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: 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: 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! 

* 

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: 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! 

Regency: Blue Floral Wrap Dress

My latest Regency creation: 

This is a wrap-front dress made from LM’s (#129) Spencer pattern, to which I added rectangular skirt panels like I did for my velveteen pelisse last year. I also widened the neckline a bit, and shortened the sleeves to 3/4 length. The fronts close with cotton twill tape ties, which are hidden by the white sash wrapped around the waistline. 

The fabric is from a set of cotton sheets I had in my stash. The floral pattern isn’t 100% period, but it’s close enough, I think. The lace itself is polyester, found on Etsy and trimmed to make the design work for this neckline. 

The dress took me just a couple of afternoons in late July to put together, but I had to wait for the lace to arrive in the mail, which took two weeks, so I just finished it today. 

I added a little button placket to the back, just so the back wouldn’t be totally plain. Nom-functional, but cute! 

This was originally inspired by this dress of Elinor Dashwood’s in Sense & Sensibility 

Other inspirations include: 

From Galleries of Fashion, 1796

Henri-Pierre Danloux, unsure of the date

unknown fashion plate

This project was a nice breath of fresh air in the midst of what has been an absolutely insane summer for me - I’ve been working my butt off in just about every possible way. SCA event season starts up in a month, and I still have a lot of preparation to do for all of that - I really needed a break to work on something utterly frivolous to rest my mind a bit. I love this dress! 

Final note: the newly-refitted dressmaker’s dummy was fantastic to use for this project. I was able to size and drape and fit this dress wholly on the mannequin, and it fits *perfectly*.  Granted, this was a very simple pattern, but it was a good test run for the “new” dummy and I’m very pleased with how it went. 

SCA: An Iron Age Peplos Outfit (First Draft)

Here's something new for me: I made an Iron Age Peplos outfit for myself.  I really loved wearing my Roman at Warlord - it was so cool and breezy and comfortable - and I wanted something that would feel similar but still be somewhat adjacent to the styles I normally wear (similar/adjacent cultures, earlier time period).  

the Huldremose peplos

This style was fairly long-lived, and widespread throughout England and northern Europe.  It's known from several Anglo-Saxon burials, and just a TON of early Medieval artwork in which the peplos is depicted often worn over a long-sleeved under dress and under a large wrapped cloak. There's a remarkably complete wool peplos from Huldremose in Denmark (Huldremose II, not related to the "Huldremose Woman"); you also see the style in later Finnish costume from the 11th century (the "Eura dress" outfit).

My peplos is made from linen, because (a) I wanted it to be lightweight and good for hot late-summer weather, and (b) linen was what I had.  In fact, someone recently gave me a piece of linen that she didn't need for anything recently, and that's what I used.  

It started out as a light lavender color, but I dyed it to WHAT COLOR you see in the pic at the top. I actually tried to dye it with black first, hoping it would come out sort of a charcoal color - but I had forgotten that Rit's black dye is actually a deep purple, and so it came out...purple.  

Oops. It turned out it was pretty easy to fix - I treated it with Rit Color Remover, which worked remarkably well  it actually removed the “black” dye as well as most of the original lavender color, and I ended up with a sort of pale band-aid pinky peach color. The stuff smells just AWFUL, though. Anyway, I dyed the fabric again with brown and charcoal gray, and ended up with the sort of chocolate-ice-cream brown color in the first pic up top. 

Anyway, in the picture above my peplos is shown over a light blue linen “Eura” style underdress, which I made many years ago and never get to wear.. A peplos is normally folded from the side across the body and left open on the other side; because of the size and shape of my fabric piece, I had to split it into a front and a back, so it's open on both sides.  There was no sewing involved aside from hemming the edges, which I did by hand. 

It's pinned at the shoulders with a pair of round bronze brooches that I've had for years. They were my first Viking brooches, although I don't know anything about the style - I was told they were "early Viking" but I don't know anything more than that about them, or even if that's true.  But they work here for the look.  

I've seen many reenactors string beads between these brooches like you see in later Viking clothing, and sometimes people wear a long unadorned chain between them as well.  I didn't have any chain on hand that didn't look super shiny and modern, and I didn't have enough beads to make a swag for  my brooches, so for the time being I'm using a few of my leftover homemade beads on a plain cord as a necklace instead. 

The belt is the same tablet-woven one I wear with my viking dresses (not a period design, but that's an issue for another post - and seeing this outfit out together I think I’m going to make a new belt just for this outfit anyway); from it hangs an apron which is a darker blue linen remnant left over from another project. I think the blue color is too strong for the other pieces; I may replace it with a gray one or something else, I’m not sure yet. 

All in all, I'm pleased with the way this came out - it’s a pretty good “first draft.”  It needs work, but it was fun to put together and I’m looking forward to making it better. 

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: Sprucing Up An Old Viking Coat

before

A before picture: 

This is an old gray coat that I made approximately one billion years ago.  The outer shell is a "linen weave"cotton canvas; the lining and the blue edge banding are linen.  Once upon a time it was covered with inappropriate decorative embroidery and really, really ugly faux-fur trim - all of which I removed, and the end result is as you see here. 

Over the weekend I wove a whole lot of new trim - originally to use on my male viking tunic, but, when I saw all the colors together, I decided the trim would look MUCH better on this coat. So I wove about two more yards so I'd have enough - a total of 9y - and grabbed some 1/2" red silk ribbon from my ribbon box which I had been saving for a rainy day. 

Here's what the coat looks like now: 

The red silk ribbon only goes along the lower hem, and the sleeves cuffs.  I didn't have enough to use for the entire border around the front opening and neckline; but I think it looks neat on just the hem and sleeves. Gives it a little pop of color without being overwhelming, I think. 

The weave is the "Oseberg Narrow Band" design (12L1), to which I added some extra width in the blue background, and a red and navy border stripe on the edges.  

I'm super happy with the way this came out!  I still need to do something about the lack of trim on my male tunic; but now I have TWO coats (the green one got new trim last month) that I can wear in the colder months.  

Of course, now I still don't have trim to put on my male tunic - I guess that's what's next! 

SCA: A Roman Outfit for Hot Weather

The hot weather is on the way.  It's already in the low 80s here in central Ansteorra, and by the end of May  - and the next event being Steppes' Warlord on Memorial Day weekend - it's likely going to be in the 90s.  Last year I wore  my guy's Viking outfit to this event and I BAKED ALIVE.  This year, I decided to make myself a new Roman outfit - loose, lightweight, and breezy.  

The chiton  is a medium-weight blue linen.  The correct way to make one of these would be to have one long length of fabric folded across the body from side to side; but to conserve fabric (and money) I had a shorter length of fabric which I split into two 2y squares.  

Where the wrapped side should be left open, I went ahead and seamed both sides of this garment for modesty's sake - the site where the Warlord event will be held is wide open and  notoriously windy, and I didn't want to accidentally flash anyone.  

The green palla is a length of sheer cotton gauze that I harvested from an old costume and re-cut for this purpose.  It may not be as breezy and cool as handkerchief-weight linen would be, but it drapes very nicely and I love the color.  

The sleeve openings are held together with small bronze buttons for a bit of a decorative look. 

This whole outfit is hand-sewn, by the way.  I have a BIG hand-sewing project coming up this summer, and I needed the practice.  Since this outfit is basically just a collection of large rectangles, most of the sewing was actually just hemming (whipstitching).  

The under tunic, which is a white handkerchief-weight linen, is a simple rectangular sheath tacked together at the shoulders and arm edges, so that it mimics the shape of the chiton when worn.

This was a piece I already had in my closet from a previous Roman outfit; I removed the neck and opened up the shoulder seams and re-sewed everything to make this more of a period shape at the neckline and arms. 

I made some jewelry to go with this outfit, too - and hey, look, it's a rare picture of my ACTUAL FACE. 

The necklace is pink freshwater pearls and gold brass wire; the earrings are mother-of-pearl drops and gold brass fittings/wire. Both are inspired by jewelry I've seen in period artwork and sculpture, and in Egyptian mummy portraits of Roman/Egyptian people.  

My hair is tucked into a red ribbon band which is tied around my head, in a style also inspired by some I've seen in period artworks.  The makeup is also inspired by several mummy portraits I've seen.  

So I'm all ready for Warlord, and the hot weather.  Bring it on!  

Regency: The Pineapple Reticule

Here is the silliest thing I've ever made: a pineapple reticule! 

A few weeks ago I learned that pineapple reticules were a thing - at least one of them, that I know of. This knit pineapple purse is housed in the Kyoto Costume Institute’s 1800-1810 collection (as featured on JaneAusten.co.uk) 

The extant purse is knit in silk, in several shades of yellow and green.  The blog linked above states that pineapples and other tropical fruit were very much en vogue during the early regency, but sadly, I cannot find any other examples of period fruit-like knit or fabric objects online. But this one example is enough for me! 

There are lots of patterns for similar knit reticules on Ravelry and Etsy. I am not a knitter - I crochet (crocodile stitch, maybe?), but I didn’t happen to have any yellow or green yarn sitting around. What I did have was a three yard length of 6” wide yellow poly satin fabric that I wasn’t doing anything with, so I decided to sew a little pineapple bag. 

For the body, I sewed four 6" wide strips of satin together to make a large rectangle, then pintucked the whole thing on the bias, and sewed the result into a tube. The lining is yellow cotton from an old sheet I had sitting around to make mock-ups with. 

The  “leaves” are big triangles attached to the top edge of the tube, and I ran a drawstring (pale gold ribbon) around the top of the bag just beneath the leaves on the inside of the bag so that they'd stand up when the bag is closed.  I didn’t have anything green to use for the leaves, so I cut off part of the yellow piece and dyed it green with Rit’s Dyemore for synthetics in “peacock green,” which yielded this lovely leaf green color: 

The leaves being put together, and the yellow cotton lining: 

And here's the round, flat bottom of the bag, also green. The little covered button on the bottom is just for fun, and just because I love covered buttons:

Y'all, I CANNOT stop giggling at this thing.  It's so silly!  This is officially the silliest thing I've ever made, and it pleases my heart.  HEE HEE HEE.