Middle [school] ages

In a year 9 history elective my class decided to have a medieval lunch. Due to my internet-ly wanderings at that time I had just discovered the concept of ‘historical accuracy’. I decided I wanted an accurate costume and couldn’t possibly wear the supposedly ‘medieval’ hot pink satin ‘frog princess’ costume my mother had previously made for me to wear to a birthday party.

Frog Princess

So I sought out a pattern for a sideless surcoat outfit (Burda 7977), bought some cotton poplin and embarked on the project. At the time it seemed like such a huge project. I had a week to make it – but it was a week when we were out every night.  Fortunately it’s not a complex outfit and I was able to follow the pattern as is (a very rare occurrence). Only the godets caused some grief. Godets were a new concept at the time for both myself and my mum and I had to redo them several times. Now I know to sew them differently from the pattern instructions (one should attach godets before sewing the side seams).

The outfit was ready to wear on the day, albeit unhemmed; Mum made the hat while I was at school and dropped it off just before lunch. 

This was my first attempt at a deliberate, accurate costume and I have never looked back.

This costume has since been worn to birthday parties and medieval festivals and has been a visual aid in class presentations. I’ve grown so used to it that it has migrated out of my costume wardrobe to be mixed-and-matched with my everyday wardrobe. 

Of course this is perfectly normal uni wear.  What do you mean it’s 700 years out of fashion?

I have since accumulated quite a collection of early medieval cotton garments. I made outfits for the doctor and lady-in-waiting for a scene from Macbeth in English class (I do that). These are both essentially lengthened t-shirts. I tried to use trims that looked like weaving if you squinted at them from a distance, and the one on the brown robe kind-of does. Lady Macbeth wore the cream dress (above) without the surcoat.

More recently I used the Burda 7977 pattern to make an everyday dress. I adapted the sleeve pattern into bell sleeves and I was very happy with how they turned out. This pattern has surprisingly agreeable sleeves and I use them when I have to add long sleeves to other patterns.

A week is a long time in medieval dressmaking

I completed my cousins’ outfits a week before we left to see them and all go to the Abbey Medieval Tournament together. So I had time to make a new outfit for myself as well. I’d had a few ideas floating around the back of my mind and of them I decided on a Viking outfit, as it seemed the most achievable (at last! a sensible decision).

I had been accumulating information on Viking clothing over the last six months or so and I spent Saturday morning sorting through this to choose my design and pattern.  Thankfully, I found perfect fabrics in the stash which saved me a trip out to Spotlight. I spent the afternoon mocking up the apron dress.

On Sunday I finished my cousin’s shirt – because I hadn’t actually finished everything, but I knew I was going to, and that’s the important thing.

On Monday and Tuesday I cut my fabric and did all the machine sewing. I did some of the hand-hemming after work on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was dedicated to packing.  We left on Saturday and during the evenings of the next week (while we were travelling and staying with family) I finished the hemming, attached the straps and did the row of decorative embroidery.

On the first day of the festival, I wore my Venetian gown again. From one of the stalls I bought the beads and mjolnir which I attached to my apron dress in the evening. It was finished and ready to wear on Sunday.

Eagles make an excellent accessory for any outfit.

The Details

My underdress, or kyrtill, is made using this design (on the 1st page).  The fabric I used is some sort of gabardine and was lovely to work with.  The resulting dress is very comfortable.

My apron dress is made from some blue I-don’t-know-if-it’s-linen-but-it-looks-like-it fabric. And going by the Viking population at Abbey, dark blue is the colour for apron dresses. Of the many apron dress patterns floating around the internet I chose this one for two reasons: I could figure out how it worked (but not how to explain it, so you’re on your own), and it didn’t waste any fabric – which is an important feature of a lot of early garment construction.  The shape of the pattern essentially comes from four rectangles and draping.

Apron dress or hangerock.

I decorated the hem with double herringbone stitch (or possibly a novice’s re-interpretation of herringbone stitch – I’d never done it before and it didn’t turn out quite the way I expected). I was going to look at getting or doing some tablet weaving for the top edge, but now that the outfit is done I think I prefer it as it is.

Both these dresses are put on over my head without any closures. This outfit is actually not too different from what I wear everyday so it seems a bit weird to have it categorised as a costume.

For my brooches I used two medallions that started life as serviette holders from the Vasa museum in Sweden. The medallion design is probably 16th century; a bit too late for Vikings, but they come from the right part of the world.  I plan to replace them at some point, or at least not leave them on the dress, because I like to wear one as a pendant.

I also plan to redo the bead strings. I was able to talk to one of the early-Scandinavia re-enactors at the festival and she said that the beads should be more random as items would only be bought (or found) one at a time and would often have personal significance. At the moment my bead strings have a lot of repeat beads which would be unusual. While this was necessary to get the outfit ready in time to wear on the Sunday, I now plan to collect bits and pieces so I can redo it for the next wearing. 

I did my hair in this style, as found on the Elling woman bog body.