SCA: Green Norse Tunic Dress

I finally finished my big Norse clothing project, with the completion of this green wool tunic dress.  The fabric is a lightweight (6oz) plain weave wool; the blue trim at the neck and sleeve cuffs is silk from sari scraps bought from Etsy; the entire thing is hand sewn with silk thread. 

I backstitched all the seams with the tiniest stitches I could manage, including on these side gores. 

Armpit gussets which I didn’t mitre for some reason? I don’t know why I did this thing with the corner squares, but it’s done and that’s that. I hate armpit gussets SO MUCH, but I LOVE flat-felling seams. Is that weird? 

This dress is meant to go underneath the blue diamond wool smokkr that I posted about in May. The entire outfit is all hand stitched and as historically accurate as I could make it with the knowledge that I currently possess.  This whole outfit will go into Kingdom Arts & Sciences in September…as soon as I finish writing my documentation! 

Here’s a sneak preview of the entire outfit: 

Tada! 

I started a “side quest” project while I was waiting for the blue silk to come in the mail. Then I had to stop THAT project and wait for the mail, so I got a couple of other little things done in the meantime.  Show you soon! 

SCA: Event Update and Blue Wool Norse Dress

 Last weekend was Bjornsborg’s spring event, this one Roman-themed. It was really something - all the pavilions and activity areas were arranged in a huge circle, with the lyst fields in the center, like a coliseum. Vendors sold street snacks all around the coliseum (paid for with wooden tokens you received at the gate), everything was draped in flowers and brightly-colored fabrics, and everyone was dressed in their best Roman garb. There was even a refreshment station with a PICKLE FOUNTAIN of all things, LOL. It was really cool. 

I spent the weekend in the outdoor kitchen, helping my friends prepare the street vendor snacks, luncheon, and evening feast. It was a LOT of work, and I missed some of the activities because of it, but it was SO much fun. I was a wreck by Saturday night, but it was worth it - especially since the kitchen had a great view of court in the evening, and of the best Laurel elevation ceremony that I’ve ever seen. 

I didn’t win the A&S competition this time, but my  friend Chris won it, and I am SO proud of him!  My entry was a blue wool Norse dress that I’d been working on since March: 

That’s my documentation hanging from one of the brooches on the right; and a little linen stitch sampler booklet on the left. The entire outfit is hand-sewn; the sampler booklet was so that people could inspect the stitches I used on the clothing. 

The fabric is a “broken diamond” weave wool (mid weight, about 10oz) that I ordered from a shop online. The green silk trim fabric is from a grab bag of sari scrap “ribbon”. The Oseberg-style trim is woven with silk weaving thread, and the Hedeby braid on the seams is made with the same stuff. 

The underdress is the same one I showed at Candlemas; linen with linen thread, also hand sewn.  

This is me weaving the Hedeby braid, pinned to my couch. I have to say, although I love the finished look, I HATE weaving this stuff. It’s so tedious, and it took me four freaking hours to braid two yards of this stuff. Probably never doing this again (which I also said the last time I did it, hehe).  

Anyway, the outfit did quite well, and I got a lot of nice compliments on it. But then at court, something happened which I wasn’t expecting at all: 

I got an Iris! (That’s Ansteorra’s grant-level arts and sciences award).  I was BLOWN. AWAY.  Apparently this was given in March, but I wasn't at the event then, so they gave it to me this weekend. What! I’m still kind of in shock. I’m so grateful to everyone who made this happen. I got to read the award recommendations that were submitted, and people said such lovely things. ♥️ 

Anyway, the event was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I’m proud of my work, and proud of my friend, and so happy to have been able to attend. 

The next event is Steppes’ Warlord at the end of this month. At that event I will also be cooking, though not nearly as much; and I’m not entering A&S at Warlord. Except for the two breakfasts I’m helping with, it’ll be a nice break from working. 

Between now and then, I have some Regency stuff I’m working on, so stay tuned! 

SCA: Laurels’ Prize Tourney

This weekend was Laurels’ Prize Tourney. It is not a tournament, nor is there any prize - that’s just what it’s called. What it is is a chance to show off your work and sit down with laurels and with other artisans who are interested in the same things and talk about it together. It’s a huge geek fest, and the time I went several years ago was SO much fun. 

This weekend’s event was no different. I met so many new people, and had so much fun talking about stuff I love to do, and about so much more. I learned new things, found new rabbit-holes to head down when I get some free time, and a new appreciation for where I’m at in my work and how far I have yet to go. 

I brought what I’m calling my “Vikings Are Still Cool” display - a little bit of some of the things I do which are Norse-garb-related.  I brought my red hand-sewn dress from Candlemas, the Oseberg loom that I built last year, a whole bunch of tablet weaving stuff, some of the Hedeby bags I love to make, some other sewing items, and some of the jewelry and glass beads that I’ve made. 

Some friends and I drove up together and rented an AirBNB for the weekend, rather than paying for a more expensive hotel room to share.  It was a great little house - I’d never been to an AirBNB before, so it was a new experience for me. 

What’s Next? 

The next SCA event for me is going to be Gulf Wars in March - a weeklong war between two kingdoms, hosted by a third kingdom and attended by several. 

Before then I’ve got to make myself a new serk and a new male tunic; and I’ve got to get started on my A&S project for Bjornsborg in April, as well. And I’ve taken on a weaving commission that I hope to have done in a couple of weeks, too. 

I also have a new regency dress that I’m hoping to get done somewhere in there - it’s high time I had a black mourning gown, I think. 

Lots of things! More on all that soon. 

SCA: Candlemas 2025

 Bryn Gwlad’s Candlemas was yesterday. It was lots of fun - my back and my legs were hurting pretty much all day, so mostly I stayed sitting; but I took a really cool cooking class, watched the costume contest (which was hilarious and really fun), and I got to catch up with so many people I hadn’t seen in forever, which was awesome  

You know what else is awesome? I won the arts & sciences championship with my red and white Norse outfit! I’m SO stoked! This is my first real competition win (I’ve won a couple of largesse competitions before, but never a “real” one).  I completely forgot to take a picture of my display at the event, but here it is on my sewing table at home, all laid out the way I did it at Candlemas. 

Here’s my scroll and medallion - they’re both super cool. I need to get a frame for the scroll, as none of the spare frames I have are big enough for it (and it’s real parchment, so I don’t want to trim it down). 

I got a lot of great feedback from the judges, the baron and baroness, and from friends, on both my outfit and my documentation.  I’m proud of my work, and I can’t WAIT to get started on my next project! 

Today I’m washing all the laundry from the event; and I’m getting ready to start seriously prepping for next weekend, which is LPT.  I have all the pieces together, I just need to do a test run of my display at home, and start packing everything up for next weekend. 

After that…I’d been planning on entering the A&S at Bjornsborg in April - but now I’m seriously considering going to Gulf Wars in March, as well. I’m not sure if I will, it’s a BIG undertaking, but maybe. Lots to prepare for! 

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: Oseberg Loom, Take II

After showing my Oseberg loom at the A&S competition at Bjornsborg in February and getting some really great feedback on the project, I decided to enter it again at the Hellsgate Commanders' Crucible event in March, after making some changes to the project based on the feedback I received: 

• I made some changes to the documentation - mostly formatting stuff, but also some changes to the writing to make it flow better, and I included some new information that I've learned since I started the project
• Someone at Bjornsborg in February showed me a new way to warp up this loom which solves almost all of the problems I had had with weaving on the loom on my first try

Initially I had warped up the loom the way you would warp up an inkle loom, with the warp thread ends tied to themselves, forming a big loop that wraps around the whole loom.  This limits the length of the weaving, and, I found, makes it so that the tension becomes too tight to continue weaving about halfway through, since the loom has no tensioner apparatus the way an inkle loom does.  

Instead, according to the input I got from a laurel who talked to me about it at length, I've warped it more like you would do with a backstrap loom, with a long warp which is lashed to the loom frame with a strip of leather thong which can easily be moved when you need to advance the warp or adjust the tension.  This way makes it easier to weave, easier to adjust the weaving, and removes all limits to the length of the weave - you can literally weave as long a thing as you want this way, woohoo! 

Also, since now it's so easy to remove the weaving project from the loom and put it back on again with the leather thongs, you can remove the weaving, take the loom apart to pack flat for transport, and then just put the weaving back on the loom when you get where you're going. My Oseberg loom is small enough to fit in my car fully assembled, so it's not an issue for me right now; but if I ever build a full-sized model of this loom I'll definitely need to take it apart to take it to an event. 

Something else new this time around is the thread I'm weaving with.  I'm using a 2-ply wool thread in three shades of indigo blue  - I've never woven with wool fiber before, and the feel of it is quite interesting. The band I'm weaving is coming out very nicely, but the fiber is really fuzzy and sticks to itself a LOT, which is making weaving slow and kind of a pain in the ass.  

The pattern on the loom right now is the "Oseberg narrow band" (the design with the rhomboids/diamonds on one side and the squared-off zigzag on the back (band 12L1, Nockert 2006). It's a 10-card pattern, and the finished width is only about 1/4" (the warp is four yards, so I'll get three-and-some when it's finished).  I'm not sure yet what I'll do with this piece when it's done. 

Here's my display from Hellsgate.  The wind was wreaking all sorts of havoc with the tablcloth, and knocking the loom and the spools of thread all over the place, but it mostly looked nice.  I got a ton of great feedback on the projects from lots of people, and once again I got the opportunity to sit down with a couple of laurels and really discuss the project in-depth, which was a LOT of fun.  I get super nervous when talking to judges about my work, but I'm getting better at handling it without falling all over myself and coming apart at the mental seams afterwards, hehe.  

So what's next for this project?  Honestly, I don't know.  I think I've done all I can do with this little prototype Oseberg loom - I think the next step for me, if I want to continue in the weaving vein*, is to either switch my focus to the weaving itself, or to go bigger and build a full-sized Oseberg loom to work on and display at the next A&S event (it was suggested to me by two people that this would be a fantastic project for Kingdom A&S in September, but yikes, that's high-stakes!)  

*And of course, I DO want to continue to weave - I love weaving.  But I also have a new Viking outfit I want to get to work on which will be as near to "completely" historically accurate as I can make it, all hand-sewn, hand-dyed, etc.  I've been planning that project with the idea in mind that I would take it to LPT next year; but I could just as easily do both the sewing project and the big loom if I wanted to.  Right now, I just don't know.  

Right now, I'm very happy with the way the last two competitions have gone; and I'm excited about moving forward - but I'm also ready to take a break and work on something else for a minute.  Steppes' Warlord is coming up, and it's going to be HOT, so I'm working on a new Roman outfit that I have to finish in the next couple of weeks, so that's what I'll be doing with  my April.  Show you when it's done.  :) 

Stuff and Things

 I'm still alive, just haven't posted in a couple of weeks.  I'm in the middle of several projects right now that I'll be posting about very soon;  for right now, though, I may be off and on with posting for the next little while, because I'm dealing with a family medical situation that's taking up a lot of my time and mental energy.  

Coming soon, though: 

1.   More tablet weaving, including a new way of warping up the Oseberg loom, new wool thread to weave with, and the next A&S competition

2.  A new Roman outfit for the upcoming hot weather

3.  A new Viking outfit, which I'm sewing completely by hand for the first time

4. Maaaybe a new Regency dress.  I have a set of sheets that I don't need anymore that may become a blue-and-white dress; I also have my eye on some black cotton voile which really wants to be a mourning dress.  Not sure yet where I'll go with that (and I have to get through Hellsgate at the end of March and Warlord at the end of April first, before I start new Regency stuff!) 

SCA: Oseberg Loom: An Experiment

What Is It?

Photo from the Oseberg Textile book (Nockert 2006, p. 144).

The Oseberg loom is a wooden loom found in the Oseberg ship burial (Tonsberg, Norway, excavated in 1905, dating from the 9th century).  It was partially destroyed by the weight of the ground above it, but a  woven band and weaving tablets were still attached to it.  The loom consisted of a base, two upright sides, and a crossbeam in the center for support; the whole thing measured about 2 meters wide by about a meter high and is made of beech wood.  

I've found LOTS of information online about the woven bands that were found at Oseberg; but very little information about the loom itself - mostly what I've found are people's recreations of the loom in various sizes (which I found very helpful for construction ideas, but not documentable research). 

 

How I Built It

I decided in late January that I wanted to build myself a smallish version of the Oseberg loom as an experiment -  just to see if I could do it, and to see how weaving on an actual period loom would be (I normally use an inkle loom, which was invented in I believe the 1700s). 

 I used only scrap wood I had laying around in my shop for this, because I wanted to get this done on the cheap.  The original Oseberg ship burial loom is made of birch; mine is made of pine 1x2" furring strips. Each piece that I had on hand was about 3.5' long, which was the perfect size for this project. 

(ignore the table legs, that's a different project)

My loom is approximately 3' wide and about 18" high.  It's a little big for a "tabletop"loom - but I planned to use this on my low coffee table in my living room at home, and it's exactly the right size and height to work with there while sitting on the couch.  

The uprights are pegged into the holes in the base with dowels that are glued into the uprights, but can be removed from the base. The crossbar in the middle of the loom is also pegged in place in the same way - glued in the crossbar but not into the sides.  The whole thing breaks down into 3 sticks and the base/foot piece for travel and storage. 

The base is also made of a 1x2" furring strip, with crossbars attached to the ends to stabilize the loom and stand it up.  The crossbars are pegged in place permanently.  

How the Heck Do You Warp This Thing??

Honestly, I went into this with zero idea how to warp this loom.  I'd seen pictures of recreations of this loom with weaving already on them, but never found any description of how it was accomplished, so I just decided to wing it and see how it worked.  After all, this IS an experiment, right?  

welcome to my dining room

I'd seen two ways of warping this loom online: one, where the length of the thread is wrapped around the post and the finished part of the woven band was wrapped around the other post, with the weaving happening in between;  or two, where the length of the thread was wrapped around the whole loom from one post to the other, and tied together like you would do on an inkle loom.  I decided to try the second method: 

Weaving on this loom is…interesting. I had intended to use this loom on my coffee table, sitting next to it, but I have to twist my back so much to weave that it hurts me (I have a bad back).  The next thing I tried was putting it on my dining table and standing next to it, which worked great - except that the loom is so lightweight that it walks around while I’m trying to weave, so I had to clamp it to the table top to get it to stay still. Once I did that, though, weaving was super easy, and fast.  

Advancing the warp is easy enough: I achieved proper tension by tying the lower warp to the crossbar, so to move the weaving I just untied it, shifted the warp around, and then re-tied it. 

The A&S Display

This project was intended from the beginning to be an A&S entry at the Bjornsborg "Battle of the Beasts" event this past weekend.  Here's what my display ended up looking like: 

The entry consists of the loom with weaving in progress already on it that I could demo for people who wanted to see it in action (of which there were actually quite a few!), my documentation, a page of photos showing the process of building the loom and some related things (patterns, examples of woven goods), a couple of woven pieces to show what you can do with a loom like this, some threads I've used to weave with, and some tools like shuttles, cards, and period-replica scissors.  

I warped up my inkle loom with a new project before I went to the event, and sat nearby and sewed for most of the day so that I would (a) have something to occupy me at the event since I wasn't doing anything else (I didn't have any "jobs" this time around and I don't fight or compete in any of the other activities that were going on) and (b) so that I would be available to answer questions and demo the Oseberg loom for people, which was a lot of fun. 

I got a lot of really great feedback on my project and my documentation.  I didn't win, but I'm told I was one of the finalists, which pleases me.  The best part, though, was that I got to sit down and chat with a couple of my favorite Laurels about the project and about weaving in general, and I have lots of great ideas for warping up the Oseberg loom and some adjustments to my documentation which will make it even better for the next time I enter this project (which might be in March, not sure yet).  I'm excited about trying out a new method of warping this loom - I need to finish the weave that's on it now and figure out what pattern and colors to use for the next round.  

More about this project in the next couple of weeks, I hope!  

SCA: Bjornsborg Spring Event

Bjornsborg's spring event "The Battle of the Beasts" was this past weekend.  I had SO much fun!  It was a theme event, inspired by Aesop's fables, so we had lots of animal-themed activities and animal-inspired clothing going around (including some kids in animal onesies, which was adorable).  

I'm a nut for ravens and crows, so I brought some of that into my clothing with some dark colors which I never get to wear (because the black dress isn't really period),  and I wore some black feathers on my dress and in my hair - and of course, all my raven jewelry bits and accessories: 

A&S

I entered two A&S competitions at the event.  One was the largesse competition, for which I donated some of my woven bands that I made in December/January for the A&S event at Candlemas that never happened.  Turns out, there were only two entrants - me and the person running the derby, so we kind of both won.  

The other was the Bjornsborg A&S Championship, into which I entered an Oseberg loom that I made a couple of weeks ago.  I'll have a full post on that up very soon; but for now, here's a pic of the entry: 

I didn't win or anything, but I got a LOT of really positive feedback on my project and my documentation; and I got to sit down with two of my favorite Laurels to discuss the project, and tablet-weaving in general.  It was a very positive experience, and I have some great tips to work into my documentation and my project for the next time I enter this project  (which might be next month, I'm not sure yet).  

What's Next? 

I'll have the post about the Oseberg loom project up tomorrow, and some stuff about weaving in general as well. 

I'm currently working on some alterations to my Oseberg project, a new Hedeby bag, and a Roman outfit for the upcoming hot weather, which I'll post about soon.  I also expect to have a new tent in the next couple of months, and so I may be doing a post about my campsite soon as well.  

SCA: Just Some Viking Stuff

In addition to spending two months whomping up a new Italian outfit for Candlemas, which was this past weekend, I also, in that space of time, made a TON of largesse items for a largesse competition that was supposed to be held at the event. 

I started working just before Thanksgiving, and finished about the middle of January; and I made the following items: 

thirteen Hedeby bags

1.  Hedeby bags!  

I love making these things, and I had plenty of supplies on hand, so I went for it. The handles are a simple, curvy Hedeby-style similar to the ones I usually make (based on the handles found at Hedeby and Birka), and they are made from 1/4" red oak flooring pieces that someone gave to me a few years ago. The handles were cut on my table saw and shaped with a hacksaw and electric sander; then stained with a walnut Minwax stain.  It took me about a week to produce all thirteen pairs of handles.  

The bags are hand sewn out of linen, because I had a lot of linen scraps on hand that were perfectly sized for this project. Some are lined, some are not, depending on the weight of the linen used. Each bag has a hand-stitched trim in a braided/herringbone stitch, examples of which were found on an apron dress fragment from Hedeby and on a hat from Denmark; some are bands across the front of the bag, some are stitched around the top edge, and some are covering the side seams. The handles are sewn onto the bag with matching thread (cotton embroidery floss).  Each bag, from sewing to decorating to handle attachment, took me about three hours.  

The bags's carrying straps are a combination of flat card-woven bands, and tubular card-woven cord bands made after a method I found described in this paper by L. Elena Hylton.  You use 4-6 cards with 4 holes threaded, and pass the weft thread/shuttle through one side of the warp only, looping under the warp to get back to the first side (instead of going right-to-left and then left-to-right as you do in "regular" card weaving).  This causes the weave to pull itself into a hollow round tube when you pull the weft tight, instead of creating a flat band. This method of weaving tubular cording is documentable to as early as the 1100s, according to Elena's research. I used 6 cards for my tubular straps, after I found 4 to make a square-profile band and I really wanted a rounder profile.  I also found that it's harder to weave this tubular band after switching the card's direction in order to untwist the threads - for some reason it just works better going "fowards" than going "backwards".  I'll have to practice it more. 

tubular strap

thirteen woven bands

2.  Tablet-woven trim

Something else I really, really enjoy doing.  I had a number of spools of cotton crochet thread on hand from another project, and so I used up my excess on thirteen 1.5-2 yard pieces of trim.  

There are five different designs, each very simple and no more than 10 cards each, and all are either period designs or based on period designs. Each one took me about 3 hours to make from warping to finishing. 

3. Lampworked glass beads 

I hadn't made glass beads for several months (due to it being summer, and about 120ºF inside my garage where my glass workshop is set up), and I needed the practice badly. I'm not very good at doing this - I'm still VERY much a beginner, so my beads aren't, like, awesome or anything - but they'll make nice additions to someone's Viking kit, I'm hoping.  

I made thirteen sets of 8 beads.  All of them are about 8mm in size; some are round, some drum-shaped with flat sides, and some are kind of round/oval with little bumps or dots on them - there are 2 of these "fancy" beads in each set, and 6 plain ones.  It took me about a month to make all the beads, working in 20-minute sessions of about 7 beads per session (not all of which turned out right).  

 

Guess What? 

For some reason, the competition didn’t happen at the event. I don’t know why it got scrubbed - I KNOW I read a whole post about it on the event page two months ago, but no one knew anything about it when I got there and asked about where to set up. Shoot! All that work...!  Not "for nothing" - after all, I'm now prepared to enter the next largesse competition, whenever that happens.  

Meanwhile, I learned a lot, and got a lot of good practice with woodworking and weaving. And glass bead making, although I'm kind of burnt out on glass beads for the time being and probably won't be doing any of that any time soon.  We'll see.  

dry run of display at home

About A Bag

The Hedeby Bag that I made for the A&S table at the Quest for Valhalla event last weekend:

with documentation, whipcord spool, and sewing/embroidery samples

It went over pretty well.  And I REALLY love it, and can't wait to start using it. (We'll get to that in a minute).

The bag started with two ideas: (a) more embroidery practice, and (b) I wanted to try out a period seaming technique.  The embroidery is very simple, and uses only three stitches - chain, stem, and blanket (for the teeth on the green guy).

close up of the embroidery

The embroidery motif is an amalgam of time periods:  the stuff-inside-circles was inspired by an embroidered fragment from Oseberg (9th-10th century), but the faces inside my circles are from the Isle of Lewis Chessmen (12th century). Meanwhile, the bag itself, based on handles found at Hedeby and at Birka, is 11th century.  There's a little more leeway for "artistic license" and whimsy in some areas, and this was one of those; so this project is a bit all over the place, but the end result is still a Really Cool Thing. :)

The seam technique is one detailed by Mytte Fentz in her analysis of the shirt found at Viborg.  I really want to make a Viborg shirt for one of my clients (as soon as I can afford to buy the right fabric for it), but looking at the construction and piecing of the shirt, and at several recreations of it, I realize that although I could probably whomp out at least 60% of the shirt on the machine, it will be a much better piece if I sew it entirely by hand - and I've never made a garment entirely by hand.  There are three kinds of seams in the Viborg shirt.  Two of them are easy, but one I'd never seen before, and wanted to try out on something small, so I chose this bag.  I'm seriously impressed with the seam - it's really strong and flexible, which is exactly what you want in a garment that's going to see serious and regular wear.  (It's almost like the Vikings knew what they were doing, eh?)

Fentz's diagram of this particular type of seam.
Lining and outside, front and back, are all stitched
together at once, and the raw fabric edges are auto-
matically concealed between the lining and outside.

The seam edges are decorated by a "Viking whipcord" which I wove, and stitched on.  The documentability of whipcord is sketchy at best.  We have ample evidence of four-strand braids identical to what's produced by the SCA whipcording method, and several warp-weighted looms for weaving cloth, so we know they had the technology - but we've found no actual bobbins we can tie directly into the process of weaving whipcord.  So it's one of those "SCA-isms" that we accept because it's fun and also hey, maybe, right?  The strap of the bag is also a whipcord. 

Whipcording is meant to be a two-person activity; I usually
do it alone, with my cord suspended from a curtain rod in
a hallway doorway. 

Like.

The handles were pretty tricky, and nearly gave me a heart attack at one point.  I need glasses pretty badly, you guys - little details are starting to get away from me.  Little details like, oh, say, "Hey, this isn't solid wood, it's very thin plywood!"  which nearly cost me this entire project (mostly because I was so frustrated that at several points I nearly burned the entire thing and mailed the ashes to Sweden).

L-R:  tracing the design on my wood;  design cut out;  drilling holes for the slots where the bag would be attached

L-R:  shattered the wood while making the first slot, which is how I realized I had PLYWOOD. Argh.
Glueing the wood back together;  sanding it VERY VERY CAREFULLY.

Fortunately, it all worked out okay.  Once the handles were stained and then sewn to the bag, you couldn't even see where the break had occurred.

Yay!

I love the way this thing works.

Unfortunately, Friday night at the event (the competition was Saturday), I snapped one of the handles in half, right in the center.  I made a note on my documentation, and entered the bag anyway.  I'd already resigned myself to replacing the handles with thicker ones made of, you know, actual wood; but several people came to me at the event very excited about this opportunity to do some period, Viking-style repairs on the wood - because you wouldn't have simply thrown something away and replaced it back then, you'd fix it!  I'm kind of excited about the ideas I got; but I'm also on the fence about it.  The fact is, the wood is too thin for this application, and it's very flimsy.  I think I'll probably just replace them. I'm hoping I can scare up some nice pieces to use next week after payday.

Anyway, I freaking LOVE this bag, you guys.  And I'm really proud of it, warts and all. :)

Seriously. How can you not adore these
little guys?  <3

.

Event: Quest For Valhalla

The event in Bjornsborg this past weekend was *FANTASTIC*, as Bborg events usually are.  Really great (and sometimes hilarious) fighting scenarios, nifty arts & crafts activities, spectacular persona play within the theme of the event - and as always, good friends, great food, and wall-to-wall fun. Actually, make that AMAZING food.  That was seriously one of the best feasts I've ever had.

Even though we were supposed to get a good drop in temperature, it was still too warm to wear half the Viking stuff I've been making all year.  But I did manage to get a couple of pics of me in some of it:

Simona & me

I also finally managed to get a pic of Donnchad in the yellow Viking tunic I made for him last Fall, with the red embroidery on the front placket:

Tom Hiddleston made an appearance...well, sort of:

Since this is the near-Halloween event in Bjornsborg, they held another skull-bedazzling.  I won one of the judges' favorites spots again this year, with my Frida Khalo calavera:

For a little while, I was Odin:

Odin has a migraine. Leave Odin alone.

And finally, my A&S entry, a Hedeby-style bag, about which I'll say more later this week.  Suffice to say, for now, that I love it, everyone else loved it, I broke it Friday night before I had even entered it, but now it has a story and begins to take on a life of its own, so I'm cool with it.  For now, here's a shot of it on the A&S table:

(the pretty blue beads I'm wearing in the preceding
picture were given to me by the baroness as
largesse on my A&S entry )