SCA: Small Stuff To Do

 I'm going to be starting on my Kingdom A&S project at the end of March, but in the meantime I'm working on a few small things:  

1.  A New Skjoldehamn Hood

These things have become like the Hedeby bag for me -  I love making them, and now I have three of them.  I threw this one together at Bjornsborg's spring event last weekend. It's cut from the last scraps from Ivar's coat which I made a few months ago.  I sat at the event and sewed it by hand from start to finish, and now it just needs embellishment - I'm not sure whether to do tablet weaving or some sort of decorative stich (I hate the "blanket stitch" that the original extant hood has on it and I refuse to do that because ew, LOL).  So here it is right now, finished but undecorated: 

2.  New key hanger strap

I used to wear my Viking key on a tablet woven cord that I made aeons ago, but I had put it onto a linen tool strap for my Kostrup dress display at Bjornsborg.  In the meantime, I wove a new "cord" for it - it's a tablet woven band of only 4 cards, two borders and a central V.  It's very thin, but it's stronger than a linen strap for sure.  So I put the key on the new one just the other day: 

3. A New Tunic Dress/Gown

I typically only wear a serk (underdress) and smokkr (apron dress) as the base of my Norse kit, but there's a third layer that goes between the two: a tunic dress or gown, same shape and design as the serk but usually in a heavier fabric which can be worn with or without the apron dress.  Since I don't always want to wear the apron dress and brooches, I decided I needed a new tunic dress to wear by itself for "casual days" at events.  It can be worn over a serk, and dressed up with a woven belt, necklaces, and a brooch at the front neckline.  Simple, attractive, and accurate (except for the material choice, since this one is linen instead of wool).  

The pic here is of a similar tunic dress I made long ago and re-dyed last year; the new one will be light blue with a darker blue band on the neckline and sleeve cuffs: 

4. New Winingas Ties

I really, really like the look of a long tie/band wrapped around the bottom of Norse pants on a guy.  Since I dress as a guy periodically, I wanted to adopt that look, and so I'm weaving some looooong (120") ties to wrap around my legs, either over just my pants, or on top of my winingas.  I'm not sure about the colors, but I think it'll go well with my blue and red-trimmed Norse tunic and gray pants.  I'm also not sure when I'll ever finish these - I'm only halfway through the first one and I started it like three weeks ago.  I just haven't had a lot of time to weave lately.  

5. Got Wood? 

I also have two woodworking projects going on right now:  the first is an upright loom that my teacher Haraldr is guiding me on.  It's kind of like the Oseberg loom, but a little later-period in style and look, but it'll function the same way.  I'm working on chiseling out the mortises for the cross beam right now. 

I also want to build myself a very simple T-shaped garment stand that I can use to display shorter things on a table top, like tunics, jackets, hoods, etc.  For an event next year I'm going to be displaying both a complete female outfit on my dress dummy, as well as a male tunic/jacket that I'll need to put on a table, so I'll need a stand.  

This is a terrible drawing, but you get the idea

So that's what's going on right now.  More pics as I finish stuff; and of course I'll start boring you with all the hairy details of  my KAS project as soon as I get it started.  

SCA: As You Wish - Bjornsbog's Spring Event 2026

As per usual, Bjornsborg threw a really fantastic event this weekend.  The theme was The Princess Bride - that's right, the movie!  Not period, but who cares: it was fun, and it was really well done.  There were themed activities and foods, fencing, fighting - maybe not the torture and murder, but there might have been true love, and probably a little bit of  piracy (just a little bit).  

And there was also an Inconcievable! Arts & Sciences Championship, which I’m proud and honored to be able to say that I won. Yay! I entered my Kostrup dress, which I've been blogging about for the past several weeks (here, here, and here).  

I totally forgot to take pictures of my setup. I also forgot to pack my dressmakers dummy, so I had to display the dress flat on the table, and I was SO mad at myself.  (It was kind of a crazy weekend, my house’s plumbing exploded the morning I left town for the event, and then my car broke down on the way there so I spent half the event managing repairs and getting rides back and forth from the site to the mechanic’s shop!) But here’s a pic of my practice run that I did last week: 

I really love putting together displays like this, and I’m pleased to say I got a lot of compliments on it. My documentation is there, as well as some tablet weaving materials and a sample of the same band I wove for the dress, as well as an extra set of beads and some beads still on the mandrels. There’s a linen fabric “booklet” of all the stitches I used in the project, and a yellow linen pleating example that people could pick up and examine closely. And finally à page of photos from the project, some of which were in the documentation and some were not. 

And here’s a pic of me actually IN the dress for once: 

Plumbing and car trouble aside, the parts of the event thst I did get to enjoy were super fun, and I’m SO excited to have won the A&S competition. 

Saturday afternoon after I got my car back from the shop, I sat under the pavilion and sewed a hood out of the last of the scraps from Ivar’s coat. I finished right as court started; and I had fun talking to all the folks who stopped by to see wha I was doing. 

Now it just needs embellishment of some kind - fancy edge stitching, or tablet woven trim? Haven’t decided yet. 

Anyway, today I’m unpacking and washing garb, and resting. More soon! 

SCA: Small Side Quests

While I waited for fabric to come in the mail the last couple of weeks, I made a few small things:  

1.  Wool Skjoldehamn hood

I had quite a bit of that green wool left over from my tunic dress. The problem is, the color isn’t one I can wear - that bright, yellow-y, acid-green makes me look like I’m suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, lol.  So I decided to try to overdye the fabric to a shade of green I can actually wear. 

This came out really well. It’s more of a Kermit-the-Frog green now, which is much nicer to my skin tone.  The fabric didn’t shrink or felt in the wash at all, either, thank goodness. 

And so here’s a Viking hood.  I hand-sewed the entire thing, because I really enjoy hand-sewing, and I like the look of it on this fabric in particular. I won’t put any woven trim on this hood, though I may make some whipcord ties for the hood part, like the original piece has. 

2. Matching (ish) Hedeby bag

I dyed another piece of the leftover fabric to make a new Hedeby bag out of.  For both pieces of wool, I used Rit dye’s “Pearl Gray” and “Teal” - for this bag, there’s a bit more of each, and a lot more teal than gray. It’s a little darker and a little cooler-toned than the hood. 

As always, I made the handles on my scroll saw out of red oak scraps that I have a million of. Instead of a tablet woven strap, this time I crocheted a quick cord. I may replace it with a woven strap eventually, but for now yarn will have to do. 

3. Hedeby "Coin Purse" 

In the process of making the bag above, I ended up making my first bag way too small for the handles I had already created, which were sized to fit the size bag I normally make (about 9" x 11").  I ended up cutting out a second bag which became the one pictured above; but in the meantime I decided to do something silly with the smaller bag.  I cut it down even smaller and sewed it up, then made a pair of wee handles for it, and made this tiny Hedeby bag just for fun: 

The finished mini-bag is about 4” across, including the handles.  It's not terribly useful for most things, it doesn’t even have a strap, it's mostly just for fun. I'm just hoping it will just make people laugh when they see it.  

4.  Ottoman pillbox hat

Because I was extremely bored the other night and got sucked into a 16th century Ottoman/Turkish rabbit hole online, I ended up making this little hat: 

I do absolutely plan to make an outfit to go with it someday if we ever have an Ottoman-themed event again.  For right now, I have this little hat as a jumping-off point. The fabric is from a small piece of blue and gold brocade I received in a prize basket in February; it’s lined with blue linen; and the trim around the bottom is a bit of scrap silk from a sari. 

Random stuff!  More 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: Finishing A Long-Overdue UFO

This week I completed a UFO (unfinished object) that's been outstanding for SEVEN YEARS.  

In 2015 I made this linen Skjoldehamn hood.  I'd meant to put a lining in it, since it was just medium-weight linen, but I never got around to it.  I did at one point embroider the edges of the hood (apparently? I don't remember doing it), but it still wasn't lined, and so it wasn't warm enough or heavy enough to really be functional, or even really sit right. The first thing I did this week was remove the decorative embroidery, since it was (a) in my way and (b) not period-appropriate for this garment piece. 

The original hood, found in Norway in 1936 and dating from the 10th century, is made of wool, with a woven (probably whipcord) woolen tie in the center of the hood which can be used to tie the hood closed in the front or tied behind the head.  

Mine is made of linen instead of wool, because at the time I started this project I still thought I was allergic to wool (I'm allergic to the chemicals they use to treat wool fabrics, but I've since learned that those can be carefully washed away and I'm fine).  I went ahead and lined it in linen (actually a linen/cotton blend) because the outside was linen.  I've omitted the ties on mine for the time being. 

Also, since my hood was machine-sewn, I went ahead and sewed the lining by machine as well; although all the stitching that shows - where the inside and outside are stitched together around the face and the lower hemline - are done by hand (whipstitch), and the trim is sewn on by hand (running stitch through the outside edges of the trim). 

Here's my finished hood: 

I applied a thin card-woven trim to the bottom edge of the hood, which I wove myself last week (my second-ever card weaving experiment).  It's made of #10 cotton crochet thread in brown and light gray, because that's what I had on hand.  I got the pattern from this website; it's a design which was inspired by some of the Oseberg weaving patterns (not an actual period copy).  

Hooray, it's finally finished and I can wear it!  This will look great with my men's Viking outfit this fall. (The men's Viking outfit is getting a major overhaul right now, I'll show you when it's done). 

For reference, here's a photo of the original Skjoldehamn hood as found on the bog body: 

the Skjoldehamn hood

More information on the Skjoldehamn hood: 

Náttmál. “A Skjoldehamn Hood.” NÁTTMÁL, 21 Mar. 2021, nattmal.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/skjoldehamn-hood/ 

Dan Halvard Løvlid (English translation by Carol Lynn) – The Skjoldehamn find in the light of new knowledge, 2011

Carletti, Francesca. “The Skjoldehamn Hood Class Handout.” Carlys_sewing, Her Ladyship Francesca Carletti, July 2016, carlyfenton.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/theskjoldenhamnhood_revised.pdf

Brennasdottir, Ula, "Skjoldehamn Hood" 2021 (SCA blog) https://medievalexcellence.com/2021/05/12/skjoldehamn-hood/