hanging loose. Then a new weft is started a little before the end of the old one causing a double weft for a few centimetres. The beginning of the second weft is also left hanging loose outside the warp. These two ends will poke out from the woven fabric but once a few shifts have been woven below these ends they are simply cut off close to the fabric. If a heddle breaks due to wear and tear it is simply replaced by a new one. The same goes for the loom weights. It is especially the loom weights on the back row of warp threads that are susceptible to damage as these are the ones being moved for every shift of the shed. Beating the warp may cause small holes in the fabric but these can be minimized by covering the same ground twice, essentially double-beating along the weft.
The experiment The cloth was a simple tabby woven with 22 threads per cm in the warp and 12 in the weft. The threads used for this experiment were commercially available half-bleached linen with a thickness of 40/2 in the warp (a two-ply thread rather than the original one-ply, but of the same thickness) and 25/1 in the weft. (The first number indicates the thickness of the thread, the second the number of threads). The weaving test was setup with the warp in full length and width (Table 14). 50 cm then woven, and the time for the entire length of 2.36m was calculated (Table 15). Like spinning this is specialized work. Therefore we were fortunate that Flemming Lundholm who is a weaver by profession and also works at Ribe Viking Centre could do this part of the work. The warp was sewn onto the top boom and weighed down with 20 threads per loom weight, each weight weighing about 300-400 g, resulting in 116 loom weights in total. In the crocheted line 3 warp threads were contained in one mask.
Task Cutting the warp Sewing the warp to the boom Hanging the weights Tying heddles Crocheting the line Total:
Time (hour:min) 2:40 1:30 3:00 10:40 1:20 19:10 Table 14. Setting up the loom.
Task
Time
Readying the weft Weaving Adjusting loom weights Total time
10 min/2.5 cm woven fabric 4 cm/hour 1:15h/15 cm of woven fabric
Total time for the shirt (hour:min) 10:40 59:00 18:45 88:25
Table 15. Results of the weaving test. This weaving test shows that it would take 88 hours and 25 minutes to weave enough fabric for the entire Viborg shirt. Adding the time it would take to set up the loom this amounts to 107 hours and 35 minutes. This amount is excluding production of loom weights and string for heddles and crocheting. Loom weights tend to break quite easily and even though most would probably last for a couple of weavings it was necessary to have a number in reserve. The weights also need a string to tie on the warp threads. These strings would also be subjected to wear and tear during the weaving and would require some replacement. The string for the heddles and probably also for
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