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: New Viking Stuff! (ATR Article)

 In 2016, a burial site in Bryndum, Denmark began excavation and study, which among other things contained the grave (G12) of a woman with several layers of textiles buried with her.  The December 2025 issue of the Archeological Textile Review journal contains an article ("The Bryndum Burial Ground in Denmark: News on Viking Age Women's Clothing") which details these textiles.  

The outfit the woman was wearing is unique in several ways.  Firstly, she was covered by a "duvet" of dark gray (undyed) wool stuffed with straw and possibly down - which is not unique, but beneath this layer, she was dressed in: 

• a pleated, undyed linen serk (pleated serks are so cool and I've always wanted to make one) 
• a smokkr/apron dress made of wool which was dyed a deep, dark blue with tablet woven straps! 
• a dark gray jacket- or coat-like garment made of wool and lined with linen, which shows cutting and seaming which indicates that the garment may have been cut and tailored to the body

All of that is super cool, but the thing that blew my mind was the tablet woven straps on the smokkr. Most of the smokkr fragments we've found have been in the form of loops and little sections of the top of the garment which were preserved by the metal in the brooches the loops were attached to.  But THIS dress not only HAS straps - the straps are TABLET WOVEN BANDS.  This is the first instance that's been discovered of tablet weaving being used in this way in the Viking age, according to the journal article.  

Tablet woven straps! Stripes! Pleated serk!  I'm so excited about this - and I think now I need to make a new outfit for myself after this grave find.  I want to know more about how this coat/jacket thing was constructed, too.  

Anyway, I just thought this was cool and wanted to share it with you.  

For the time being, I'm hard at work on my current A&S project, and I need to finish that before I get into a new outfit based on this find.  More news on that as I progress (I know, I know, I haven't talked about it at all yet, but it's coming!) 

 

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. 

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: Prepping for BAM

 The third week of November is "BAM" - Bordermarch Autumn Melees, now called War of the Rams.  It's a five-day event in the middle of east Texas, and it's usually wet and cold...and a TON of fun.  

In 2020 and 2021, my Pandemic Project was an all-new Viking wardrobe - two new serks and three new apron dresses.  By the time the Pandemic blew (mostly) over and we were free to hold SCA events again, however, I'd gained enough weight that exactly NONE of my new dresses fit, so earlier this year I rushed to make two new serks and two new apron dresses that would work for me (the teal one that I've never blogged about (oops), and the blue herringbone).  

However, in August I started hitting the calorie-reduction and daily-walking bits as hard as I could, and I'm pleased to say that I've lost about 25lb since then - enough that I can fit into all of my Viking clothes, both the pandemic projects and the new pieces, as well as some older apron dresses that I spiffed up in 2020 and have never worn since.  

So, I've been spending my spare time in fixing up these older new dresses. All of my newer Viking clothing is seamed on the sewing machine and then finished by hand, and constructed in as period-correct a way as I can make them.  Except the older new dresses weren't - some of them were hemmed on the machine, so I'm picking the hems out and re-doing them by hand to make them look a bit better.  I did the same with my serks, which were all made entirely by machine - I picked out all the necklines, hemlines, and cuffs, and re-did them by hand in either a herringbone stitch (on the inside, which looks like a running stitch from the outside), or a running stitch. 

linen serk with new neckline stitching

All of my clothing is ready for BAM, and all of my packing is as pre-packed as I can make it, and I still have a week and a half to go.  So I'll be re-hemming dresses, ironing things, and working on various crochet projects until then.  I can't wait! 

SCA: An Exercise In Repeated Failure

And now for a fun post! Warning:  I'm going to cuss in this one.  You'll see why.  

Sometimes things just don't go your way.  I love dyeing fabrics and clothing, but man, when dye goes wrong, it goes WRONG.  I had this "natural" colored (oatmeal colored) linen serk that I wanted to dye blue, and it took way more work than it really should have...mostly because I screwed up in the beginning. 

Here's where we started.  This "oatmeal" color is lovely, and correct for the period, but this tone looks AWFUL on my skin.  Every time I wore it, I looked ill.  No bueno.  

I selected a teal Rit dye, and a charcoal gray one.  Just a bit of each, and the gray was supposed to tone down the tealness of the teal and make it more of a plain blue.  According to the Rit recipe from the website, it should have happened that way. 

Except that I forgot to take into account the native color of the fabric, which was basically BROWN.  Brown + blue = more brown.  So effectively, the two colors cancelled each other out and all I added was gray.  So the dress came out...gray.  

So I bleached the fabric.  Twice.  The first time didn't accomplish anything at all; the second time returned the dress to more or less its original color.  

But I thought...I could go lighter.  

Bleach spots on the third time through.  Oops again.  And also, fuck.  

I tried again, with double the bleach the fourth time.  I was leery of doing it, because too much time in the bleach can start eroding the fabric.  Thankfully, throughout this process, THAT never happened, at least. 

After the third round with the bleach, I had achieved something that looked kind of like zombie flesh:  mostly chalky white, with some brown streaking and spotting.  Gross.  

But once the dress was dried, the spotting/streaking barely showed, so I thought maaaybe it might be ready to take dye now.  

Wary of using too much teal dye (and no gray this time!), I only put a couple of capfuls into the washing machine with my dress. 

Shit, it's green!  Like, candy mint Peeps green.  UGH.  

But the color came out even.  Hm. 

I decided to give up.  I threw the rest of my teal dye in to the washer, and a couple of capfuls of the gray, and let 'er rip, let the chips fall where they may.  I was sick of messing with this dress. 

To my surprise, the dress came out a light greenish blue - exactly the color I'd wanted to dye the dress in the first place!  

Finally! Yay!  The color is nice and even, maybe a touch dark around the side seams, but that's okay - that'll be hidden by an apron dress anyway.  

SO DONE WITH THIS DRESS.  Glad it turned out ok. 

The End.