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 1 (Pleated Serk)

 My big summer project (which I’m hoping will be my Kingdom A&S project) is not only begun, but partway finished: 

That needs ironing, sorry 

I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making a pleated-neckline serk, and now I have  The serk took me 11 hours almost exactly; that’s including drafting the pattern and making a couple of mock-ups to test the fit in the shoulders.  

Pretty decent side gores (outside)

The whole thing is hand sewn, using linen thread the same color as the fabric (it’s a dyed fabric, but it’s a natural linen color).  

Gathering the neckline

The only exception is in the neckline, which I gathered using mercerized cotton sewing thread, because it slides through the fabric better than the linen thread  the blue cotton thread was removed once the neckline was completed. 

Neckline binding strip at the slit

The Pskov serk, on which I based my overall design for this project, has the front made in two panels cut along the selvedge, with the selvedge edge in the center so that the neckline slit doesn’t need to be hemmed. I…forgot to cut it that way. Oops. Rather than doing a tiny rolled hem here like I usually do, I opted to finish the slit with a thin (3/8”) bias strip to protect the edges against wear and tear.  I don’t know if this is necessarily a period-accurate technique - but the neckline binding strip is made in the same way, so they knew HOW to do it at any rate. 

Inside view

You know how I feel about armpit gussets…but this one came out fairly nicely, if I do say so myself. 

So now we move on to the next phase of this 4-part project: the smokkr/apron dress that goes over this pleated serk. It’ll be simple and straightforward - for once the smokkr is not the star of the show…but we’ll get to that in another post. 

SCA: Side Quest: New Casual Tunic Dress

Sometimes you want to dress down a bit, you know?  Work days at camp, slow afternoons before court, and days when I just don’t feel like wearing 90lb of jewelry. I didn’t have anything like that. 

So I made this quick little tunic dress: 

It’s linen, and hand sewn with cotton sewing thread. The color might be a bit bright for historical accuracy, but I love it. It took me about a week to make this, working 2-4 hours per day. 

The sleeves are extra long so that they’ll bunch up on my forearms, like this cute little bronze figurine: 

The darker blue binding on the neckline and sleeves is made from linen scraps from another project. I was going to add some tablet weaving to just the front slit, but I didn’t have anything already made that I liked for this, and I don’t feel like weaving à tiny piece just for this. 

And with that out of the way, I’m moving on to my next BIG project for Kingdom A&S in September.  I have six months to make three pieces and weaving all the things. 

I’ll be doing more little side quests in between working on it, though. I still haven’t figured out what to do about embellishing thst wool hood, so that’s one. I also have a tablet weaving project I want to work on in my spare time, too. 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: 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: Male Viking Tunic Replacement

 I finally made myself a new tunic to go with my male Norse outfit. The last one had seen better days: it started out life as a dress, which I altered, dyed, and finally cut off to make into a tunic. Then it got dyed again, and I switched out the trim on it twice, and I don’t even know how many repairs to this thing I had done. This is what it looked like in November: 

I decided I hated the woven trim, and I was in the process of measuring for new trim when I discovered that the back right shoulder seam had blown out - and the seam allowances inside were utterly shredded, so it wouldn’t be an easy repair. When I found two more destroyed seams in it, I decided to scrap the whole tunic and just replace it. It was time. 

Here is the new one: 

Simpler, and a better color, I think. The tunic is linen, the woven trim is cotton. I seamed this together on the machine, and then felled all the seam allowances and did the finishing/hemming by hand. I cut the side gores much narrower than the ones on the old tunic - they were wider because it used to be a dress - and it hangs better now that there’s not too much fabric. 

While I love the trim I wove for this tunic (Ladoga 2b), I’m not wild about the way the neckline came out. It’s…I don’t know, I just don’t like it much. Maybe it just needs jewelry. 

But all in all, I like the new tunic, I LOVE the color, and I like the fact that my male outfit is complete again -  I can wear it to Gulf Wars next month. Woohoo!  

Now to make myself a new serk…

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! 

*

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! 

SCA: BAM Shenanigans & Updating my Roman Outfit

War of the Rams ended up being a total bust for me. I hurt my back on the first day, and was basically stuck in a chair at camp the entire weekend - I didn’t get to go anywhere or do any of the activities, or even see people I’d been looking forward to seeing. I was pretty bummed about that. I didn’t even get any pictures. 

However, I did wear a blue jean  “cowboy viking” outfit on Friday that I made as a joke, and got a bunch of good laughs out of it. I don’t have a pic of me in it, but here it is on my mannequin: 

Isn’t that ridiculous? I wore it with cowboy boots and a red bandana over my hair. There were several double-takes, and a few people busted out laughing when they saw me, hehe. Silliness. 

I also bought this gorgeous new mug for myself while I was there. It’s a hand made and hand painted pottery in a loosely Greco-Roman design, and one of a kind - I couldn’t pass it up! 

Speaking of Roman, I found out that the Bjornsborg spring event this coming year will be Roman-themed, hooray! I love wearing Roman, and the weather then should be perfect for it.  I decided to upgrade my kit a bit this month, starting with a new sash to tie around my body (it's blue; the old one was dark gray and I didn’t like the way it went with the light blue chiton). 

This week I treated myself to a pdf booklet of Greek- and Roman- inspired tablet weaving patterns from Etsy (some traditional “Greek key” designs, and some patterns inspired by the geometric designs in floor mosaics and frescoes), and I made up this one in blue and white cotton: 

Once it was done, I sewed it onto the top edges of my linen chiton, to dress it up some. (Decorative trim on these things IS period,  but tablet weaving itself is NOT…but I’m not worried about that, I’m not going for exacting historical accuracy with my Roman, I just want something approximate and *pretty* to bang around in at the event).  

That’s all for now.  At the moment I’m working on two pieces: a new palla for my Roman outfit, and a hand-sewn Norse smokkr for an event in January. More on that 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! 

SCA: The Hand Sewn Viking Project, Part I

For the last couple of years, I've been paying special attention to finishing my machine-sewn garments by hand as much as I can.  Usually I do the long construction seams on the machine, and then hem everything by hand; and I've made several small things - hats, bags, etc.- completely by hand, for the practice. 

Now it's time to level up, and try sewing an entire outfit by hand for the first time. This will eventually be a complete (female) Norse outfit (generally 9-10th century); for now, I'm starting with the serk, or underdress. 

lower hem meets side seam

The fabric for this serk is 100% linen (very light weight, 3oz), and the thread I used is 80/3 linen in a color as close to matching as I could find. The fabric is near-white, bleached linen.  For accuracy, my linen could have been left natural (unbleached and undyed), but I'll be honest with you, I look awful in the beiges and pale taupe shades of natural linen - those tones make my skin look green. There is some evidence of dyed linen serks, but not just a whole lot of it, so I wanted to steer away from using dyed linen for this project. That left me with bleached linen, which is a historically correct option, albeit one that might not have been worn by *everybody*.  Most people would probably have used undyed, unbleached linen (in cases where they used linen at all, but that's a whole different discussion).   

The pattern for this serk  is a basic tunic such as the ones found in Greelqnd and the UK: a rectangular front and back, rectangular sleeves, square armpit gussets, and triangular side gores to widen the skirt.  The neckline is a wide round one, with a deep keyhole slit in the front.  I made the sleeves a bit longer and wider than I usually do so that I could roll them up when I needed to. 

I used period stitches throughout the garment.  I used a backstitch on the long seams for strength and stability, and then flat-felled each seam with a whip stitch.  The hems were folded twice and then secured with a herringbone stitch:  

Inga Hagg's "Osenstitch" (1984) 

I pre-washed my linen fabric in hot water to shrink the fibers and soften them; after I was done sewing the serk I washed it again to shrink the thread and tighten up the seams.  I like add a little bit of cheap, sulfate-free hair conditioner to my washing machine when I wash linen, which makes the fabric SUPER soft and comfy.  

Overall, I'm pleased with how this sewing project turned out.  It didn't take me as long as I'd feared it would to sew this entire garment by hand - about 14 hours (spread over about three months).  The thing that took the most time to was the sleeve under seams and armpit gussets, because I put them on inside-out the first time and had to take it all apart and redo it. 

here, have a neckline instead

I do feel like my hand sewing improved on this project.  It was easier than I thought it would be, and like I said, it was faster, too.  By the time I finished this I was ripping through the sewing like it was nothing, and my stitches got smaller and more even the more I worked. My one complaint is about the thread: my waxed linen thread felt like sewing with dental floss, and I hated the feel of it. I think next time I do this I’ll order a finer thread.   

The next phase will be to create a new smokkr (apron dress) to go with this underdress. But that’ll be it’s own post.