Tuesday, February 18, 2014

100th Entry!!! Wow...time does fly!

About a month ago or so I was asked to teach a class about the seam finishing I do for viking style clothing.  I was, unfortunately unable to attend that event for various real life reasons so I thought I would do a short post about what I do for those that might like the information.

Running Stitch:
This stitch is one that was used in flat felled seams when constructing a garment.  Contrasting colors were used to add embellishment to the piece.  As pictured here, I am working on the hem of a tunic for one of the members of my local SCA group (a barter piece). Normally when I am using this stitch I am hand hemming the cuffs, collar and hem of the piece as was done in period. As you can see in this picture they were machine hemmed due to a time constraint.  I worked the stitching as much as I could over top of the machine stitching. Since the machine stitching made it tighter, it was tough to get the needle through sometimes. I also try to keep the stitches of same length and align side by side as best I can.  Still, As you can see from the following pictures, it still came out well.



Picture of the stitching on the side gores


Picture of the stitching down the side seam to the hemline

Image of the underarm gusset

Underarm gusset and top of side gore

 Split Stitch:
Admittedly, I am having a grand helluva time finding my source for the solid  split stitch seam finish. I can't say for sure that it is an accurate type of seam finish for the viking tunic, but I really like the final look of it for disguising the mundane machine stitching, for adding that touch of, for lack of a better word, "bling" to the tunic and it does help with the flat felling of the seams inside, since linen can fray like a bi..... like crazy.  The pictures below, which are covering the machine sewing,  show how I execute the stitch.

Covering the machine stitching


Embellishing and flat felling the seams on the sides and gores

Close up of the stitch execution


Herringbone Stitch:
Another way that a seam was covered in period was to use decorative stitching. It aided both in reinforcing the seam as well as embellishing it.  Here on this viking hood, I used a single herringbone stitch to do just that: cover, embellish and reenforce.  The final picture are seams from a wool apron dress. Though I did not construct the dress, I did use a double herringbone stitch over the seams to embellish and then used the split stitch seam on the hem to hide the machine stitching.   More pictures from that dress can be seen in the post about it: http://theembroideress.blogspot.com/2011/10/embroidered-apron-dress.html

This hood was sewn by hand.



Single Herringbone seam embellishment. Running stitch was used along the hem of the tunic.


Wool apron dress with double herringbone and split stitch seam embellishment.
That is the gist of what I do for viking garb.  All comments and suggestions are welcome either in the comments section or by personal email.  Thanks for reading!

Norse Viking Tunic

I just recently finished this Norse viking tunic for my boyfriend.

The materials I used are:

4 yards of linen fabric pre washed and dried
Coats and Clark sewing thread
DMC cotton embroidery floss
Sol-U-Film Light wash away embroidery stabilizer

I used the basic viking tunic pattern and machine sewed it together. I did machine sew the hem and cuffs as I planned to do hand embroidered seam finishing to hide the mundane stitching.   There will be a separate blog post about seam finishing shortly.

I found a design online of these wolves heads and printed one out in the size I wanted.  Then I used the embroidery stabilizer (God I love this stuff!!! Worth the expensive price it is) by tracing the pattern on it in ink pen and basted it onto the tunic. I used a double herringbone stitch on the collar, cuffs and hem as well to dress it up, then did the split stitch seam tracing as well.  I am very pleased with how it came out.  I am debating entering it in the display at A&S Champs this weekend...that is, if he will let me. He is wanting to wear it badly. :D







Comments are welcome as well as suggestions.


Monday, February 3, 2014

Projects Gone West...

Im fairly sure I mentioned previously when I posted about the green cable knit hat I made that I had made two others out of cotton and sent them to Ryan's parents. Well, they were kind enough to agree to my request for a picture of them wearing them and here it is.

These are some great photos!



Awwwwwww! 
(and you can see the cabling real well in this shot)


....And the hat even looks good on Otto! 


Short but sweet....


Well, here they are. Second pair of socks I have ever made. The first went fine. The second one...well....I had to tear it out twice: once before the heel and once after Id gotten the heel done. I was ready to throw it in the fireplace and be done with socks FOREVER!!! But...I picked it back up and finished it last night.

Im happy with them.  I may even make more.  Yea, yea I know what I said. Hush you!





 Hi!  I have moved my blog to wordpress. After a short I will be shutting this one down.  Here is the link to the new site where i backed up...