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: 2026 Summer Project, Progress Report

Things on my big summer project are proceeding apace.  In April I posted about a pleated serk I made; in May I built a wooden display stand for part of the project.  

This whole thing is about the woman's outfit found in grave G12 at Bryndum in Denmark in 2016 (which I posted about in December).   I'm...not "recreating" the outfit, but I'm adapting a version suited for rough SCA use - linen instead of wool, cotton weaving thread instead of wool and flax - all to make this thing able to stand up to harsh use and machine washing.  

Yes, I started out the project in wool, but the fabric I bought was too heavy, so I ordered some new linen fabric and started over a few weeks ago, and altered the direction my documentation was going to reflect the changes.  I'm MUCH happier with the way it's going now, and I think it's going to look fantastic when it's all done. 

At the moment I'm working on the "jacket" for the outfit, and when I'm not sewing, I'm weaving the bands which will become the straps for the apron dress (see the December blog post for details).  

Here's a pile of pattern pieces all basted together with the lining pieces, ready to be sewn together.  I'm sewing with waxed linen thread, although I did the basting with regular cotton machine thread since I was going to pull it out anyway and discard it as I sewed the seams.  

And here's a bit of the tablet weaving I'm working on for the straps. The pattern is "Mammen Mia" by L. Elewys von Finchingfield, who adapted the pattern off one of the motifs from a woven band found at Mammen from the 9-10th century.  Since I'm working in 8/4 cotton thread instead of thicker wool threads, the bands are a bit narrower than the extant examples, but since they'll be doubled and sewn together, they should be plenty strong (I'll get into that a bit more later when I do a post on just the tablet weaving).  I will say, though, that this is my first pattern with only two threads per card instead of four, and it is kicking my BUTT.  It's so slooowwww and tedious.  I'm really not enjoying it, LOL.  

Busy busy!  I should finish the jacket by the end of this week, and then I'll have pictures of the whole thing for you. After that I have to finish the weaving, and then sew a matching apron dress to complete the set.  

KAS is in two months, so I've got plenty of time to finish this outfit (and my documentation) - I'm looking forward to being so I can take a break, although I've already got the next three projects planned out and one started, hehe.  SO much to do, always!  

SCA: 2026 Summer Project, Part II - Display Stand

Part of my next big A&S project is going to be displayed on my dressmakers dummy, but part of it needs its own stand. I thought briefly about purchasing a second dummy, or a mannequin torso or something, but then I realized that I had an 8’ long 2x4 in the garage that I could use to build a stand for free. 

Tada! Okay, so it’s very basic and it’s not going to win any beauty pageants.  But it’ll do what I need it to do.  

The stand is 20” wide at the shoulders - my shoulder measurement - and 25” tall, which is a little shorter than my waist-to-hip measurement. It should fit a jacket or shirt or something just fine. 

Here it is with the hood on it that I’ve been playing with since February: 

I’ve now finished the pleated serk (which I posted about here) and this stand - that’s two pieces of a five-piece project. I’m halfway through the third part of the project but it’s not going well - I’m considering scrapping the whole thing and starting over with different fabric, to be honest. 

More on that soon, I hope. 

SCA: Stuff and Things

I'm hard at work on my Kingdom A&S project, but it's going r e a l l y  s l o w l y so I don't have much to show for myself on part 2 just yet.  The wool material that I bought for it turned out to be much thicker than I was expecting, which is making sewing it much more difficult and lots slower than usual. I wish I had a lighter weight fabric, but it's paid for, so I'm pushing forward with what I've got.  Slowly. 

 

Meanwhile, I took a break to go to Queen's Champion this past weekend to help my friend Cris in the kitchen (he was in charge of doing the luncheon for the event).  I was craving an SCA event to go to, so I threw on my new blue tunic dress and hopped in the car to go help.  It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun, and the food was awesome. 

That’s me in the front/right slicing bread (photo by Mistress Osanna van der Linden)

Because I'm somehow not busy enough with my current A&S project, and because I'm a crazy person, I went ahead and started something new just for fun;  a new 1520s Florentine gown to wear to the next Italian shindig that happens.  I had a huge box of aqua-blue cotton velveteen Ikea curtains in my closet, and I decided to use it for this project - all I would need is a couple of yards of contrast fabric for some parts, and a selection of laces and trims and stuff that I could get for cheap from Etsy.  So far I've got a mock-up made and a new pattern drafted  to my satisfaction, but I haven't started the actual dress yet.  More on that soon…

I did already make the jewelry for it, because I was excited about the project and couldn't wait.  I do this a lot with jewelry - usually because while I'm waiting for costume parts to come in the mail, I just happen to already have the jewelry supplies on hand.  This time I made some new mother-of-pearl earrings, and a pearl chain necklace with freshwater pearls and a blue stone (I think it's just dyed calcite) in the center pendant:  

Hopefully I'll have more about that Italian gown and my A&S project for you in the next couple of weeks.  Ta!  

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: The Køstrup Dress (Part III, Glass Beads)

This is the third post in a three-part series about creating the outfit from Grave ACQ in Kostrup, Denmark.  Part one, about the tablet weaving, can be found here; part two about sewing the dress, was posted here.  

The body in grave ACQ was found with 8 beads: 2 rock crystal (quartz), and 6 glass.  I wanted to make an exact copy of the beads in the find for my outfit, and I had most of the glass already in my possession (although I did have to go buy a couple of new rods for a couple of the beads).  

 

 

photo by Matthew Delveaux

This photo, from Matthew Delveaux's blog Text and Trowel, shows the ACQ beads as found:  (clockwise from left) a dark purple bead that looks almost black, a red round bead, an orange round bead, a small white bead with red figures on it, a round rock crystal bead, a square  green bead, another rock crystal bead, and a white barrel-shaped bead in the center.  

I already had some of the beads I needed in my stash:  I had two deep purple beads (the very first beads I ever made!), and the red round beads.  I also had a quantity of clear quartz beads that I had purchased from the craft store many years ago.

The other beads I had to make specifically for this project: the green square, the orange round, and the two white beads.  My local glass store had the colors I needed; they'd just moved to a new location and their lampworking stuff wasn't even unpacked yet, but the store manager very kindly offered to go dig out what I needed since it was only a few pieces.  

 

 

 

Here are the 6 beads I made, together with the quartz beads.  It took me very little time to make these – I think I average about 5-8 minutes per bead for the plain round ones. The white one with the red streaks took me a little longer, since I’m honestly not all that great at laying glass on top of glass and it took me several attempts.

I already had two purple beads, two red, and two quartz; so I decided to make two of everything else so that I’d have a set of beads to put on my dress, and a second set to place on my display table for people to inspect more closely.   

 

ATTACHING THEM TO THE DRESS

The beads found in grave ACQ were loose, for the most part: there was a wool thread in some of them, but it wasn't attached to the dress, and there was a linen thread in some of them which also wasn’t attached to the dress.  So we're not sure exactly (a) how the beads were attached to the outfit, or (b) in what order the beads were strung on the thread.  So I just did what felt right to me. 

Hilde Thunem puts her string of glass beads at the top of the brooches on this dress so that the string of beads doesn't cover the band of tablet weaving, the same way as Charlotte Rimstad showed in her illustration.  I thought that was a pretty good interpretation of how these beads might've been used, so I attempted to do the same thing: 

 

The problem is, I couldn’t figure out how to get the beads to stay up there.  If I put the strings on the brooch pins, they would slide down and cover up the tablet weaving I worked so hard on.  To get them to stay I had to wrap the strings around and underneath the brooches, but I don’t know if the strings will stay in place when actually wearing the outfit. I may have to resort to pinning the string in place under the brooches.  

So, with that, my linen Kostrup dress interpretation is all finished! I'm super happy with the way it came out, especially the tablet weaving, which was a LOT of work.  I think the dress took me about 14 hours to complete and assemble; the table weaving took me about 7 hours, and the beads about 2 hours (it only takes maybe 5-7 minutes per bead, but I’m out of practice and I had to make several of each kind to get it right).

Thankfully, I got this thing done on time.  I had the worst procrastination issues with this outfit, which I usually work very hard to avoid.  I've done the "sewing in the car on the way to the event" thing to get projects finished, and it's not fun, so I usually plan way ahead and try to get A&S projects done at least two weeks before the event so that I have time to polish my documentation and put finishing touches on my table displays.  This time, I misjudged the time I had left to work very badly and almost didn't make it - the event is in like a week and a half! Whew.  

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So what's next?  REST.  I have two big projects planned for this summer, and a few small "side quest" things in between...but for now, I'm going to go to Bjornsborg next weekend and have FUN, and then I'm going to come home and NOT work on anything for a couple of weeks!  

SCA: The Køstrup Dress (Part II, Pleating & Sewing)

In this post I'll talk about actually sewing - and pleating - my Kostrup dress.  This is part two of a three-part post (first part on the tablet weaving is here).  

The original dress is known from small fragments of the top of the dress, as found attached to a a pair of bronze brooches.  Only one of the two brooches was attached to the pleated fragment, leading to some indecision over whether the pleating was placed in the center front of the dress, or on the side between the brooch and the armpit as Henriette Wielandt (original analysis, 1980) suggested.  Most people I've seen make impressions of this dress place the pleats in the front, which is what I've done. 

We don't know exactly how the pleating was achieved.  No trace of the threads used to create the pleating exist, so we're not even sure exactly how it was done - were the pleats stitched in place with fibers that have long since disintegrated, or were the pleats woven into the fabric, or pressed in with steam, or something else?  We don’t know for sure. 

 

Finished pleats

In my first attempt at this dress I did the pleating first and then hemmed the top and applied a band of fabric trim and some tablet weaving, which smashed the pleating completely flat, destroying all the work I did on it and making it look like flattened knife-edge pleats, so the whole thing looked completely wrong when it was done.  (It was also made of wool "stuff", which is the wrong fabric for this time period and it just looked weird).  So I never wore it, and in the end I finally decided to rip it all apart, use the pattern pieces to develop the pattern I used for this new iteration of the Køstrup dress, and will eventually re-use the wool stuff for another project. 

Anyway, this time, I did the pleating the way it was done on the extant piece (inspiration from and props to Hilde Thunem's work):  I hemmed the top of the dress by folding the edge over and stitching it down with a whip stitch, and THEN I did the pleating next, so that the finished edge of the dress ends up being part of the pleated section. This is essentially a very simple form of smocking . 

Stitching the pleats down

 

I’m not a huge smocking person really - in fact, this is only the second time I've done this - so I just kind of winged it, and I don’t know what this method/technique is actually called.  I made eight rows of basting stitches along the top edge of the fabric 3mm below the hemmed edge, each stitch and space between about 3mm; and then drew the stitching together to create the pleats.  After that I stitched the pleats in place by whip-stitching them closed on the back side, and whip-stitching each pleat to its neighbor on the back as well, so that all the pleats help hold each other in place.  This worked well on the first iteration of this dress for the most part, and I like the results here, too. 

Gathering the basting stitches 

After the pleating was done, the rest of the dress was sewn by hand in the same way that I sew all of my other apron dresses - the pattern is three rectangular panels and three triangular gores, with long loop straps at the back and short loops at the front for the brooches to grab onto.  The lower hem is folded, pressed, and secured with a herringbone stitch like all of my other smokkrs (which is based on Inga Hagg’s research at Birka and Hedeby).  

I should note that I did alter the fiber content of this dress from the original.  The fragments from ACQ were made of wool, and my dress is linen.  I chose to use linen this time because, as much as I love a nice wool, I wanted to WEAR this dress, not save it away for the one day a year that it’s cold enough to wear wool here – and also, I wanted to be able to put it through the washing machine when it needs it. 

As discussed in my last post, the tablet-woven band is not sewn onto the fabric of the dress along its length.  Instead, it is mounted between the loops at the front of the dress so that the band sort of "floats" above the pleated front, like this drawing of Charlotte Rimstad’s:

My version looks like this, so far: 

Tada

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And now for the last component of this outfit:  the beads! More soon... 

SCA: The Køstrup Dress (Part I: Tablet Weaving)

For my next A&S piece, I've decided to create my own version of a dress I've admired for a long time: the "Køstrup  dress" - the one that's pleated in the front.  I've done one before, but I wasn't terribly happy with the way it turned out - the fabric was the wrong type, and I didn't like the way I did the trim at the top of the dress.  So I'm starting from scratch and making a new one this time around. 

Charlotte Rimstad, 1988

The original band from grave ACQ was originally assumed to be a brocaded weave, but that might not be true.  There's some experimental/anectotal evidence that it might actually a soumak design, which is a bit different.  In brocade tablet weaving, the thread for the brocaded design is passed through the warp above the band from side to side, which creates a flat design on top of the woven band.  In soumak, the decorative thread is passed on a needle up from underneath the warp, around the warp threads, and back down to the bottom, which creates a little “bump” on top of the warp, and then the design on top of the band is created by the arrangement of these little bumps.  It was tricky to learn, and while it ended up being easy to do, it was a very, very slow process. 

Beginning the process

A note about the fiber content:  the warp and the soumak design on the original band was made of wool.  Since I was substituting my fabric – using linen instead of wool – I also decided to substitute my weaving threads and used cotton weaving thread instead of wool.  I did this for two reasons: I did not have any wool thread thin enough for this project on hand, and also because I wanted to be able to run this dress through the washing machine if it needed it, and cotton weaving holds up fairly well in the machine if you’re careful with it. 

Also, about the colors:  the original band was made of dark blue wool, but we don’t know what colors the designs on top were, because a detailed color analysis has not been done on every part of the band.  So, I just chose colors that I thought looked nice with the blue background (red, light blue, green, and yellow).   

I wove this band on an inkle loom, because that’s easiest for me to manage.  I also made a slight change to the band when I warped it up. According to the instructions I used (this, from Etsy seller Alija Mega), and other sources (Shelagh Lewins, Peter Collingwood), the original band from ACQ was done with a 2-hole warp, where two threads are passed through the tablets instead of the usual four. 

I opted instead to make the background weave a 4-hole warp instead of a 2-hole warp.  I did this for two reasons:  (1) Mega says in her instruction booklet that you can do it either way, but that the 2-hole warp makes for a lighter, more flexible band in the end. Since this band is attached to the dress only at its ends (as opposed to sewing the band to the fabric of the dress along its long edge), I actually wanted a sturdier, less flexible band, so that it would stay in place.  Also, (2), I find 2-hole warp to be ridiculously difficult to manage, and since I was trying a new technique to begin with, I didn't want to compound the potential for error and frustration by ALSO using a warping technique I know I already hate doing.  So, for sanity's sake, and also ease of wear, I chose to use a 4-hole warp on this project.  

So, I needed a band about 9” long to go across the front of my dress.  I wove about 2" of plain unadorned blue at the beginning and end of  7" of pattern, so that I would have a plain end to wrap around the loops on the dress.  I did this twice, in fact - I made a band of about 23", including the blue end sections, and cut it in half:  one end to use on the dress, and the other end to place on my display table so that people could pick it up and examine it more closely than they could examine it on the completed dress.  

Finished band(s)

 

This band is going to be attached to the dress by wrapping the excess at either end of the band around the loops on the front of the dress and sewing them in place.  The band is NOT sewn to the top of the dress along its length, it’s only attached at the ends (see Charlotte Rimstad’s drawing, first picture above). 

Weaving in the ends

The back of the band appears quite messy, with the threads passing back and forth all over the place, and loose ends hanging out. In the end I took a small tapestry needle and wove the loose ends into the back of the band to secure them and cut the excess off flush with the band so that they wouldn't show on the dress. 

I’m really pleased with the way the finished product came out.  It was tricky at first, and tedious, but the soumak method was pretty simple once I got the hang of it, and I’m glad I decided to try to learn how to do this. It was ridiculously slow compared to regular tablet weaving - this 23” long piece took me just under five and a half hours to make. 

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I'm busy sewing the dress itself right now, so the next post will be about that.  More soon! 

SCA: Kingdom A&S Event

 

Well, I'm back from Kingdom A&S, which is THE big A&S competition event in Ansteorra every year.   

My project for Kingdom A&S (KAS) was one you've seen bits and pieces of here on the blog in the past few months - I've been working on it since January, I started as soon as Candlemas was over.  

I made a complete Norse woman's outfit in three layers: a linen serk, a wool overdress, and a wool smokkr.  All of it is hand-sewn, and I did the tablet weaving and the braiding on the smokkr as well. 

The serk is all linen, sewn with linen thread.  It's a light gray in color, similar to what an unbleached linen would look like, but not as warm in color (more gray, less beige/tan).  The thread is white, because that's what I had on hand.  Nothing fancy here, just a plain "T-tunic" style pattern, some flat-felled seams, no trim or anything like that. The sleeves are a bit longer than they need to be - I did that so I could bunch them up around my wrists.  So they hang down pretty far in the picture above.  The stitching on the serk isn't as nice as on the other two pieces, and I got dinged for that by the judges, but it's not a humongous deal or anything.  

armpit gussets.  I hate them so much. 

The green wool dress (previewed here) that goes over the serk is done on the same basic T-tunic pattern (similar to tunics/dresses found at Birka and Hedeby).  It's sewn in a beige colored silk thread which blends into the green fabric pretty well.  The trim around the neckline and sleeve cuffs is blue silk fabric, hand-stitched in place on top of the edge.  

the green wool dress, with blue silk trim and
a blue tablet woven belt

armpit gussets in the green dress

blue silk trim on green dress

The blue wool smokkr is one that I showed at Bjornsborg this past Spring, when the project was about half-finished.  It's a full-length dress, with fabric straps/loops, tablet-woven trim, and a "Hedeby braid" trim on the vertical seams, very similar to the red linen dress I made in 2024.  

The fabric is a broken diamond twill wool in a medium blue color; the pattern is the same three-panel/three-gore pattern I always use for these things, which is based off of Carolyn Priest-Dorman's pattern which is widely used in the SCA LINK.    

The trimming across the top edge of the dress is in two parts: a green silk fabric band folded over the top edge, and below it a tablet woven band in silk, in green, blue, and white. This decision was inspired by finds at Birka as noted by Inga Hagg.  The pattern for the band is Oseberg 12L1 (the Oseberg "narrow band" found on the loom in the Oseberg ship burial), which I got from Elewys von Finchingfield's blog and YouTube channel LINK.  

blue smokkr

setting in the side gores

tablet weaving and Hedeby braid on the smokkr

eleven examples of top trim on apron dresses, 
illustration by Inga Hagg

weaving the Hedeby braid

the Hedeby braid on an extant fragment found
at Birka (illustration by Inga Hagg)

Overall, the day was frustrating as heck (because of all the stress of just waiting and waiting and waiting), but it ended well.  I'm very happy with the scores I got, and the judges' commentary.  I was in the top 10 high scorers, and so I got a commemorative coin/badge as a prize, which was pretty cool.  I only spoke to one of my judges, but she was very cool and had a lot of good things to say, and good ideas for going forward with this project IF I decide to take it to Gulf Wars to compete there - IF I get chosen to go, which I probably won't.  

A few friends and I traveled to KAS together (five hour drive!) and stayed in an Air BNB together for the weekend, which was fun.  We had a great time together, and KAS was a good experience, and I'm happy with the weekend overall.  

Good lord, what's next?  I have no idea.  I think I need to spend some time recovering from the emotional strain, LOL.  No, I totally have things planned.  More soon!  

my prize coin from the competition

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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!