textile

Review of the Research

Scholarship of the past century has demonstrated that textiles have long played an important role in Mesoamerica, from the Classic period (AD 250-900) through contemporary cultures.

Introduction

The textile fragments from the Oseberg tomb (834 AD) in Norway are considered the world's largest and most important textile finds from the Viking Age. Among the textiles, 48 tablet-woven bands were identified and roughly divided into five categories by Margareta Nockert: I) Brocade, II) Tabby, III) Mixed I and II, IV) Ready threaded and V) Three or more colours without brocade (Nockert, 2006, pp. 147-155).

The book gives a short historical overview of major events in the chosen area, followed by an informative chapter on colours, a likewise very competent chapter on fabrics, and one on sewing techniques. Then the dress parts are presented, with very clear and informative modern illustrations. The focus is on ordinary dresses, not the really posh ones.

There are no sewing patterns as such, but the experienced seamstress can easily transfer the small silhouette patterns to real patterns, or one can search the bibliography in the book for relevant publications.

Review of the Research

Research conducted over the past century has conclusively demonstrated that textiles played an important role in Mesoamerica, particularly from the Classic period (AD 250-900) through contemporary cultures.

The renowned weaver Peter Collingwood briefly mentioned such belts in his book The Techniques of Tablet Weaving (Collingwood, 1982, pp.219-220). Not long before he died in 2008, he contributed a couple of pages on these belts to the book Minority Textile Techniques: Costumes from South-West China (Collingwood, 2007, pp.28-29).