Ottoman for the Man – Investiture Garb

I’ve been working on another kaftan (with help from a friend) and salwar for the hubby for our Baronial Investiture. The kaftan is silk lined in linen. The salwar are ‘art silk’ lined in linen.

Ottoman

About Kemha

The common weaving technique for Ottoman silks was kemha, which is a type of lampas-weave.  Lampas produces a thick, heavy textile, as the woven fabric is essentially two layers joined as one.

Lampas weave as defined by CIETA vocabulary of 1964 is ‘a figured weave in which a pattern, composed of weft floats bound by binding warp, is added to a ground fabric formed by a main warp and a main weft. The ground may be tabby, twill, satin or brocading wefts; they float on the face as required by the pattern, and are bound by the ends of the binding warp in ordinary tabby or twill which is supplementary to the ground weave’.

In less technical terms, lampas consists of two warps (a main warp and a binding warp), and at least two wefts (a main weft, and one or more pattern wefts).  In the non-pattern-weave areas these form two separate layers of cloth, one on top of the other, like doubleweave.  Unlike true doubleweave, the patterned areas interlace with each other to create one layer of cloth.  Note that in this case, the ‘patterned area’ refers to the area of interlacement rather than a design element. In some cases the pattern area actually makes up the ground of the fabric – rather the inverse of what we think of as the pattern.

Kemha, in particular, is defined as compound satin with supplemental twill lampas.  All of the extant examples I’ve seen that offer a close enough view to identify the weave (example 1, example 2) this looks to be the case.  For those who like diagrams, the Weaving Library has a partial draft of a compound satin with supplemental twill lampas and what (I’m guessing) is a picture of the finished textile (even if it’s not the actual textile, the colours match – a red ground with white, blue-green, and orange-pink patterning wefts – so it’s good enough to get an idea).  While kemha commonly utilized metallic threads, there are many examples that do not.

Read more about Silks from Ottoman Turkey at the Met Museum.

Handwoven Kaftan Planning

I’ve made some progress on the hubby’s kaftan design. The key point of the fabric was to incorporate his badge: Argent, three crescents purpure one and two.  This is the three purple crescents on the white background.  The rest of the design was built around that.

Along with the purple and white, we’ve decided to go with blue and yellow for accent colours.  Blue is another colour in his heraldry, and the yellow added a nice contrast.  I’m doing an ogee pattern, which was a common design motif in 16th century Ottoman fabrics, and using this textile as an inspiration for the filling design.

The design is not complete.  I’d like to add some more filling pattern in the plain white and blue sections.  I have time – I won’t be getting the equipment to actually produce the fabric until next year sometime (at the earliest).  But I’m enjoying the process.

Design in progress

Green Linen Breeches

Basic Elizabethan breeches for the hubby.

He looks impressed, no?

Green Linen Tunic

We’re doing a demo next month where everyone wears garb based on the Luttrell Psalter (mid 14th century).  with that in mind, both my hubby and I need new garb.

First up, a tunic for the hubby:

Still needs hemming

Man’s Elizabethan Shirt

I made a simple Elizabethan shirt for the hubby.  As you can see, I still need to add the wrist and neck ties.

Elizabethan shirt

Handwoven Kaftan Planning

Some of you my know that my husband and I have agreed that a drawloom is fast becoming financially feasible.  With that in mind, I’ve started planning a handwoven Turkish coat for him.

I have a year to plan before I can start weaving, I’m going to be documenting my thoughts and research here as I go.

What I Know So Far:

Doing a scan through most of the textiles with details from this period I can find, it appears that the the most common weave was lampas (kemha) with a satin ground and twill binding.  Common colours are red, blue, gold, and white, though I have found extant examples with green and purple.  Textiles commonly contained metal threads.

Common design motifs included çintamani (a pattern of three circles arranged in a triangle), wavy stripes, ogees (pointed ovals), and vines.  Flowers, such as tulips and carnations, are common.

Elizabethan for the Man

And for a change of pace, my hubby has requested that I make him a simple Elizabethan outfit for this summer.

My plan consists of:

• A plain white linen shirt (no ruffles)
• A pair of green linen breeches
• A brown linen doublet

I don’t have any real experience making men’s Elizabethan, so this should be fun.

Coronation

And here are pictures from Coronation

Elizabethan loose gown

Ottoman

Ottoman for the Man – Finished Hat!

In order to reduce the amount of weight on his head, the ‘turban’ is a padded doughnut of cloth wrapped in strips of fabric.

Ottoman hat