Viking Coat

As many stories start,
Once Upon a Time, Fortune St. Keyne asked me to do a thing.

Actually, back up, that's not -entirely- true.
This time.

At Crown Tourney I heard that Fortune had recently bartered with a mutual friend in exchange for making her garb. 

And I wanted in on that. So I asked her about it and she said 'Funny you say that, I've just agreed to make their new Highnesses' viking garb for Birka.' and after hammering out a few details, I agreed to do what I can only describe as:

THE CHAPTER IN WHICH KIAYA DOES A CRAP TON OF HERRINGBONE STITCH:

In January (Yes, January. End of the first week of January.) I drive down to see Fortune and she hands me this beautiful wool coat, in the most lovely shade of teal.

And I began my long work of embroidering all the seams and hems.

Oh yes, it was double herringbone my friends. I did everything -twice- and then I slashed the top with a beautiful red cranberry color. 

And then we began stage two:

THE CHAPTER IN WHICH KIAYA APPLIQUES

(Blanket stitch for miles)

Oh yes, every edge on those peacocks. Every color, is outlines in blanket stitch. Now, I will admit, there was learning on this sucker. And the heat-bond stuff DID NOT STICK for long, so I ended up pinning at least half of it down anyway. My stitches could definitely have been more even. However, now? Now my stitches are crazy good. Practice will do that for you.

Remember when I said it was the end of the first week of January? Now it was somewhere in the last stretch of the month. Birka is the last weekend in January. So there wasn't a lot of time.

Oh but then she handed me the apron dress.

And we went back to Herringbone stitch. So much Herringbone stitch. 

And it all got done. I think we'd wanted to do more embroidery on the underdress proper, but when all was said and done, it was done. The coat looked marvelous and their Highnesses were fantastic. (Fortune was so great. She was working on his Highness' coat THAT day (I know, I helped in the hotel room.) and it looked amazing.)

Someone else took this photo and I can't find the source now. I apologize for that oversight. However, it's one of the better ones I was able to find of that weekend and Princess Honig in the teal coat. I'm stupidly proud of that thing and am so thankful that Fortune included me in that project.

Although, hang on, I haven't gotten that garb in payment yet...

Maciejowski Bible dress

So there is this super cool book called the Morgan (Maciejowski) Bible.

It has some super cool stuff in it.

Lemme highlight this one for you though.

LOOK AT THOSE GORGEOUS BLUES.

This photo is a bit saturated, but if you look through the book, you'll see these fantastic dresses all over the place. Tight sleeves, stupid long length and a brooch at the neck, holding the neck closed.

 

At our Market Day at Birka event, I found the softest, gooiest (no really) blue linen and I immediately knew what it was going to be for. And then I decided to handsew the whole darn thing because I wanted to be PRETTY gosh darnit. 

Of course, I forgot to buy blue linen thread and instead just sallied forth with my plain undyed linen thread until later, when I was able to order some from the now out of business, Hedgehog Handiworks. The actual sewing went surprisingly well, however, after embroidering the coat for the then-Princess Honig, my hands started cramping and I had to take a break, so my general math for how long it took me is a bit messed up. I loved felling the seams, I just wish it didn't take so long. 

THIS blog shows how they also used what we call a St. Birgitta's Cap in the same book (as well as all over the gosh darn place), so I had to make one of those too. (but I did not handsew it as I was kind of rushed. But I still found time to embroider that weird pink stuff onto the edge sooooo... *shrugs*)

I ended up adapting a pattern out of the Medieval Tailor's Assistant and then, because realistically I cannot sew to my arms every time (but man, I thought hard about that), I added suuuuper tiny cloth buttons so that I could still roll up my sleeves.

I finished the dress in time to be pretty at Panteria, for my friend Astridr who spent Panteria being apprenticed to Mistress Astrida. We ended up using my family's pavilion for the ceremony and it was lovely. 

I was really excited about this dress because I allowed myself to go crazy on the length (since I'm so tall and cheap, I often don't give myself enough length so I use as little fabric as possible) and I just feel SO PRETTY in this. I'm really loving my foray into the mid-late 13th century. It seems to hit all my buttons so far.