SCA: 2026 Summer Project, Phase IV (Tablet Weaving)

The fourth component in my summer project is the tablet weaving.  At Bryndum in grave G12, a wool apron dress was discovered which had straps and loops made of tablet woven bands - the first time tablet weaving has ever been discovered to have been used in this way.  That BLEW MY MIND and I've been super excited about this project just because of that ever since I read the original ATR article in December.  

The thing is, the tablet-woven straps from G12 were so mineralized and degraded that no chemical analysis could be done on them.  Which means that while we know a lot about how the straps were woven - number of threads, number of threads per card, direction of the cards turning - we don't know what colors were used, and we can't tell what the pattern was because the colors aren't there. 

Here's what we do know: 

• There were at least 13 cards:  10 central pattern cards, and 3 border cards (2 on one side and 1 on the other, and there may have been a 4th border card which has disintegrated but there's no way of knowing) 
• The 10 pattern cards moved both forwards and backwards; the  border cards only moved forwards
• The border cards were threaded with 4 threads each; the central pattern cards only 2 threads each - it's a skip-hole pattern!  

Here's something else I know:  I've only tried a skip-hole pattern once before and it went so miserably that I basically rage-quit and threw the whole thing in the trash.  

The problem with skip-hole patterns is the balance of the warp threads.  On a card threaded with 4 threads, one in each hole, the warp tension holds the card sort of upright and square, and it stays where you put it.  On a card threaded with 2 threads, one in every other hole, the tension wants to hold the card on the diagonal between the two threads, meaning the 2-hole cards skew out of place and won't stay square with the 4-card threads.  This means you basically have to have your hands on the cards at all times to keep them aligned.  The first time I tried this I found it to be impossible to wrangle. 

This time is going better, however, and I have to thank L. Elewys von Finchingfield of An Tir for that - her video weaving tutorials are solid gold and I love watching them.  More specifically, however, the pattern that I'm using for my project is one that she designed, and her video on it solved my problem with turning the cards - she uses a pencil or skewer stuck through the holes in the cards to keep them aligned so she can let go of them when she needs to, which is genius and works unbelievably well.   I've also found that I can use the pencil to turn the forwards-moving cards with one hand while holding the backwards-moving cards with my other hand, so that things don't get all fouled up.  Aha!  

The pattern I'm using for this project is Lady Elewys' design, called "Mammen Mia", which is based on motifs from one of the tablet woven bands found at Mammen, Denmark, from the 10th century.  I used this design because, since we don't know what pattern was used at Bryndum, it was important to me to use something from the region that someone from Bryndum might have actually seen or used.  Mammen is close by, and its designs are beautiful, so I chose this one. 

This pattern contains more threads than the original - 12 pattern cards and 4 borders - but since I'm using #10 cotton weaving thread, which is only 8/4 and far lighter weight than wool threads/yarn, the band is coming out very narrow. The original band is 1.4cm (about half an inch); my band is about .6cm - much smaller.  But, because of the way these straps are constructed, I think they should be plenty strong enough.  

You see, the original straps are not just lengths of tablet weaving sewn onto the dress.  Each strap is made of TWO lengths of tablet weaving, sewn together on the vertical to create a sort of thin tube, and then that tube is sewn to the dress to be used as a strap.  The ATR paper didn't specify exactly how the bands were sewn together or how they were pinned by the bronze brooches found in the grave; I opted to fold a single long band in half and sew it along the long sides, leaving a bit of unsewn loop at one end through which to pass the needle of a brooch.  The smaller front loops are made the same way. 

Binding off the cut end of a tablet woven band can be tricky.  Sewing through a band is not always easy to do securely, and folding the end of a band in order to conceal the cut ends creates a very bulky rolled end.  To avoid this, I  wrapped each cut end in a little square of fabric and sewed it to the strap, and then sewed THAT to the dress, rather than trying to sew the band itself to the fabric, leaving the cut end raw or folded and bulky.  Is it period? Who the heck knows.  I like the solution and plan to use it again in the future.   

And with that, this project is finally finished!  I'm so excited to be DONE with this thing and see it all put together.  I'll show you the whole thing in my next post.  

SCA: 2026 Summer Project, Phase III (Jacket)

The third component of my summer project is the short jacket.  The thing is, the authors of the 2025 paper on the Bryndum grave G12 didn't actually specify exactly what type of garment it is or how it was constructed.  They say that it's a "short jacket" reaching to about the hip, and they say that it appears to have been tailored to the body based on the way some of the pattern pieces and seams are oriented - it's not just a straight rectangular cut.  But aside from that, details are scant. So, just like with the pleated serk, there's a lot of filling in the blanks based on what I know of other, similar garments (in my head I'm thinking of this as "substituting with frog DNA" like in Jurassic Park, lol).  

So, there are two types of outerwear jacket/coat known from 9th-century Norse graves: the klappenrock, which is a rectangular-cut short (hip or thigh length) jacket that has a cross-over wrap front which is secured by a belt.  This garment has only been found in a couple of graves, and all of men.  The other type is the caftan we know from Inga Hagg's analysis of the Birka graves, which she documented as having belonged to female graves, and which is a longer, open-fronted garment secured with a brooch or pin in the center front, very similar to the buttoned caftans we see in Slavic and Russian settings from the same time period. 

My adaptation is modeled after Hagg's "caftan" garment.  It's cut with curved armpit/sleeve seams instead of the square armpit gusset you see in rectangular construction, and with sides and back fitted to the body and then tapered outwards to form the "skirt" of the jacket that fits over the hips.  We have no guidance from the ATR article on how this jacket was constructed other than the note that it was likely tailored to the body, so I've done the best I can in fitting the pattern a bit more exactly than you get with rectangular construction.  

Where the Bryndum jacket is made of wool lined with linen, I've made my adaptation out of a heavy (9oz) linen with a lighter weight (5oz) lining.  (I started with a "medium" (9oz) weight wool fabric, but it was WAY too heavy for this application and it would have looked just awful, so I decided to start over with linen fabric instead, which just happens to be much better suited to the hot Ansteorran summers and to machine-washing anyway. After all, I DO actually want to be able to wear - and wash -  this outfit!)  

I have absolutely no idea how the Norse would have accomplished lining their wool garments;  I chose to flat-line my jacket, by first basting the lining pieces to the jacket pieces and then sewing the combined pieces together.  Why? Mostly because I just like the way the felled seams look on a flat-lined garment; we do have examples of this type of lining in newer garments from the 14th and 15th centuries, so at least it's "SCA period" if not specifically known from Norse finds. Because I was going to be removing the basting stitches as I went along, I used a cotton sewing thread to baste the lining/outer pieces together; the actual sewing is done with linen thread which just *almost* matches the blue fabric (it was as close as I could find). 

Stitches used are pretty basic:  running stitch (seams), back stitch (seam reinforcement every few inches), and whip stitch (to fell the seam allowances open). There's also a staggered running stitch which the ATR article discusses as relates to hemming the top of the apron dress, which I used to hem the edges and the sleeve cuffs of the jacket.  

So. That's my Bryndum jacket for the time being.  I'm keeping my ear to the ground on this one - I can't wait to read more papers on the find, and I hope there'll be much more detailed analysis on the whole outfit in the future.  

Oh, and yes, this is what the wooden display stand that I built in May was for.  I plan to display the serk and apron dress on my dress dummy, and this jacket on the wooden stand.  I'm going to need to get a wagon to cart all this stuff around!  

Next stop: the apron dress...

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: 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: 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: 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!