Hedeby Apron Dress

I didn't get the dress completely finished for event, but it was done enough to be wearable, and my hopes are high that there'll be another Norse themed event next year to showcase all the features I didn't get done in time.

In the end, I made my dress almost exactly as I'd cut Órlaith's. I did look into cutting my main panels in a A-line shape as per the Hedeby fragment, but the difference between my bust and hip measurements was so slight, I didn't feel it would have added anything to the dress.

My vague look of annoyance in the third picture was when I was questioning Órlaith if she was really going to keep taking pictures of me while I was adjusting my costume. She gleefully replied in the affirmative, and kept snapping. sigh

But this is my almost finished dress. The seams of the dress need to be sewn down, and I'm currently spinning up some scoured Gotland fibres for that job, and I didn't have time to place the darts and trim onto the back. The top of the dress was hemmed with a herringbone stitch, made from the inside to add a little give to the hem, and when trimmed with the tablet weave from my barter with Catherine Weaver of Thamesreach, was invisible from the outside. The belt is also made by Catherine Weaver, but was gifted to me by Baroness Caitríona, back when I had no intention of going Viking *ahem*. The brooches and hair pin were purchased from Pera Peris.

As Crown Princess Isabel of Drachenwald was in attendance at the event and rumours were heard of court to be held, I wanted my garb to have a "day" look as well as an "formal" look. I figured while beads and jewellery, while all well and good, would get in the way during day time chores, so I omitted the beads for during the day and wore the belt which will eventually have a great number of items suspended from it; for the moment my site token looks all lonely hanging there.

The formal look shows off the shaping around the waist much better without the best in place. One of my biggest surprises with this dress was that as I had decided not to wear modern underwear with it, there was still a surprising amount of support from the fit of the apron dress. And speaking of underwear, I've seen conflicting accounts speculating whether Norse women would have worn anything under their dresses. An unseasonally warm October weekend doesn't give the best of testing conditions, but a boat trip on Sunday morning over Lough Ree confirmed that you'd have to be crazy to not have something on underneath when the harder weather comes on. So a pair of simple trousers will be added to be sewing list for this outfit.

Overall I'm very pleased with this outfit. I think it looks well on me and the fit keeps the dress close to my body without tangling my legs. I was only really chilled on my arms and shoulders, where I only had one layer of linen to keep me warm, thought getting to work on a kaftan to wear while outdoors should sort that out. Given that we don't have enough of the dress fragments to have a single "correct" look, I feel confident that my interpretation is a good one; when I get it completed that is. But with a sewing list of fun projects for this costume as long as my arm, I've no fear of it not being seen through. 

As it happened, it was a good thing I'd planned for a formal look to my dress too. While I was at the event, HRH Isabel invited me to become her Mistress of the Wardrobe for the coming reign. I was breathless! It's such an honour!. The whole Kingdom is going to be seeing my work, and I need to find ways to step up my game. 

Planning the Apron Dress

In the making of my own apron dress, I wanted to make a more fitted dress than those styles observed in the other parts of Scandinavia. As I've already mentioned, my research led me to the Danish-German settlement of Hedeby, and the evidence of darts found there. Unfortunately, when making this style of Apron Dress, there are very few hard and fast rules. Yes, there exist fragments from Hedeby, but of only one dress panel. This means any possibly re-creation of the dress is based on one's own interpretation of the finds. So here I present my thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, there is the matter of the Hedeby find. This is composed of two fragments, both of which show evidence of a dart, with trim sewn over the dart on the outside. Hägg posits this fragment as a side back piece, lining up the seams of the piece with the side and centre back lines on the body. Other re-enactors have suggested that the piece was actually a side panel, with the dart matching up to the side seam on the body. Of the two, I agree more with Hägg’s interpretation of the placement. Under the arm is a high friction area, and adding a braid to an already raised area would result in faster fabric abrasion. Now, given some of the two part-sleeves also found in Hedeby, maybe this was exactly what happened. But as the trim goes from the very top of the dress and continues the length of the dress fragment to presumably the full length of the dress, while on the found sleeve fragment the partial piece lies to the outside of the arm and away from the potential abrasion area; I don't think this is a likely arrangement. Based on this my own dress will feature darts towards the back of the dress rather than the sides. Further to this, the felted hole near the top of the fragment may have been an attachment point for straps, and placing this fragment as a side piece places this hole almost under the arm.

Going back to the apron dress find from Hedeby, the found piece we know to be a complete piece due to evidence of sewing holes at both sides, and from this we can attempt to surmise the rest of the garment. If we assume the piece was one quarter of the total dress, with a chest measurement of 64cm and a potential waistline only 15 cm below this, this gives the piece at fitting quite a small torso, and some re-enactors have speculated that this indicates the piece was originally worn by a child or young adolescent. I originally considered that this would necessitate a different cut for an adult garment, but throughout history, children seem to have been dressed in mini versions of adult clothing, so there's no reason to think this small garment can't still be used as a template. As a template in would indicate A-line shaped pieces, though the addition of gores may be required to fit this adult woman's curves. Other finds from Hedeby confirm the use of gores in items that may have been tunics or serks (underdress), but more importantly it means the style of gores was in use in the region; an important factor for how my underdress is constructed and for how I plan to make my apron dress.

So where does this leave me and how I plan to construct my own dress? I'm a great believer of conspicuous consumption in historical formal wear, even in modern wear for that matter. That is, the use of fine fabrics and accessories in a conscious display of wealth. For that reason my theory is that the front of the dress is cut in a single, unbroken piece. Although Norse looms would have regularly been able to produce quite wide fabrics as well as narrower widths[1], I believe that a smokkr, fully adorned with brooches and beads, could serve as a statement for the fineness of the fabric used for this dress. I've seen tantalising references to an "Old Norse laced dress" or "dragkyrtill", with the reference given as laz ar siþu, Falk 1919, p 158, but not being able to find any more information on this it remains a vague reference. And much as I'd love to find reason for a laced smokkr, allowing for how small the textile finds usually are, I haven't seen evidence of lacing loops or metal rings or even sewn eyelets in Norse garb. So I have to conclude, unless more information is uncovered, that the dress was semi-fitted and not laced tight.

I'll be cutting my dress more or less as Órlaith's was cut; that is as a central front piece, two back pieces and including side and back gores for width and swish. As I haven't her height, I'll be cutting my pieces a little wider, more in the A shape and bringing the apron dress to mid-calf, rather than full length, so as to show off the hem of the underdress. Hmm, guess I can't put off the cutting any longer.

[1] - Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia  By Phillip Pulsiano, Kirsten Wolf

Finished(ish) Hedeby Underdress

At the Garb Workshop hosted by Dun in Mara last weekend, I had thought since no-one had requested my aid, that I'd be able to spend the weekend concentrating on my own stuff. But three impromptu classes and a whole lot of sewing and cutting advice later, I still managed to I made respectable progress on my Hedeby Norse costume.

 

It's amazing how much focus a room full of like minded people with similar tasks to hand can provide the drive needed to get moving on a project. For me this involved winning the fight I'd been having with the dress gores, drafting a sleeve pattern and setting them, and finishing the neckline. I had a bit of a Moment when cutting the sleeves and managed to cut them without seam allowance. Given that fabric was short, I decided to cut some gores from the scraps and added these at the top and bottom of the sleeves, reasoning that even this would have been more reasonable in period than scraping the whole thing. I had been concerned previously that the dress would end up too short, but the hem just overlaps the top of my najlbound socks slightly, so it's worked out rather nicely. Overall I'm rather happy with how this is coming along. I believe my construction is reasonably accurate, and it's a very comfortable garment to wear. 

The final underdress has some slight shaping on the torso to make it a little more fitted; with an hourglass figure there's only so much fitting you can do if you still want the dress to pull off over the head without any additional openings. The dress has side gores to the waist line and front and back gores to the hip line. The hem at the wrist and end of the dress was cut on the fabric selvage to minimise work with hemming, though this is my own invention. I haven't seen any evidence to support the idea, but I can see no reason why they wouldn't have done it if they could. The sleeves are gored to make up for my earlier mistake, and are fitted as per the Hedeby finds, though apart from the last minute gores, I decided to cut the sleeve as a single piece, so without the secondary piece seen in the Hedeby sleeve finds. Similarly, the neckline is a shallow scoop shape found to be particular to Hedeby rather than the keyhole shaping found in other towns. If I'd used a wool I may have been able to get a better fit, but given my fabric restrictions, I think it's turned out well. The arms and side gores still need to be felled, but if I run short on time, I at least have a wearable garment for the event.

 

Norse Socks

Progress, of sorts!

I have the first part of my Norse outfit completed; a pair of najlbound socks. I started these just after Raglan, while the post-event energy was still low, but I wanted something to play with. Having attended Mistress Rogned's class on Roman style najlbinding, and having made many pairs of socks before, I dove straight into making a pair for my first najlbinding project.

Oh my, I learned a lot in making these. The socks are currently a little loose around the ball of my foot, but fit comfortably on the rest of the foot. I'm not too worried about that, as having worked with this yarn before, Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, I know it's fond of felting when it's in heavy use, so I expect with time and wear these will become a much snugger fit. 

I found documentation supporting Norse women's socks coming just over the ankle, or having a gap in front to allow the sock to be pulled on. As I didn't want to end up with yet another quarter ball of yarn hanging about, I just kept going until I ran out of yarn. Who would've thought it was possible to get a whole pair of socks out of a single ball of worsted weight yarn! And they're so soft, and think and cosy. Even if they don't end up being worn for the even, they're going to make a fantastic pair of winter socks for round the house.

Norse Underdress

Unfortunately my garb making has not been going as well as I'd hope this month. I had originally hoped to have my underdress done by the garb workshop this coming weekend (not a hope), and be able to work on the apron dress there. But as you can tell from the picture, weellll....  I'm a fair bit off from finished.

To make my Norse under dress, I'm using the information from this previous shared link, specifically the couple of paragraphs on the Hedeby/Haithabu finds. This page shows a possible layout for a Hedeby style underdress based on finds.  I've come across various cutting diagrams for Norse style underdresses in my searches, but I find it very hard to believe that a dress where every square inch of fabric had to have spun and woven, would have been cut with large waste pieces. So to this end I've been making this up so far by using a rectangle system of fabric cutting to use the fabric as efficiently as possible.

 

If you'll forgive my dodgy paint skills, I've made up a basic, if wonky diagram of how I cut out my pieces.

• The front and back pieces are half the width of my hips, plus seam allowance, and the length is the full width of the fabric, so it may be a little short when worn.

• The width of the fabric halved is longer then my arm length, so I cut a strip of fabric which is measured at my bicep, plus seam allowance, to become my sleeves.

• Lastly, I folded the remaining fabric in half, and cut out my gores, measured from my wasit to the hem of the dress, so I'd get the maximum width possible for bottom hem. Gore pieces 1 and 2 will be the side goes, while gore pieces 3, 4a and 4b will be shortened slightly, and become the front and back gores. Gore 4 will have a central seam to join the two pieces, and because of this will be place in the back.

This is the diagram of the fabric as adapted for the width and amount I had, and my own body shape, but it really is worth measuring and adapting these kinds of layouts to your own shape in order to get the best of your fabric usage. This isn't necessarily the most period method of construction, especially as modern fabrics are generally a lot wider then pre-industrial ones, but it's efficient. This has left me with a small amount of leftover linen that is destined to become a hat trimmed with white rabbit fur - in keeping with the colour scheme.

Ah yes, the colour scheme. While I've been endeavouring to ensure the correct shape for my garments, my fabric selections are a little less realistic. Partly due to the fabric being what I had available, and partly due to the required Shenanigans colour scheme, I have a purple linen for the underdress, where an undyed linen was more likely in period, allowing for the few samples that seem to contain traces of blue or brown dyes. And for apron dress, I have a thick cream fluffy fabric, which a burn test concludes is mostly cotton, but which could conceivably fool the man on the galloping horse into thinking it's a wool from a distance.

Norse Shenanigans

When I first set out to make myself a set of Norse garb, I said to myself that this would be a throw away project; I was going to make something that had the look, but I was not going to put time and effort and research into it, because damnit, I didn't have any... and here's what I found so far...

I didn't have time for original research, drawing my own conclusions from finds, but there's a hell of a lot of information available as it is. Firstly, and unsurprisingly, there are many different flavours of Norse wear. Between Hibernian-Norse, Saxon-Norse and the many flavours of Scandinavian Norse, each has it's own subtle differences that lends each a unique look, once you know what you're looking for. I already knew that with the fabrics I had available for this project, I wanted an underdress with apron dress arrangement, so I wanted to look for something that matched what I had in mind, and see how much project adjustment would be needed to get it right. 

This site came in very handy for that. Unfortunately many of the links on that site are broken, but if you have an idea of what you're looking for in Scandinavian Norse garb, it's still a very handy reference tool to compare the list of your ideas with the commonly worn garb from each settlement. From this, and from other sites I happened across, I initially thought I was leaning towards a Birka style garment, specifically the more fitted apron dresses of the 10th century. 

That was until I read this article from Tournaments Illuminated 186 about garments from Hedby, which seemingly had a much more fitted apron dress or smokkr through the use of tailoring, than the smokkr worn at other settlements. Another article,Viking Women: Aprondress By Hilde Thunem also compared the Birka and Hedby style smokkr's, while going into great detail regarding grave finds, so I was able to conclude I was on the right track for what I wanted to achieve. In mundane clothing I very much prefer clothing to be fitted, or at least not loose about my midriff, so a fully tailored apron-dress sounds ideal.

So I was decided, an underdress of exact pattern yet to be determined, and a tailored Hedby style apron dress. Now, I have seen a couple of references to a third layer, that or a tunic, short or long sleeved, which went over the linen underdress, and under the apron dress. However, due to fabric constraints, I've decided to just make the two layers for the moment. The third layer I can add in later on if I come across a nice fabric. 

When it comes to constructing the underdress, it comes down to personal preference of which particular tunic you want. A friend of mine has made great progress in research into and development of the Moy Bog Dress, but I want something fairly simple. I came across a couple of articles which have various methods of underdress construction, some with styles and patterns broken down by region or era, such as: 

• Viking Dames Tunieken
• Simple Viking Clothing for Women by Duchess Marieke van de Dal, which gives a couple of options for underdresses, as well as an overview of all of the items needed to complete your outfit (there also exists the Duchess' handout for Viking Clothing for Men for those that need it)
• Viking Women: Underdress By Hilde Thunem, the complimentary article to the one mentioned above, and also goes into great detail.  

When it comes to the apron dresses themselves, even though I've decided on my format, I thought I'd share a couple of the links that I came across along the way.

• Viking Apron Dress gives a good overview of a few different styles of smokkr and guides on how to construct them.  
• Viking Costume – women by Mistress Barbara Atte Dragon also gives a good overview of all the things you need to complete your costume.  
•  Reconstructing a Viking Hanging Dress from Haithabu by Peter Beatson and Christobel Ferguson, a blog post of another Hedby smokkr construction, so I have something to reference in my own attempts.  

When it comes to my own construction attempts, I'll mostly likely try a combination of my own pattern drafting, draping and the old fashioned winging it. Even though this is a new project, I'm going to start on it in the spirit of the Drachenwald 30-day challenge, where you take 30 days to learn or improve on a skill. I've never attempted Norse clothing before, and I've an event in October I hope to attend, so I'm going to use the challenge to see how much of the look I can complete within the month. Though yes, I've already been working on the najlbound socks...