Medieval Silk Knitting

I've been knitting for more than fifty years, exploring a wide variety of styles and techniques. The first time I saw photos of medieval silk knitting in Richard Rutt's A History of Hand Knitting, I really wanted to reproduce some of the reliquary purses, but I couldn't find the appropriate silk anywhere. At the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Nancy Spies gave a talk on her marvelous book, Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance (on brocaded tabletweaving). She had brought samples of the work done for the book, and they were obviously made with the silk I needed. It turns out she had bought 60/2 silk from The Handweavers Studio in London. The next time I was there, I bought a few colors.

This first purse was close to the fourteenth-century original, although not all the shades are accurate (but they were what I had). As in the originals, two strands of each color were used. I worked with 00000 or 1 mm needles, 18 stitches and 22 rows to the inch. At first, they really hurt my hands, but I became used to them and had no problems with other projects using them. I often needed a magnifier if the colors were close in tone. The drawstrings are fingerloop braids in two colors. I put this in the Indiana State Fair but received no award. (One of the volunteers told me that the judge had said it had to have been machine made because no one could knit that fine!!!)

This next ones uses a design from a thirteenth-century cushion from Spain. When I put it in the State Fair the following year, I displayed it on a board with a sample on needles and information about medieval silk knitting. It won both best in accessories and best of all knitting!

This one uses designs from one of the fourteenth-century purses but in single-colors instead of breaking up the design with a contrasting color in the center row.

The zigzag design is from other medieval motifs. I haven't decided which kind of fringe to use, but I'd like to use a more complex one than the other purses have.

Here is another, again using more modern two-color taste than the broken and multicolor medieval tendency, and only using a single design instead of multiple different bands.

I have more purses I would like to make with the ridiculous number of colors I have collected on my trips to London! Of course, I use them for tabletweaving and other work! And yes, I do wear these when I reenact in fourteenth-century style clothing, so I really am able to enjoy them.