Mom's Wool Hangeroc

Another piece for my mother's Age of Exploration classroom unit, she wanted a new apron dress to replace her blue linen version, below:

I made her this apron dress almost a decade ago, so an update was certainly in order. My first order of business was to work on the straps. When I made her blue linen, I was still attaching the loops to a larger piece of strap that would go over the shoulder. Well, I know now that this isn't supported by any evidence. If you would like to read more about that, I have addressed it in several of my previous posts.

I'm kind of in love with how the straps turned out. I used a wool weaving yarn to do the hand-sewing, and it was so much fun to coil them up - they look like little drink coasters! But as precious as they were, I still needed them for the dress.

Once the garment was constructed, I treated all the seams. I used the same wool weaving yarn to do a running stitch holding the seam allowances where I wanted them. I've seen this technique used by many other costumers, and I was curious to try it myself.

In the end, I love the effect that the lines of running stitch give the garment. It's a quick and easy technique, but it certainly adds a lot of interest to the piece. All that was left to do at this point was add the silk trim.

I used a tablet-woven silk band as the final element, and attached it with inconspicuous little stitches of a matching silk thread.

Here's the final piece, as it was displayed at Laurel's Prize 2017, before I shipped the dress to Mom for her classroom unit.

Bibliography:

Baker, Jennifer. "Stitches and Seam Techniques Seen on Dark Age/Medieval Garments in Various Museum Collections." 2009. <http://nvg.org.au/documents/other/stitches.pdf> 11 June 2014.

Ewing, Thor. Viking Clothing. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, Inc. 2006.

Glæsel, Nille. Viking Dress Garment Clothing. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2010.

Hägg, Inga. "Viking Women's Dress at Birka: A Reconstruction by Archeological Methods." Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor E.M. Carus-Wilson. Ed. N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting. Pasold Studies in Textile History. 1983.

Schweitzer, Robert. “Beginning Tablet Weaving.” Forward into the Past. 2 April 2011. <http://www.fitp.ca/articles/FITPXXI/beginning_tablet_weaving.pdf>

Geijer, Agnes. "The Textile Finds from Birka." Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor E.M. Carus-Wilson. Ed. N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting. Pasold Studies in Textile History. 1983.

Thunem, Hilde. "Viking Women: Apron Dress." 25 February 2015. <http://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html>

Wedding Renewal Bliaut

When Honorable Lady Lyneya de Grey and her husband Sir Lasguaard Aglanar the Red Fox decided to renew their vows, she asked me to make her a bliaut.

Here's the finished dress during the vow renewal ceremony. Lyneya made Lasguaard's tunic, and I gave her the pattern piece I used for her neckline so that she could customize a more decorative overlay for the occasion.

Unfortunately we had a camera related issue as I was working on this project, so additional images were lost. Luckily I had sent her three progress pictures, which were saved in our Facebook messages.

Hand-sewing the neckline with a contrasting white linen thread.

Contrasting rust eyelets, sewn using a corresponding thin linen weaving yarn.

Blue Wool Cotehardie

I have a few more pictures of this project than I want to include in the Gallery section, so please excuse the extremely belated post!

I hand-sewed this cotehardie in 2004, after getting the wool from a vendor at an outdoor shopping center in Leicester, England while I was studying in London. This project was a huge learning experience for me, as I didn't know many stitch types at the time and the running stitch seams were very weak and prone to ripping.

I no longer have the dress, as I sold it to another SCAdian in the Barony of Three Mountains before I moved back to Alaska for my first year of teaching in Togiak. The cotehardie was either a six or eight gore style, with significant inspiration taken from the Herjofsnes finds. It was faced in silk, and all the eyelets for the spiral-lacing were sewn by hand as well.

I still have the belt, which was my first successful inkle weaving project. My heraldry features a bee, which inspired the color choice and pattern. The hardware set is the Rose Buckle and Strap End (1250 - 1550 AD) from Fettered Cock Pewters, and fits the period of my original persona.

The veil is a linen oval, also sewn entirely by hand. At the time, I did not yet have access to linen thread. It was sewn using a quilter's cotton.

The circlet in the images above was made by my friend Deanna, who introduced me to the SCA at the Barony of Winter's Gate's Yule Celebration in 2000.

Steppes Artisan Cloak

The Steppes Artisan Cloak is a piece of regalia that was a collaboration of three artists. Lady Safiya Spizega wove the oak leave brocade trim, I did the construction, and Baroness Ekaterina Iadorovna Kharlampieva did all the applique. It was presented in court yesterday, at the 2018 Steppes Artisan Competition.

The cloak was designed as a 3/4 circle cloak of linen lined with linen, 41" long. As regalia, it needs to comfortably fit a variety of body types and heights.

To get started, I cut my wedges and sewed the top three together. I did the same with the three wedges of lining, but set that aside for later.

The brocade trim determined the curve of the neckline. Here you can see it laid out flat in the initial pinning.

Once the initial pinning was done, I pulled the front together to make sure everything was in line and then began sewing it down by hand, using a black linen thread.

Once the trim was attached, I pinned the outside to the lining and trimmed the neckline before sewing the two pieces together. Due to the timing, I did the construction on the machine, but all top-stitching was done by hand. I did a small running stitch down the front to help it lay flat, and then began the hem. Baroness Katya needed access to the inside for her applique work, so the decision was made to hem the exterior and the lining separately so that it would be both accessible and yet still finished.

My husband did the math, and the hem alone took approximately 14 yards of hand-sewing. And that doesn't include the running stitch on the front, or the trim attachment.

After this, the cloak was ready to be handed off, relay-race fashion, to Baroness Katya. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the finished version. I will post more as soon as I'm able to obtain them.