Faking Woven in Orbiculi the Mad Way

[Martin Moser]

Hello

just trying a little fake so to say. Or in other words, I'm trying out a rather time intensive way to reproduce late roman / coptic tunics when you don't have the possibility to produce the complete tunic. The approach that seems to come closest is alos the most time intensive unfortunately: take out the weft from the linen base material in the form of the orbiculus and then "weave" in the woollen weft thread with a needle. Takes quite a bit of time as I'm coming to realize. Good thing I'm not a TV addict :-P
OTOH it looks like I'm getting quite good optics out of it and can actually reproduce the technique used with the original I try to copy ("4/2, floating, grouped and crossing warp threads" (from Pritchard, Frances & Chris Verhecken-Lammens. 2001. "Two Wide-Sleeved Linen Tunics from Roman Egypt" in The Roman Textile Industry and its Influence (Rogers, Penelope Walton, Lise Bender Jørgensen & Antoiette Rast-Eicher eds.). Oxbow Books, Oxford.(pp. 21-29), p24).
Small pics of the original are here (zoom view doesn't work :-( ).

Here 2 pics (max diameter ca. 8 cm):

front


back

[jvrjenivs]

Well, I must say the pictures totally reflect the title. This really is the mad way But well, I like the result sofar. It's looking very good and I'm looking forward to the finished piece.

[Cheyenne]

I had a conversation about this with a few people a couple of years ago - I did some myself and it took the best part of 5 hours to embellish a 3 inch diameter area - and that was just the base colour....

The cost of a fully embellished tunic in that method would cost about the same as a fully 'woven in' garment from stratch!


it does look good though....

[Martin Moser]

The cost of a fully embellished tunic in that method would cost about the same as a fully 'woven in' garment from stratch!

Quite true. But I can rather afford spending the time than the money :-)

[M. Demetrius]

That would be enormously labor-intensive, but when done (finally) would be well worth the trouble, I think, for the real purist. If I ever get to the point of making fancily embroidered orbiculae, I will probably use them in applique' rather than woven. I get frustrated when a project takes more than three million hours of time. :lol:

[Publius Aelius Lucius]

looks great, good idea martin

[Martin Moser]

I get frustrated when a project takes more than three million hours of time. :lol:

Me too - I hope to get by with about two and a half ;-)

[Vindex]

Dare I ask if this tunic is finished yet? I think a few months is million hours of time... :wink:

And if it is finished may we see some pictures please?

[Robert Vermaat]

Any news yet?