SCA: Updated 9th Century Norse "Viking" Kit (female)

I know I've been posting a LOT of tablet weaving lately - the tunic and the coat and the bag - but I thought I'd show you my full [female] "Viking" kit all decked out with the jewelry and the other tablet weaving I've been doing.  This is my nicest, and my favorite, Viking outfit at the moment: 

The entire outfit is made from linen - the serk, smokkr, and the herringbone weave cloak/shawl.  Yes, wool would be more historically accurate for some of these pieces, but it's HOT here in central Ansteorra, and wool just isn't practical in this heat unless it's the middle of January.  

The dark blue smokkr was a lighter teal color, but I dyed it to a darker indigo shade to make it look nicer and more accurate (ish).  

Tablet weaving on this outfit consists of: 

• The blue and yellow band at the top of the smokkr underneath the blue silk trim fabric
• The ivory/white woven band at the neckline of the serk, which is meant to mimic the look of a woven-on edge, though it's actually just sewn in place
• The blue and white belt
• The thin strap that hangs the metal key from the right brooch (left in the picture)

Here's a better shot of the weaving and the jewelry on the front of the dress: 

The jewelry consists of

• a pair of bronze brooches purchased online
• a silver round brooch to close the serk neckline which I made from a metal button
• three strands of glass beads suspended from the bronze brooches, which I made myself (it turns out I'm awful at making beads, but I managed to get enough made to wear with my kit at least)
• a strand of tiny blue glass beads around the neck
• a strand of amber chips around the neck
• three silver raven pendants which hang from the lowest strand of beads between the brooches - two of them are period replicas, and the third is a modern knotwork design

The only thing missing from these photos is the hair and the shoes, and I'll post more about both of those things later.  

SCA: A Tablet-Woven Edge Detail

 So, I read about this NEAT thing where you can weave a band directly onto the edge of a piece of fabric or a garment, which adds a bit of decorative detail and also protects the fabric's edge.  There's a great picture of the technique on this page, if you can read Swedish (or use Google translate, which is what I did). 

I decided to try it out...sort of.  I didn't have a flat piece of wool fabric to use; but I wanted to try the look on the neckline of a serk, and I wasn't sure how to get the round neckline aligned with the loom - and also, I didn't think the linen of the serk would lend itself well to the stress of weaving. 

Instead, I decided to try to simulate the look by attaching a thin tablet-woven band to an existing garment by sewing it on.  I sewed it on edge-to-edge (as opposed to applying the band flat on top of the surface of the fabric) so that it looks like it's woven in place. 

the band was sewn to the neckline and 
sleeve ends

I really like the look of this.  I'm always trying to find more ways to make my viking kit look fancier and nicer without resorting to non-period "reenactorisms." I like the way this came out. It's a simple detail, but it looks finished and polished without screaming WOVEN TRIM ON ALL THE THINGS!! 

a closer shot of the neckline and stitching

What do you think?  I think I'll definitely try this again, and, of course, I DO plan to learn to weave directly onto a piece of fabric, as soon as I get some fabric that will support the weaving properly.  

Neat! 

1/4" 6-card single-color woven band
in cotton thread

What's Next? 

Right now I'm working on several things which I plan to blog about in the coming weeks: 

• a fully hand-sewn linen serk and smokkr set
• a new set of woven bands to decorate my male viking tunic
• a Regency ballgown (?)

Oh! And also, I just finished a belt which I really love and can't wait to wear: 

More soon! 

SCA: Candlemas 2024: Green 1490s Italian - the Accessories

A week ago I posted about the 1490s Florentine outfit I made for Candlemas in February - today’s post is about all the accessories that went into the outfit: 

Hair/Headgear

I’ll talk about my hair first, since it was a lot of fun - I used fake hair for the first time ever for this outfit! It was given to me by a friend several months ago, and I finally fixed it up and wore some of it for this outfit. It was really neat - it’s been two years since I cut all my hair off in order to grow out my gray (and I’m growing it back as fast as I can!) - and it felt soooo good to at least have the feel and weight of long hair again. I miss my hair! 

Anyway, I clipped two long silvery-gray extensions into my hair, then braided it all into a single braid down my back. The front of my hair was parted in the middle and smoothed down over my ears, and I curled the bits that were too short to be included in the braid. I wrapped the braid in gold ribbon, wider at the top and end to hide the elastic bands which contained the braid, with thin gold ribbon spiraled around the length of the braid. 

My inspiration for the hairstyle and headgear were from several paintings, like these: 

La Bella Principessa, Leonardo DaVinci

fragment from a painting of Lodovica
Tuornabuoni, Domenico Ghirlandaio

La Belle Feronniere, DaVinci

I created a reta - a netted skullcap like you see in the first two paintings - using a base of cotton needlepoint mesh canvas.   Once I had the shape figured out, I sewed/knotted the mesh pieces together, and then spray-painted the piece gold, which stiffened the mesh so that it held its shape better. Then I sewed gold metallic braided trim over the seam to hide it, and around the edges, and then attached a long gold ribbon to the corners to tie under my chin. 

Over the top of it all is a feronniere - mine is a long thin black velvet ribbon, onto which I threaded three gold beads spaced out along the front. 

The whole look goes something like this: 

The hair needs work - I like the false hairpiece, but my own hair in the front/side is very flyaway and frizzy looking.  Gotta figure out what to do about that.  

Jewelry

The necklace that I made to wear with this outfit is one of those kits where you press an acrylic cabochon (over a picture or flower petals or what-have-you) into the [pewter] setting - I’ve used these kits for Regency jewelry in the past. For this pendant, I painted the back of the cab with blueish iridescent nail polish, and the effect is sort of labradorite-ish, and I love the way it looks, and the way the color looks with the green and aqua/gold colors in the outfit.  

The pendant is hung on am 16" gold chain; and worn with a second much longer chain which is tucked into the neckline of my gamurra. 

I opted not to wear earrings with this outfit, since my hair covers my ears anyway. 

Purse

I wanted a new purse/pouch to go with this outfit, since my other SCA pouches are all blue and red. I used scraps of the sleeve fabric, cut into orange-wedge-shaped pieces, and lined the bag with some spare blue cotton sheeting I had lying around.  I couched a thin gold cord along each seam line on the outside, added a little fabric-covered button to the bottom to hide the joint between all the seams, and laced the top with a gold satin ribbon.  

Tada! I did a practice run on the whole costume today - doing my hair and getting completely dressed took me about forty minutes! SHEESH. I need a lady’s maid.  Everything is finally finished, though, and now I just have to sit back and wait until the event.  In three weeks.  I guess I'll go crochet something, hehe.  

A Belt!

Whaddaya do on a Friday night while watching TV and eating pizza with your BFF?  Make a belt!

1" silver-toned belt plaques from JoAnn Fabrics
An old leather belt, cut from 1.75" to 1", and wee holes poked in the ends
14" of 1/2" jewelry chain

Four with amethyst-colored glass, and four like this, with a little clear glass stone.

Hook-and-eye front closure made out of heavy silver wire

A better shot of the connections - just more heavy wire, rolled into jump rings
and then flattened, and the ends curled into the leather so they won't snag my dresses. 

S'mo Bling

Because...BLING.

A Pair of Belts

A pair of gold-colored metal clasps, on a velvet belt.
I colored the leaf detail in the clasps in with green nail polish.  

A pewter belt buckle, bought in 2011, which was kinda...bland.  I spray-painted it gold (the belt is wrapped in painters' tape in the before pic on the left), then colored in the recessed parts with a brown Sharpie marker.  Sharpies can do ANYTHING.  (I kinda hate the copper rivet, but it doesn't show when the belt is on.  This was, by the way, the first leather thing I ever made).  

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In Which Our Heroine Is Up 'Til 3am

An  11' flattened tube of black linen, 3" wide, all machine-"embroidered" (it's just fancy stitches my machine does).  I'd started with the white and yellow, thinking "silver and gold on black", but then somehow it became a "garden" of green "turf", red "flowers", and blue edging for water around the outside of the white "fence."

Yeah, I have no idea.  It was 3am.  I went through FOUR SPOOLS OF THREAD.  All stuff I had laying around not being used, so, no big.  It also took me just over four hours.  But now I have a pretty, and looooong, cloth belt to wrap and use with my bliauts and things like that.

Tiny picture is tiny.  This is just a plastic "pearl" button.  I painted the "pearl" with red nail polish, LOL, and will be sewing it to the front V of my new purple dress.  As a centerpiece, yes; but also to cover up a place where the decorative stitching is a bit f'd up.  I promise the red doesn't look this plastic and pinky in real life.  You'll see.  :)


Three days and counting!


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Bling

I finished my belt!

This is the buckle and strap end set I got from Armour & Castings last year, and the blue belt I bought last year at Gulf Wars.  It took me THIS LONG to find the right size glass rhinestones to pop in there!  I attached them with plain old superglue;  and I attached the metal bits to the leather myself!  Yay! (My second-ever attempt at "leather work").


Oh, and these:

A pair of small pins that I can use to keep my sleeves, tippets, and hoods secured.  They're just two buttons with the shanks cut off, a little red glass rhinestone glued in the middle, and the bumps on the medallion design highlighted with bright red nail polish.  I hot-glued pin backs to the back side of each one.


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It's Here It's Here It's Here!

My belt buckle and strap end set from Armour & Castings!  It's here!

Isn't that GORGEOUS?  I heart it like burning.  Hand-cast brass copies of an extant early 15th century English design.  I'm not exactly sure what this design is called, but it looked pomegranate-y enough for my purposes that I'm calling it my pomegranate belt set.  (My device has pomegranates in it. I'll post the design when it passes final registration).

There's another version on the website with red glass "jewels" in the empty spaces:

It was ten dollars extra for the glass, and red was the only option available - which is * beautiful*, don't get me wrong - but I wanted other colors.   I'm going to get some mirror-backed glass jewels from the hobby store (where they sell a package of like a million for four dollars), and customize this with red, blue, and green gems in the empty spaces, and a clear one right in the center of the strap end.

Later this week, that is.  For right now, I have to go work on some armor. More on that later this week, too. :)


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In Which Our Heroine Makes Yet Another Blue Outfit

Because, as you know, I need more blue dresses.  I only have like five.  Because my heraldic colors are red and black, LOL.  *shrug*  I love blue. :)

And I love making these things:

This is going to be a 12th century bliaut - navy, with the exact trim you see in the pic above (from Calontir Trim, purchased at Gulf Wars in March), with a deep teal undergown (just a simple lace-front plain gown).  I'd been thinking about doing one ever since I saw a friend in a really pretty black one at Gulf Wars this year.  Then I saw this, and just I had to get on the bliaut train. :)

The belt is not a cloth or woven belt like you usually see with bliauts -   I'm no weaver.  I've tried making belts like that out of just fabric, and they always bunch up and become fabric ropes.  So I'm still testing out some ideas that I think might work.

(And yes, that's a hair tie around the waist in the pic.  Without it the dress just looked like a bunch of blue fabric on the hanger, hehe).

For the time being, I have this awesome, BRIGHT blue leather belt that I bought at Gulf Wars (for fifteen dollars!);  and Kress needed to order belt parts for himself this week, so he got a set like the one shown in the picture for me, too.  Yay!   (Hardware from Armor and Castings).


So far, so good!  It fits beautifully, and the only thing I plan to change is that the sleeves aren't as long as I thought they were going to be (because I measure wrong.  Whoops!)  That's a simple fix, though; and once that's done, I'll be ready to finish the seams on the inside, and then start working on the trim and the bling.  Yay!