Basic skills that are useful are:

1 Materials Recognition – including colours
2 Sewing – dressmaking, embroidery and decoration
3 Spinning
4 Weaving – cloth and tablet weave
5 Felting
6 Researching

1 Materials Recognition

Wool, linen, silk and leather are your basics.  All of these are available but can be costly and sometimes difficult to find.  Depending on the rules of your group mixed fibres (e.g. wool/polyester or linen/cotton) can be acceptable if they do not look like they contain manmade fibres.  ALWAYS ask your authenticity officers if you are not sure, it is good to take an authenticity officer/experienced re-enacting chum on a shopping trip with you at least once for reference purposes if you can.

To make a positive ID as to natural/manmade is a burning test.  Simply, if you hold a small piece of cloth (or a few threads) in a flame a natural fibre will leave a powdery ash, synthetic fibres do the melty plastic thing.  Just remember traders get very upset if you stand and set fire to their wares, if you want to try this test before you buy please ask for permission before setting any fires!

Patterns in cloth are always a subject of discussion and you should check the rules within your group before buying.  Do not buy modern tartans, although plaids are suitable for the time period as are checks (blocks of colour like on a chessboard).  Herringbone, dogtooth check, plain twills, diamond twills and stripes are the woven patterns that immediately spring to mind.

Colours are always a great way to start a huge discussion, I am not going to get into this one, only advise you again to check with your authenticity officers for the rules they will enforce.  The key thing is to stay away from anything that is glaringly synthetic.  It is surprising though what a range of loud colours you can get from natural substances – look out for wool dyed with weld using alum mordant – this practically glows in the dark; it is a screamingly loud yellow!

2 Sewing – dressmaking, embroidery and decoration

Being able to wield a needle is a very useful skill for both creating and repairing your kit.  Excuses such as ‘but I am a bloke’ are a bit pathetic, I have yet to find a reason why someone cannot sew; there is always a way and who says you have to be brilliant at it?  It may not be perfectly even and pretty but as long as things don’t fall apart it is good enough.  Groups vary but generally you can get away with using a sewing machine for any sewing that is not going to be seen – I use the machine for long seams in dresses and tunics – but all exposed areas like collars, cuffs and hems should be hand finished.

Patterns for clothing in the Dark Ages are generally a simple arrangement of rectangles and triangles – easy to cut and assemble and no fabric wasted (remember how long it takes to produce a piece of cloth, starting from the sheep and processing through).  More elaborate patterns are accurate and hopefully these and the simpler ones will be available within your group.

Finishing off garments remember no zips(!) or elastic.  Metal eyelets have not yet been invented either so you should be sewing eyelets by hand.  Toggles and lacings are used; round buttons I have found vary in acceptance from group to group.

Embroidery can be done with fancy stitches, or can be done in a simple running stitch.  This is another area where different groups have different rules as to what stitches and what style of pattern is acceptable please check for the rules of your own group.

Decoration can be a variety of things from sewing on tablet weave borders to sewing on shells and seeds or pearls.  Check first of all that whatever materials you intend to use would have been available in your geographical area (don’t forget trade was more common and covered a larger area than most people realise) and that the style you have in mind is accurate for the people you are representing, check with your authenticity officers what they consider acceptable.

3 Spinning

Spinning is done with a drop spindle.  As far as I can make out everyone would spin whenever they got a chance, adults, grandparents and children would all spin.  Personally I find that spinning wool ‘in the grease’ (fresh off the sheep, not washed or anything) makes it easier to spin.  You get the added benefit of getting really soft hands due to all the lanolin in raw fleece.  Any beetles, grass, sheep poo etc can be picked out as you spin.  You wash the wool as you set the twist in the yarn, you could also wash the fleece yourself before you start spinning, but I find washed fleece fibres don’t slip and slide into place as well and I end up with a lumpier yarn than usual (I’m no great spinner unless you count lumpy novelty yarns as great!).  If you cannot get raw fleece (or prefer to have it clean) you can buy washed and carded fleece fairly easily, you can also get it ready dyed as well as natural colours.  Some suppliers do the natural colours by type of sheep as well as by natural shades.