Seam treatments and other stuff
The family and I went down to Selveirgard for Spring Offensive. My daughter fought in her first boffer tournament. She won one fight, lost one. We’re all very proud.
When I wasn’t busy child-wrangling, I spent most the the time working on my seam treatments on my rust dress. The good news is that I got it finished while I was down there, and it looked great when it was done. The bad news is that I’ve been dieting, and now that I’ve sown over all the seams, the darn thing is too loose! I still wore it on Sunday.
The Greenlandic treatments are just a row or two or three of running stitches, and a whipstitch to hold the cut edges down. They’re simple, common stitches that have been used throughout history and are still used today. I’ve done some research on it, and found that these stitches were also found on seams in York (aka Jorvik) and other places during the same time period. The documentation on that site is somewhat lacking, but it’s similar to the information found in Penelope Walton’s Needlework from Jorvik, which has great documentation.
Knowing that the stitches were used in several different Viking settlements, I now feel a bit more justified in using documented Greenlandic treatments on my Swedish dress. 
Once done with my seams, I went back to work on my flame bargello piece. It’s about half-way done. It’s not high on my priority list, though. It’s more of a car project or an event project.
I had made a cloak for Bunny before we left on Friday. It was very warm, and Taran and I kept borrowing it from her throughout the weekend. Taran’s cloak was permanently borrowed by a couple that moved away, and I have never owned a cloak for various allergy-related reasons. I have discovered, however, that I’m not allergic to the wool that I bought from B Black and Sons, which is the same stuff that I made Olivia’s cloak out of. So, next on my agenda are two cloaks for us. I’m felting it in the drier for the second time as I write this. The whole house smells like rotten eggs.
I got cloak clasps from Inua Wool yesterday. She’s got some amazing stuff there, and a lot of it has Nordic influence. The cloak clasps we got were really quite unique. I can’t wait to put them on the new cloaks.
Taran also wants a Viking hat, so I’m making those as well, I just started embroidering on his hat panels. I’m using a four-panel instead of a six-panel design. Since he has an eagle on his heraldic device, I wanted to embroider an eagle on the hat for him. I found a nice eagle in the Viking style, and then did research on the types of eagles from Sweden. There are about ten different varieties of Swedish eagles. So I searched more, and found a reference to grey eagles in Viking sagas. I started embroidering the eagle in grey, but it really looks drab and dull. I’m starting over, and will do the same eagle design in a vibrant color. I was just going to outline it in stem stitch, but I think I may do it in open chain, found in Hald’s Ancient Danish Textiles. I know, there I go with the cross-culture again. Can’t be helped.
After seeing Kendrick’s wonderful Viking wedge at the event, our household decided to make several wedges of our own. I’m a research junkie, so I already had a lot of the information. I spent a good part of yesterday comparing canvas from various different places, and have found one that will probably work for us. All of which means that I may have some canvas sewing in my near future. I bought my Denim Pro machine years ago when I was considering making my own pavilion. I’ve seen that machine sew seven layers of denim and stitch a super-thick gambeson with no trouble. Four layers of 12 oz duck should be cake. I’m taking the machine in to get fixed tomorrow. The poor thing is missing a knob and a presser foot. Long story.
Tomorrow, I’m also buying a sample yard of the fabric we’re planning on using. Then I need to cut it into thirds, hot-wash one, cold-was another, and leave one as a control. Then we’ll test the fabric over the weekend to see which suits our needs best. Saturday, we’ll be at the event in Hrafnafjordr. I’m also spending Sunday tweaking Taran’s tunics with Katya, and I may be doing some private instruction on the Bayeux stitch.
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