A Fur Blanket

So this project started out as a joint project between Godefroy at Lyon Fur and myself for a teaching opportunity at the open fur workshop at Warriors and Warlords last year. Being how busy and hot that event was, the project wasn't completed at the event. Due to health, life, and other projects of higher import, this project sat in my project pile for nearly a year, but now that camp season is here again, I wanted it done for chilly nights, plus it would be good way to refresh my fur skills before attempting the houppelande lining, and I simply needed the space it was taking up for other projects in the works.

The Historical Precedence

Visual imagery of fur Blankets- 

There was surprisingly small amount of visual evidence of fur blankets. Most bedding features a colored top and snow white back that can be seen when folded over. That snow white could depict a white fur, or most likely white linen. 

However I have found several images that clearly depict fur being used as a blanket. 

A link to my fur blanket image Pinterest board

But we do see the majority of fur blankets had a decorative top and the fur underneath. 

This one in particular was inspiring, because although the grey underside could be debatable as fur, the pattern is similar to the fabric I chose for this project. 

Mentions of fur blankets in writing-

Like the images, fur blankets are not often mentioned in the inventories, reserved for the nobility as it seems like the majority of fur use was for wearable items, and the majority of blankets are wools or serge lined with linen. 

But here are two examples I could find of fur being called out as a blanket-

30. Noble Jehan Sauvegrain, seigneur de Baurates [sans lieu] 1397, novembre (Les inventaires apres deces de la ville de Dijion a la fin du Moyen Age (1390-1459) tome I : 1390-1408)

• Item 1 coverteur de gris que l’en dit estre a maistre Jaques de Chevanches selargien qui est en gaiges pour XX frans ; (Item- 1 coverture of gris that is to be bought by Jaques de Chevanches for 20 francs)
• Item une coutrepointe de velvel noir fourre de gris blanc et par dessus de soye noire: (Item- 1 black velvet quilt furred with Gris (and) Blanc, topped with black silk) 

The first item being a simple grey squirrel blanket, and the second seems to be a checkerboard of grey and while squirrel, and black velvet and silk on top. 

As I discovered in my houppelande research, white, especially linens, were thought to purify and cleanse the body, and given sweat and other human secretions, bedding would want to be washed often for odors and pest control, just as people do now days. Beds often were enclosed with drapes, trapping in body heat, so I suspect most folks would use their fur lined mantels on top of existing bedding when needed.  A fur lined blanket wouldn't have been a necessity, but instead a display of wealth. 

The Process

Godefroy ordered a 2m x 2m premade white rabbit plate, and a couple dyed black rabbit skins, thus chosen for it's economical cost, and to showcase the powdering technique that was used to create faux ermine in period. I chose to use a linen/silk blend fabric from my stash for the interlining, and a 4.6m meter length of 30" wide Fleur de Lis silk, neither of which were quite enough for me to use as a garment. 

Fleur de Lis extant fabric, silk with gold thread. 13th century Italian.

This fabric also would have been considered a bit out of fashion for my persona, so makes it a great choice for bedding since the typical cycle was for a fashion fabric to become decor fabric once out of fashion. 

I do recognize that rabbit (coney) would have been considered a lower status fur, and would have been unlikely to have been paired with luxury silk, and a simple linen would have been the choice for interlining. But this project isn't meant to be a reproduction, but an object that would have been recognizable in period, and at the time of conception this project needed to be budget friendly. 

I prepped the interlining and silk cover beforehand. The size of the blanket was determined by the size I could eek out of the silk, by adding a 4" black satin ribbon as a border, I ended up being able to piece together a rectangle of 74" by 70" wide. While piecing willy-nilly is very period, I did manage to match the pattern to make the piecing almost seamless. This cover and the interlining were machine sewn with silk thread and the silk seam allowances were treated with a zigzag stich to prevent fraying. 

We then cut the fur down to 72" x 68", slightly less than the cover. 

And went about marking out our placement of the powderings. We made sure to verify the grain of the fur. We want the spacing to be similar to that of what ermine tails would have been in period. For this we chose a pattern of 10" apart in rows 4" apart, staggered, using a straight edge and a small elongated diamond template to mark each one.  Making sure to orient the diamond template so the long edge is the same downward direction as the fur.

You can see the grain arrow, the lines and even a diamond we didn't get cut out.

Once marked, we would cut through the leather only with an exacto blade in the white bunny, and then also use that template to cut a black diamond from the black bunny, again making sure to keep the long end aligned with the downward fur direction. We then used a fur machine to insert the black diamonds into the white ground. A few of them were hand sewn in by whip stitch, which is the same kind of stitch the machine makes. At this point we had achieved a corner of the powderings inserted before time ran out and it sat in my pile. When I picked up the project, there was no more time for more powderings, so it will remain a feature. 

The next step was to attach the twill tape to the edges. The twill tape helps protect the edge of the fur, gives a nice finished edge when turned over, and a place to attach the interlining and fashion fabrics to without damaging the edges. The twill tape is sewn onto the fur side, and folded over to the leather side.

Again this was done by machine. 

Once the the twill tape was on, I folded it over to the leather side and tucked the ironed interlining underneath, making sure to center the interlining in the right direction. Then hand stitched it all down with a heavy quilting cotton, using a leather needle and a thimble, making sure to pierce through the leather.  Because fur is thick, and forgiving these stiches are close to 3 per inch, closer stiches are perforate and tear the thin leather on the fur. 

I noticed that the edges on the top and bottom of the fur stretched at some point, making it not square, and the bias tape then wrinkled when flipped over, and I had to be careful stitching to manipulate it flat, one corner was bad enough for me to rip apart completely and cut off a couple inches to get it square. 

I suspect that if I had pad stitch the interlining before the twill tape it might not have stretched so much. Those were also the edges where the machine kept skipping stitches and went over twice.

Dauphine is here to "help" show you! 

Then the process of  quilting the entire thing! This was done mostly laying on the floor with a pillow under my ribs. The quilting pattern happened organically, each corner needed to be stitched down as I was sewing the till tape to prevent it from shifting, because I needed to know where the center point was for the fashion fabric, the center cross was done. Then I continued to fill in the pattern from the corners in each quadrant. Each row of stitching is about 4" apart, and the stiches are close to an inch apart. I didn't measure anything and just eyeballed it. Since this is a hidden layer it didn't need to look pretty. Also because of my 'helpers' and lack of space I had to  fold this up and put away frequently, and the linen likes to wrinkle in this humidity. I should have done the quilting before the edges to make sure the fabric was perfectly smooth, but didn't so there are a few places where it wrinkles slightly. 

My other "helper" Vagabond being a fabric weight.

And then we repeat the quilting process with the fashion fabric. This time I centered the fabric and started quilting in rows from the center out. For this I used the silk thread that matched, and used invisible top making sure my needle passed between the interlining and the leather before creating a tiny back stich on the surface. The invisible stitch makes it so that the stitching wont ever catch and tear which has been a pet peeve of mine with many blankets and quilts in the past, and also doesn't distract or mar the fancy silk. 

See the red line for an approximation of the top stitching

At some point in the beginning of stitching the top down, it shifted an inch and I didn't notice until I was at the edges of pad stitching. Leaving some sections of the border a half inch, and others 3". Doh! I suspect that part of this was caused by the top stretching when I applied the bias tape, and I wasn't paying enough attention to that detail. 

It was too noticeable of a mistake, looked SO sloppy, and I just couldn't. Nor was I going to rip out and redo 15 rows of invisible top stitching. So instead I removed the border, and took fresh 4" black satin ribbon, and top stitched it to align with the edges of the fur, and let the silk be skewed underneath and it you can only tell it's off if you really look at it. It also gave me the opportunity to add a touch more bling, in the form a gold cord.   

Concept of updated border. 

I'm happy with how this project is turning out, but if I did it again I'd create a quilting frame so that it wouldn't be bothered by my 'helpers' (seriously couldn't keep them off it, and the protestation when I locked them out was epic) and stay in place for the duration of the project in addition to being a lot more ergonomique to work on. 

I would also use an edging that was real silk satin, and probably more bling, but this was originally a stash fabric project to focus on the fur work. 

I'd also wait until after everything was pad stiched to put on the binding, and the issues I had with things not being square by the end would be sloved if I could have squared it up at the end. 

We don't have any surviving furs from period, fur is a natural material that degrades fairly quickly if not maintained, and so most of our knowledge of fur work comes from vintage sources. Twill tape for binding was common practice on vintage items, however I learned after the start of this project that the text by Veale stated that leather binding was used at the end of the project. I also discovered during the interm that the twill tape binding on my fur trimed gown, plasteron, and tippets, held on to dampness and caused the fur to become crunchy, needing to be replaced in a few short years. Since I was on a budget and timeline I chose to still use the twill tape since this shouldn't be on damp ground. But then twill tape also stretched different than the fur leather did while attaching it, and a source of later frustration. 

A leather binding at the end as indicated by Veale should minimize a lot of the problems I had.  

The gold cord helps to pull this together nicely.

Now I've noticed how much this blanket looks like the background of a 14th century Manuscript painting.  

And how sexy it looked in my camp!

Resources for fur- 

Grant Johannes (Aka Godefroy du Lyon) at Lyon Fur. 

A fur primer for 14th and 15th century European clothing by Tasha Kelly at Cotte Simple

Veale, Elspeth M. The English fur trade in the later Middle Ages. London: London Record Society, 2003. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol38

Delort, Robert. Le commerce des fourrures en Occident à la fin du Moyen Age (Vers 1300 - vers 1450),

Clothing in the Court of Burgundy 1.1.2 The Furs (English translation per Charles de Bourbon)

Wadmore, James Foster, Some account of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London, being the guild of corpus christi, Blades East and blades, London 1902