SCA: Weaving Stuff - Birka 6

I've been doing a bit of tablet-weaving lately, mostly for practice, and to fill up my time since I don't have any big projects to work on at the moment. 

Birka 6, wool

I'm trying out a new wool yarn for weaving - Hobbii's "easy care merino", which is absolutely lovely to weave with:  it's smooth and even, and doesn't stick to itself the way some wool yarns do.  The pattern above is Birka 6, which I love to do, even though it's kind of slow.  I'll get faster at it the more I do it, though.  

I've also begun teaching tablet weaving, a little bit.  I spent a few hours last weekend semi-teaching weaving to a couple of friends of mine (not total newbies, but wanted some guidance) at the local library's "crafternoon", and it went really well.  I'm not really cut out for teaching in front of a class, but I really enjoy these little one-on-one sessions.  I have a couple more planned for the coming month, too.  

I've also been replacing the trim on an old smokkr.  I donated a bunch of my old Viking clothing to the local Gold Key a few weeks ago, and only kept  my five favorite pieces.  This is one of them, a favorite because of the color of the fabric ("blue bonnet" from Fabric-Store.com): 

The problem was, the trim on it was manufactured jacquard trim in a semi-Persian design that I purchased online a million years ago.  It was pretty, and I loved the blue and gold, but it wasn't accurate for the dress at all.  I took it off and replaced it with another blue-and-gold Birka 6, this time in cotton (cotton, because I wanted to be able to throw this thing in the washing machine).  

Somehow I managed to warp this one up backwards, and the pattern came out on the underside of the weave instead of the top, and the design is blue-on-gold instead of gold-on-blue. After much conversation with a weaving buddy, and a fantastic explanation by a kind soul on Reddit, it was determined that I wove too many picks at the beginning of the band which threw off my pick count which threw off the gold/blue rows by 2, and reversed the colors. Does that make sense? It barely makes sense to me, but I mostly get it. I need to spend some time playing with turning sequences to get a better feel for how this all works - I can follow a pattern, but I don’t know as much of the theory as I would like to. 

  

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Anyway, just a couple of little things to work on to fill my time, nothing big going on. "Event season" is just around the corner, starting with Kingdom A&S in September, about which I'm very excited and very nervous.  In the meantime I'll be weaving some more, doing more teaching, and playing around with Spring projects, which I'll show you as I go along.  

SCA: About Hrefna

I'm in the process of creating an SCA resume with the guidance of a Laurel friend of mine, and it occurred to me that I haven't done any sort of introductory thing on this blog in a pretty long time.  So here goes: 

ME

I am Honorable Lady Hrefna Hroksdottir, and I play a 9th-century Norsewoman in the SCA, in the barony of Bryn Gwlad in the kingdom of Ansteorra. I currently hold an Award of Arms (2011) Sable Thistle (an armigerous award for arts & sciences in Ansteorra, 2015) in costuming, as well as an Iris of Merit (grant level A&S award, 2025).    

BACKGROUND AND INTERESTS

I've been sewing since I was 9 years old when my mother first taught me, and I've been costuming since I was 18 when I was in Amtgard (Barony of Tori-Mar, Celestial Kingdom).  I very much enjoy all things sewing, especially hand sewing. I'm also an avid tablet weaver, and I do a bit of woodworking, jewelry making, and making glass beads.  

I dance when I can, and I try not to let people hear me sing although I love doing it and really enjoy the bardic circle when I can make it to one.  I also cook quite a bit, although that was sort of an unintentional side-hobby - I help out the Ansteorran Longship Association with their omelet breakfast fundraisers when I can, and I've helped my friend Cristiane make feasts for events on a few occasions, too.  

I don't teach formal classes at all, although I wish I could.  I actually love teaching, but I have some pretty serious anxiety issues which make the act of standing in front of a group of people and speaking to them impossible for me.  I do, however, really enjoy teaching one-on-one, and I've done that pretty frequently.  I'd much rather come to your house to teach you tablet weaving than stand up in front of a class full of people all staring at me.  

NAME AND HERALDRY

My name, Hrefna, means "raven" in Old Norse; my last name comes from the name Hrokr, meaning crow or rook - hence, I am Raven the Crow's Daughter.  That might sound a bit silly, but it spoke to me.  (I sort of have a thing for ravens - I have a pretty large raven tattoo, and I wear raven jewelry pretty much all the time).

My device, which was just approved earlier this year, is the second one I've held.  It looks like this: 

Per bend sinister azure and argent, a pomegranate slipped and leaved Or 

and a raven rising sable, a bordure counterchanged Or and azure

The pomegranate was a major feature on my old arms, which I had registered in 2011 when I joined the SCA.  Since I've shed my original (14th century English) persona, I decided this time around to keep the pomegranate as well as adding the raven for my new persona, as a way of honoring the "old me" and the new at the same time.  I chose the colors simply because I love blue and gold (my old device was black and white and red).  

HISTORY 

My history in the SCA is divided almost neatly in half.  I joined the SCA in 2011.  From 2011 - 2016 I focused mainly on 14th century clothing, and I enjoyed making new outfits to fit the theme of whichever event I was attending.  I did a lot of work on commission for friends, much of which is in this blog if you look back far enough. From 2016 - 2019 I took a long hiatus from the SCA in order to focus on my "real" life, which was kind of blowing up in my face at the time.  I returned in 2019 - right in time for the pandemic - and I've been focused on Viking/Norse ever since, and my sub-focus, I guess, is learning to make my clothing as historically accurate as possible (I shudder to look at some of my Viking attempts pre-2016, some of that stuff was so awful! Don't scroll back that far).  

WHAT'S NEXT? 

So where do I go from here?  I honestly don't know.  I spent many years keeping myself hidden as much as I could, and now I feel a bit invisible, although I know I'm not.  I love that I've been stepping out of my comfort zone a lot with A&S the last couple of years and I'd really like to keep building on that. Yes, I would like to be a Laurel one day, but that's going to be a long way off, I think.  I'm proud of my work, but I know I have a lot more work to do.    

I'm working on getting an Ansteorra Wiki page set up for myself - waiting to hear back from the people who do that, actually.  When it's published I'll add a link to the sidebar on this blog.  

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So that was a long text post, sorry about that!  Hope it was at least somewhat entertaining.  Back soon with more STUFF.  

SCA: Side Quest: Sprezzatura Viking Outfit

While I waited for the mail to bring me the final piece of my big hand sewing project, I started something on the side to keep me busy: 

So, in my SCA household, (La Compagnie della Sprezzatura), we each have a set of clothing in our preferred style in the company colors, with or without appliquéd device, that we all wear together on certain days. Lots of styles, but the same colors - it’s a neat effect. 

This is our company heraldry - I don’t know the correct heraldic terms for it, but it’s yellow and blue with a chalice and white (silver?) star floating above it.  I made a table runner after this device  in 2023: 

This outfit is mostly machine-sewn, which was kind of fun after all the hand sewing I’ve been doing the past several months.  I did hem both pieces by hand, and finished the neckline of the yellow dress and applied all of the trim pieces by hand.

The yellow dress was a lightweight “chambray” linen, meaning it had a yellow warp and a white weft. I overdyed the whole thing with yellow to cover up the white threads. It’s not exactly the shade of yellow I was hoping for, but I got this stuff on clearance for $12/yard, which is unreasonably cheap for 100% linen, so I’m happy with it as is I think. 

The blue dress is a medium-weight linen (about 9oz I guess?) which was given to me by a friend as a thank-you gift for helping them with a project. The teal trim on the top is scrap sari silk, and the zigzag tablet woven band is one I made last year and had in my stash (cotton crochet thread).  

I don’t plan on doing any appliqué on this outfit with the company heraldry - the colors are going to have to suffice.  I know a lot of people like to put big fancy appliqués on viking clothing, but it isn’t documentably period for this type of outfit — and neither is this vivid ultramarine blue or bright-ass yellow, I know, but we all pick our battles, LOL. 

So now I have a Sprezzatura outfit, hooray! I’m all set for our next “uniform” day, whenever that is (probably November). 

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: New Winter Cloak

I spent the past few days weaving my butt off. Needed something to do while I wait for fabric to come in the mail. 

I had a bunch of that diamond weave blue wool left over from my smokkr project; it wasn’t enough to make into a coat, so I decided to make it into a large rectangular cloak instead: 

The woven trim is pretty simple - in fact, it’s the first pattern I ever learned to weave, one of the Ladoga designs. I made ten yards of it in three sections, most of it on a “new” loom that someone gave to me recently. (More on that in another post).  

I’m pretty happy with this. It was a fast, fun project which will look great and keep me warm at BAM this year. 

My next post will probably be about more hand sewing, as I’m about to start adding to the blue wool smokkr project to bring the whole outfit up a level. I’m also going to be doing LOTS of weaving the next few months, and I’m planning on building at least one new loom for sure, maybe a pair of them. We’ll see.  

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: Male Viking Tunic Replacement

 I finally made myself a new tunic to go with my male Norse outfit. The last one had seen better days: it started out life as a dress, which I altered, dyed, and finally cut off to make into a tunic. Then it got dyed again, and I switched out the trim on it twice, and I don’t even know how many repairs to this thing I had done. This is what it looked like in November: 

I decided I hated the woven trim, and I was in the process of measuring for new trim when I discovered that the back right shoulder seam had blown out - and the seam allowances inside were utterly shredded, so it wouldn’t be an easy repair. When I found two more destroyed seams in it, I decided to scrap the whole tunic and just replace it. It was time. 

Here is the new one: 

Simpler, and a better color, I think. The tunic is linen, the woven trim is cotton. I seamed this together on the machine, and then felled all the seam allowances and did the finishing/hemming by hand. I cut the side gores much narrower than the ones on the old tunic - they were wider because it used to be a dress - and it hangs better now that there’s not too much fabric. 

While I love the trim I wove for this tunic (Ladoga 2b), I’m not wild about the way the neckline came out. It’s…I don’t know, I just don’t like it much. Maybe it just needs jewelry. 

But all in all, I like the new tunic, I LOVE the color, and I like the fact that my male outfit is complete again -  I can wear it to Gulf Wars next month. Woohoo!  

Now to make myself a new serk…

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: 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!