This lesson will cover what materials were used for clothing and how it was produced. We shall be looking at the types of cloth woven, dyestuffs used, methods of decoration, as well as the techniques used to join cloth, leather etc.

We shall start by looking at what kinds of cloth were used for clothing in the Early Anglo-Saxon period, and how it was produced.   We will look at how the various fibres were spun, dyed and the way in which they were woven.

The next part of the lesson will look at the stitches that were used for different fabrics, and the way that garments could be decorated.

The last section will deal with the basic leatherworking needed to make items such as belts, shoes and scabbards.

The only materials readily available to the Anglo-Saxons for making clothes were wool, vegetable fibre (such as flax, nettle and perhaps hemp) and leather.    It is possible that very small amounts of silk were imported for use by the very highest ranks of the nobility, but there is little or no archaeological evidence for this.   The only occurence of silk threads archaeologically are as a core for wrapped gold thread and for the very expensive gold brocaded tablet weaves.

There are several main stages in producing a woven fabric:

1. Preparing the fibre.
2. Spinning the yarn.
3. Dyeing the yarn. *
4. Weaving the cloth.
5. Finishing the cloth. **

* Dyeing could sometimes be done before spinning or after weaving, but seems most often to have been done at the yarn stage.
** Many cloths had no special finishing once they were removed from the loom, but a few underwent processes such as fulling.

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