the rest of the supplies (note to self, do this soon if I want to get it done by the end of Aug)
- decide on a draft to weave the cloth
- sample some yarn design for the 'shots of dew'

Beautiful! That is really exciting!

It's amazing how time blind I am these days.  I thought I would have the entire project finished and be filming the dress next to the water lilies.

I do have the mockup dress done.  It's wonderful.  I have a few more tasks and I can start putting together the video for that.  At the current rate, it's about a month away.

The yarn for the final Goldberry Dress is in the process of going on the loom.  Because the yarn is so fine, it's taking so much longer than normal.  Instead of dressing 200-500 warp yarns, I've got over 800, very fine, hard-to-see yarn ends to put on the loom.  So I'm limited by how much I can do each day.  At this rate, I'll be finished weaving the cloth in early fall and can expect the entire dress to be completed sometime next spring.  

That's a crazy timeline compared to my expectations.

But, spreading it out like this leaves some breathing space for real life and smaller projects, like I don't know... this?


In the meantime, here's some music I've gathered for the Goldberry Dress.
I like to choose the music early in the process so I can listen to it while I'm making and decide if those songs actually work or not.  I'm not sure about these and would like to get something with a bit more of a calm Celtic adventure feel to it. What do you think?

Thank you for including that link! I've been listing to your play list and feel driven to get off my computer and get to work on the sets of stays and skirts I've set myself to sew up! Other than the one piece that had actual words, they are happy, sprightly instrumentals that I can see bouncing around to - or sewing for hours with that background and a hot mug of tea to help keep my temper even.
Even better than the "mood movies" I used to put on - "Dances with Thieves" - the Robin Hood movie (That's not it's name, but that's what my group of friends called it), Any of a bunch of pseudo-historical romance/adventure flicks that has beautiful scenery, beautiful costumes, and usually glorious fighting or something else that was effective in setting a rousing mood.

And the music has finished. And I'm spending more time editing than typing. I guess it's time to do something else - like cut out a set of stays?? - but, yes. You are doing wonderful things. The music is happy and vaguely Celtic in the best of ways. No bagpipes, but no one's perfect. ;]

If you're interested in bagpipery, I have a couple of groups I collect. If you prefer minstrels or specific things, I might have different suggestions, but what you have is lovely. Thank you for sharing.

My inclination calls for silkworms, and sequins.
But I'm sure both are challenging to source from source, as it were.
How are you doing with this project?
Any pictures to post? We would love to see.
I too was sad Goldberry did not make it to the big screen - her scenes in the story were a beautiful respite from the crescendo of fearful suspense ... I could barely turn the pages in the Mines of Moria.

Last vote in apple poll was on December 21, 2024