SCA: The Hand-Sewn Viking Project, Part II: Red Apron Dress

 I decided to make myself a hand-sewn Norse “apron dress” to go with the white serk I made by hand back in August. There was a whole grand plan there in the beginning; but I kind of made the serk and then dropped the idea for a while. I don’t know why it’s red -  99% of my SCA wardrobe is in shades of blue, but for some reason I just needed a red one this time. I never wear red..?

Anyway, the fabric is linen, and all the weaving and decorative bits are in 8/2 cotton weaving thread. Aside from the material choices, this dress is as close to period as I can get it with my current knowledge, from the patterning to the stitches used to the decoration. 

Tablet woven trim 
and a red and yellow “Hedeby braid” over the seams

The Hedeby braid - diagram and close up photo of it in situ 

The Hedeby dress fragment - the braid is positioned over the seam on the left side of the piece 

I used a backstitch for the seams, finished the seam allowances with a whip stitch, and used the herringbone “Osenstitch” (Inga Hagg’s term) for the hem

A silk ribbon folded over the top edge of the dress, with tablet woven trim based on the Oseberg “narrow band” design

I made the dress ankle length this time, to see how a longer dress feels to wear - I like it much better than the calf-length apron dresses I normally make; I feel like it’s much more flattering. I also made the straps and loops verrrrry thin this time, just because I like a thinner strap. The whole project took me a little over a week to make, about 28 hours total, I think. 

I’m super pleased with the way this came out, and I plan to wear it at Candlemas in February. That’s a long time to wait! 

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Meanwhile, I have some A&S stuff to get cracking on for the new year, and I have another hand-sewn dress in the planning and scheming stages. More soon! 

SCA: BAM Shenanigans & Updating my Roman Outfit

War of the Rams ended up being a total bust for me. I hurt my back on the first day, and was basically stuck in a chair at camp the entire weekend - I didn’t get to go anywhere or do any of the activities, or even see people I’d been looking forward to seeing. I was pretty bummed about that. I didn’t even get any pictures. 

However, I did wear a blue jean  “cowboy viking” outfit on Friday that I made as a joke, and got a bunch of good laughs out of it. I don’t have a pic of me in it, but here it is on my mannequin: 

Isn’t that ridiculous? I wore it with cowboy boots and a red bandana over my hair. There were several double-takes, and a few people busted out laughing when they saw me, hehe. Silliness. 

I also bought this gorgeous new mug for myself while I was there. It’s a hand made and hand painted pottery in a loosely Greco-Roman design, and one of a kind - I couldn’t pass it up! 

Speaking of Roman, I found out that the Bjornsborg spring event this coming year will be Roman-themed, hooray! I love wearing Roman, and the weather then should be perfect for it.  I decided to upgrade my kit a bit this month, starting with a new sash to tie around my body (it's blue; the old one was dark gray and I didn’t like the way it went with the light blue chiton). 

This week I treated myself to a pdf booklet of Greek- and Roman- inspired tablet weaving patterns from Etsy (some traditional “Greek key” designs, and some patterns inspired by the geometric designs in floor mosaics and frescoes), and I made up this one in blue and white cotton: 

Once it was done, I sewed it onto the top edges of my linen chiton, to dress it up some. (Decorative trim on these things IS period,  but tablet weaving itself is NOT…but I’m not worried about that, I’m not going for exacting historical accuracy with my Roman, I just want something approximate and *pretty* to bang around in at the event).  

That’s all for now.  At the moment I’m working on two pieces: a new palla for my Roman outfit, and a hand-sewn Norse smokkr for an event in January. More on that soon! 

SCA: War of the Rams

 I’ve been away from the blog for a little while, sorry about that. My brother died, and then after Kingdom A&S I just didn’t have anything going on and I fell into kind of a funk there for a while. I’ve been to a couple of events in the past month, and had a decent enough time, but my heart hasn’t really been in it. 

At the moment I’m preparing for War of the Rams (formerly known as BAM), and I've been trying to keep busy to distract myself from life and keep my sights on good things in the future. 

I made over an old plain loose dress this week - dyed it and changed the edge binding, so that I’d have something casual to wear around camp at BAM: 

My male tunic blew a seam in the wash, which I discovered while I was affixing some new tablet woven trim to the neckline - it’s irreparable, unfortunately (or fortunately maybe, as I’d been planning to replace that tunic for months now anyway), so this wine-colored dress is what I’ll wear instead. 

I’ve also spent the last few weeks working up a bit of a joke  to bring out at the event which I’m hoping will get some laughs. More on that after I get back. 

For the time being I’m done with SCA stuff and BAM prep; the event is in a week and a half, and I’m working on redecorating my bedroom at the moment (sewing pillows and crocheting a throw blanket).  

More when I get back from the event - see you soon. 

SCA: Do Not Open Until September

 Something else that happened at KAS over the weekend: I gave a good friend of mine a birthday present: 

This is a Skjoldehamn style hood, made of linen, machine-sewn, with a thin tablet-woven band around the hood opening and bottom edge. 

My friend Ivar saw my blue and brown hood last fall and expressed a wish to have a similar one, so I made this blue and red one for him in June, and I’ve been dying to tell you about it ever since - but it was a surprise, so I couldn’t say anything yet. I haaaate keeping susprises a secret! 

Here’s a closer shot of the trim; it’s 
the Oseberg 12L1 pattern again

I’m just pleased that he loved it. More than that, the look on his face when he realized that I was giving him a birthday present was priceless.  Ha! 

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So there are TONS of events coming up in the next couple of months, and I’m working my butt off on new things, and I hope I’ll have lots of photos from the events for you. More soon! 

SCA: Ansteorra Kingdom A&S 2024

WHEW, Kingdom A&S is finally over.  I’ve been preparing my entry for the competition off and on all summer, and I was soooo nervous about going. But it went well, and I’m glad that I went. This was my first KAS in ten years, and only my second one ever! 

I entered a couple of tablet-woven bands, of course. I spent the summer researching two designs and then learning to do the one that was new to me, then doing test weaves and finally creating each one over and over again until I was happy with how they came out. 

The first band (top) is the Oseberg “narrow band” (12L1, Oseberg ship burial, 9th century), done in wool crewel thread. The original was made of silk, but silk is a little out of my budget, so I used wool since it’s a historically accurate alternative.  

The second band (bottom) is a pattern from Gaigovo Barrow no. 1 (Russia, 9th century), also done in wool, like the original band.  While the Oseberg band was easy to do, this one was a bit tricky: it’s a split deck pattern, which I’d never done before, and with the way the wool kept sticking together, it was kind of a huge pain in the butt.

And here’s a pic of my display on the table at the event, with all the largesse people left on the table for me: 

I have absolutely no idea how I actually scored - somehow I managed to make it home without my scoring sheets, and I have no idea how to get copies of them. But that’s okay: this competition, for me, was about stretching my boundaries and putting my art out there, and I feel great about having achieved both. I also got to sit down with both of my judges and my shadow judge, and talk about my entry and about weaving in general, and overall it was a very positive and encouraging experience. 

There was also music and dancing, catching up with old friends, and making new friends; and the whole day was just so much fun.  I’m really glad I went, and I’ll definitely do it again next year.  

SCA: Experiments In “Viking Wire Knitting”

 I learned a new thing! “Viking wire knitting” or “wire weaving” is a method of making chain out of thin metal wire that goes back to at least the 5th century as far as I’ve been able to figure out. It’s been hard to find real documentable research on the craft online; apparently it’s also called “trichinopoly” chain and there are examples of it from the 5-8th century in the British Museum as well as from the Spillings Hoard from Sweden. 

My first wire chain, made of 28ga silver coated brass wire. 

I made a piece long enough to get a bracelet and necklace out of, and finished them off with random bits from my jewelry making stash - the cone ends on the necklace are too big for the chain, but they’ll do for the time being. 

The chain is made by looping the wire around a wooden dowel, and then drawing the finished result through a draw plate, which I made out of a piece of scrap wood, until it’s the right diameter. I think I could have gotten mine thinner, but I was worried about breaking the flimsy brass wire. 

Mr. Darcy apparently thought we were making a cat toy. 

Hooray for learning new fun skills! I now have a silver bracelet and necklace to wear with my kit; and I can’t wait to try this again and try out different methods of looping the wire. My chain is a single knit, but you can do double or triple knit, and there are all kinds of colors and types of wire to play with. 

SCA: Wire Bead Separators

Here’s a silly little thing I did last night: wire bead hangers for my Viking “festoon” necklace strands (I hate the word festoon, but that’s what everybody calls it).  I was shopping for bead/necklace separators on Etsy, and then I thought…I bet I could make something for free. 

I wanted to be able to wear my strands singly or layered, depending on what I’m wearing, so I re-strung each strand and attach each end to a little metal ring. Each strand can now be hung on the wire hangers, one at a time, or in pairs or all three at once. 

I don’t know what kind of wire this is; I’ve had it in my jewerly kit forever. It’s flexible, but strong enough to hold up to the weight of all the beads, so that works. 

they’re not evenly matched, but that won’t show
once it’s all put together 

SCA: The Hand-Sewn Viking Project, Part II

The second part of my hand sewn Viking outfit project is the smokkr, or apron dress: 

I searched high and low for the right wool, learned a lot about fabrics I almost never use - and then I learned that it was going to be prohibitively expensive to use the wool I wanted for this dress.  So I ended up using a wool "stuff" fabric I had in my stash instead: it's a lightweight diagonal twill, and very smooth, almost like a suiting but not as slick or thin.  On the suggestion of a friend, I ran it through my washer and dryer a couple of times to felt the fabric a bit, which made it thicker and softer, and got rid of the little bit of sheen it started out with.  It’s not perfect, but it’s just fine for this project, which is basically a test-run for a more serious version of this dress that I might make next year. 

Anyway, the pattern for this  dress is the basic three-panel-and-three-gore pattern that the entire SCA uses, which, as near as I can tell, the pattern we use was designed by Carolyn Priest-Dorman (SCA name M. Thora Sharptooth, East Kingdom) in 1993 as a 9th-century Danish apron dress.  FWIU the pattern is based on a combination of viking artwork and on archeologists’ renderings of proposed designs for the garment which were based on grave evidence. 

I went a step further and created a pleated front for this dress, in the style of pieces found at sites like Køstrup and Kaupang.   The exact method the original owners of these garments used to pleat the fabric is not known; I had never pleated anything before so I used the simplest method I found, which was to baste the fabric, draw it together, and then whipstitch over the pleats to hold them in place.  It’s a little uneven, but I think not bad for a first try. 

I finished the top of the dress in two ways. Firstly, because I forgot to hem the top of the dress before I pleated the front, I ended up using a binding strip made of herringbone linen scraps that I had in my stash, which I dyed green.  I then applied a thin tablet woven band to the top edge of the dress between the two brooch loops over the bust. There is evidently some confusion over exactly how this was accomplished on the original Køstrup dress; the band was either suspended between the loops or it was attached to a vegetable diver fabric backing which has since rotted away leaving only the wool band in place. I opted to attach my band to the loops at the top, and whip stitched it to the top edge to help keep it in place. The band itself is cotton and was woven specifically for this project. 

For the shoulder straps and front loops, I used the same fabric as the body of the dress to create a thin double-folded tube, whipstitched closed on the side, following Inga Hagg's sketches of the loops found within the tortoise brooches at Birka: 

Hagg, 1974

I used period stitching methods on this whole dress, like I did for my serk. I used a backstitch for the primary construction seams, a running stitch to attach the linen binding at the top, flat-felled the seams and whip-stitched them in place, and then folded the lower hem and stitched it in place with a herringbone stitch (Inga Hagg's "Osenstitch"): 

Hagg, 1984

This dress has its problems, to be sure. I deviated from my inspiration pieces in areas like fabric choice, and in the use of an edge binding at the top. This was my first time hand sewing an apron dress, hand sewing on wool, and creating pleats/smocking.  Overall, though, I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out, and I can’t wait to wear it with my new serk when the weather cools off a bit! The whole dress took approximately 21 hours to make, including the weaving. 

Whew! Next project! 

SCA: The Hand Sewn Viking Project, Part I

For the last couple of years, I've been paying special attention to finishing my machine-sewn garments by hand as much as I can.  Usually I do the long construction seams on the machine, and then hem everything by hand; and I've made several small things - hats, bags, etc.- completely by hand, for the practice. 

Now it's time to level up, and try sewing an entire outfit by hand for the first time. This will eventually be a complete (female) Norse outfit (generally 9-10th century); for now, I'm starting with the serk, or underdress. 

lower hem meets side seam

The fabric for this serk is 100% linen (very light weight, 3oz), and the thread I used is 80/3 linen in a color as close to matching as I could find. The fabric is near-white, bleached linen.  For accuracy, my linen could have been left natural (unbleached and undyed), but I'll be honest with you, I look awful in the beiges and pale taupe shades of natural linen - those tones make my skin look green. There is some evidence of dyed linen serks, but not just a whole lot of it, so I wanted to steer away from using dyed linen for this project. That left me with bleached linen, which is a historically correct option, albeit one that might not have been worn by *everybody*.  Most people would probably have used undyed, unbleached linen (in cases where they used linen at all, but that's a whole different discussion).   

The pattern for this serk  is a basic tunic such as the ones found in Greelqnd and the UK: a rectangular front and back, rectangular sleeves, square armpit gussets, and triangular side gores to widen the skirt.  The neckline is a wide round one, with a deep keyhole slit in the front.  I made the sleeves a bit longer and wider than I usually do so that I could roll them up when I needed to. 

I used period stitches throughout the garment.  I used a backstitch on the long seams for strength and stability, and then flat-felled each seam with a whip stitch.  The hems were folded twice and then secured with a herringbone stitch:  

Inga Hagg's "Osenstitch" (1984) 

I pre-washed my linen fabric in hot water to shrink the fibers and soften them; after I was done sewing the serk I washed it again to shrink the thread and tighten up the seams.  I like add a little bit of cheap, sulfate-free hair conditioner to my washing machine when I wash linen, which makes the fabric SUPER soft and comfy.  

Overall, I'm pleased with how this sewing project turned out.  It didn't take me as long as I'd feared it would to sew this entire garment by hand - about 14 hours (spread over about three months).  The thing that took the most time to was the sleeve under seams and armpit gussets, because I put them on inside-out the first time and had to take it all apart and redo it. 

here, have a neckline instead

I do feel like my hand sewing improved on this project.  It was easier than I thought it would be, and like I said, it was faster, too.  By the time I finished this I was ripping through the sewing like it was nothing, and my stitches got smaller and more even the more I worked. My one complaint is about the thread: my waxed linen thread felt like sewing with dental floss, and I hated the feel of it. I think next time I do this I’ll order a finer thread.   

The next phase will be to create a new smokkr (apron dress) to go with this underdress. But that’ll be it’s own post. 

Regency: Blue Floral Wrap Dress

My latest Regency creation: 

This is a wrap-front dress made from LM’s (#129) Spencer pattern, to which I added rectangular skirt panels like I did for my velveteen pelisse last year. I also widened the neckline a bit, and shortened the sleeves to 3/4 length. The fronts close with cotton twill tape ties, which are hidden by the white sash wrapped around the waistline. 

The fabric is from a set of cotton sheets I had in my stash. The floral pattern isn’t 100% period, but it’s close enough, I think. The lace itself is polyester, found on Etsy and trimmed to make the design work for this neckline. 

The dress took me just a couple of afternoons in late July to put together, but I had to wait for the lace to arrive in the mail, which took two weeks, so I just finished it today. 

I added a little button placket to the back, just so the back wouldn’t be totally plain. Nom-functional, but cute! 

This was originally inspired by this dress of Elinor Dashwood’s in Sense & Sensibility 

Other inspirations include: 

From Galleries of Fashion, 1796

Henri-Pierre Danloux, unsure of the date

unknown fashion plate

This project was a nice breath of fresh air in the midst of what has been an absolutely insane summer for me - I’ve been working my butt off in just about every possible way. SCA event season starts up in a month, and I still have a lot of preparation to do for all of that - I really needed a break to work on something utterly frivolous to rest my mind a bit. I love this dress! 

Final note: the newly-refitted dressmaker’s dummy was fantastic to use for this project. I was able to size and drape and fit this dress wholly on the mannequin, and it fits *perfectly*.  Granted, this was a very simple pattern, but it was a good test run for the “new” dummy and I’m very pleased with how it went. 

Regency: WTF??

 I found this fashion plate on Pinterest today: 

It linked back to a Flickr photo album labeled “1807”, but there was no other information about this plate, and an image search on this picture turns up exactly nothing. 

I mean…are those patch pockets?!? What?! More information, please! I’ve never seen such a thing on a regency dress before! 

The Right Tool For the Job: Modding My Dressmaker's Dummy

This week I modified my dressmaker’s dummy to be a more accurate fit for me. It was incorrectly sized; and also the bright teal color clashed with everything I put on it and made my photos look crappy. 

First I adjusted the shape of the whole thing: I cranked the dials down until the waist and underbust measurement were correct; and then I added bits of foam (from a thin foam mattress topper I had in storage) to bump out the boobs, belly, butt, and shoulders - all secured with spray adhesive and duct tape. 

Next, I wrapped the whole thing in quilt batting (which I got for free from the neighborhood swap group this week), in order to smooth out the whole thing and cover up the duct tape. The batting is secured with spray adhesive. 

The last step was to create a cloth cover for it, which I made from some old cotton sheets I had in my stash. I pinned it in place, sewed it, and flipped it inside out, just like making a quick furniture slipcover. 

There’s a zipper up one side of the body so that I can take the cover off to wash it or resize it; and the bottom is drawn tightly closed around the pole with a drawstring. 

Tada!  I love this. I can pin into it, iron on it, and now that it’s actually the correct shape and proportions it’ll be MUCH easier to drape and fit clothing and costumes on it. Also, the soft gray will look much better in photos. 

This was a fun, quick project (two afternoons), and except for the can of spray adhesive I had to buy ($12), it was almost completely free. 

The Summer Lull

 I haven't posted much lately, have I?  I really haven't been doing anything blog-related.  I'm between projects in every area of my crafty life, and have been focusing on other things instead - like refinishing a couple of tables in my house, cleaning up the yard in preparation for bulk brush pickup day in a couple of weeks, and shuffling around some of the artwork that hangs in my house to freshen things up around there.  

I have also done a little bit of SCA-related stuff lately, but nothing major - just some small mending and repairs to old costumes, and some cleanup and reorganization of my costume closet and my camping gear.  I did also get a new air mattress and a new fancy rechargeable air pump for camping, and I'm going to be replacing my old camp chair next week. 

I do also have some new costumey/crafty projects coming up in the next few weeks that I'll post about: 

• I'm still working on a hand-sewn Viking serk that I started in like May and haven't been working on like at all this summer (oops)
• There are a few new weaving projects I'll be posting about once I get them done, which is dependent on when my new thread arrives in the mail
• There may or may not be a new Regency dress in the works.  In fact, there might be TWO of them, I'm just not sure yet 
• I did make a birthday present (piece of garb) for a friend recently, which I've been dying to show you, but I have to wait until I actually give it to said friend before I post about it 

Just in case anyone actually cares, here's what's been taking up the bulk of my time this summer: 

I got this corner table for free from someone's curbside trash in 2017, and I JUST got around to stripping the paint off it and refinishing it so I could use it.  Whew!  It took me about a month's worth of actual working time to get all that paint off (three badly-applied coats of paint plus a primer coat that had soaked deeply into the wood). 

It lives in my bedroom now, and so far, I haven't piled any laundry on it. 

This little side table/stand is an actual antique, given to me by a friend several years ago, and she believes it's from the early 1900s, possibly the late 1800s (I honestly have no idea; there's a maker's signature underneath it but I couldn't make it out in order to look it up).  

The finish was badly damaged, but the structure was completely sound, so all I did was strip it and re-stain it.  This one took me about two days to do from start to finish.  After working on that corner table for so long, this was a nice, easy, fast project, and really fun. It lives in my living room.  

Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of weeks when I have some actual sewing/weaving projects to talk about.  

SCA: Some New Additions to the Iron Age Peplos Outfit

Some updates to the new peplos outfit: 

• I overdyed the brown peplos to darken the color. It’s subtle, but I like it a lot better 
• I created some new jewelry to wear with it 
• I wove a new belt 

The jewelry is two parts: an amber and carnelian necklace I made from stash parts and a broken amber necklace; and 

A string of bronze colored chains to suspend between the shoulder brooches. They’re the wrong kind of chain, but it’s a good place to start! 

I finished the belt this morning, and I’m in love with it. It’s 8/2 cotton in blue, gold, and navy, with wrapped and braided ends. 

It also just happens to be in my household colors, which I didn’t realize until I was nearly done. Happy accident! :)