Kaftan

Rune is growing so fast these days, and she needs new Viking clothes already! Next week will be our last event before our winter hibernation, and I managed to buy a pretty neat kaftan from Ger 't Jong and her company De Taelgerie. This saves me some precious sewing time... I need new stuff myself ;) and of course there's a lot of naalbinding to do.


I decided to personalize this little piece of garment with some orange decorative stitching. I plan to make a naalbound hat for her with the same orange wool.


Ger 't Jong doesn't have a website but if you want info on her patterns or garments, let me know. At the moment, this kaftan is too big for Rune, but in March it'll fit nicely :)

Wieringen

This past Saturday we went to the Viking Information Centrum in Wieringen. It was a fun day, and our hosts took excellent care of us! The weather was great too, 21C.


Runa was having fun, clapping her hands a lot and making new friends.

Very cool Archeon photo!

Regular Archeon photographer Hans S. made this wonderful photo of us as the Girbeson family.

I'm glad Lars is also on this photo! He's our "adopted Viking" as you may know, and we really should have more photos of the 4 of us.

Rúna is in the basket-cart of course...

Whitsun event and more dresses.....

The Whitsun event in Archeon was great! The weather was fabulous but actually a bit too hot and we were very glad to be in the Fisherman's cottage for the duration of the event. The poorest man in the early medieval village, the fisherman also had the coolest house and it was easy to stay cool and fresh while others were sweating away. It's the house on the left; normally there's some fishing gear on display outside, this photo is rather dull at that.




A lot of photos this time, folks, for you to enjoy! I finished Runa's underdress and hangarok in no-time, really and here are the photos. First a detail of the shoulder seam and fastening.
I made a "blind" fastening, so that you don't see the buttons... ;)

Runa enjoying the underdress...


She wasn't so sure about the hangarok....


Detail of the hangarok....


The two 'brooches' were actually a pair of horrible 1980s earrings from the flea market!

Mini Viking Lady

Little girls grow so fast, I don't have to tell you... Our Rúna had no costumes yet, apart from the kaftan my mother made a few weeks ago. So, I decided to make a dress and a hangarok for her because of the coming Whitsun weekend in Archeon.

I took a rectangular piece of left over fabric and cut out a drop-shaped bit to create the basis of the dress.


See the basis of the dress here.... All I needed to do next was cut out the neck line.


The extra slit is to make sure Rúna's head fits, I will use some simple buttons to fasten it.


For the dress, I only needed to sew the side seams. This is really a quickie pattern!
Some fabric was also left from the kaftan and I'm using that for a hangarok. I've used the dress as a 'pattern guide'.


I'll show you the finished dress and hangarok soon!

Exhibition at RMO in Leiden

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) hosts an exhibition on Dorestad this year. We were invited to spice up the opening event.

Here's the link to the museum: http://www.rmo.nl/. Click on the top left corner to go to the English pages.


It was quite funny to be posing in front of an Egyptian sarcophagus.... but hey, Vikings travelled everywhere... ;)


Thanks to Pepijn Dousi for these fabulous photos!

Easter at Archeon

This year's Easter event was held at Archeon again and since the weather was so great, we decided to bring Rúna along as well. The audience in the museum loved her!

Here, big "brother" Lars holds her while she sleeps... aren't they cute?
On Saturday it was a bit too hot actually so the boys are playing Tafl behind the house in the shade. On Sunday it was a bit colder and better for us, really, we did a lot of crafts: leatherwork, cooking, archery, naalbinding and so on.

29th March, Rúna's first event

Hello friends,

This past Sunday the village of Leiderdorp celebrated their origins from the Roman era through the Dark Ages to the present day.
Tjursläkter was invited to spice up the Dark Age-bit, as you can imagine.


It was Rúna's first public appearance and she behaved like a princess! Enjoy the photos!

More mini socks

At the last Archeon Summer market I bought some fabulous wool, dyed with madder and indigo. Of course I couldn't resist making more socks for Rúna :)
This is the smallest sock in Larry Schmitt's book "Lots of Socks" and I don't think she will wear them for a long time, but who cares?

Naalbind thingies!

Dear all,

Our friend Geeske made some FABULOUS socks for Rune to celebrate her coming into this world, aren't they perfect?


We will be able to use the socks soon as our little viking lady will have her first public appearance on the 29th of March.

For this same event I made a naalbound hat for her over the weekend.

Enjoy the photos!

First Viking photo

Well, folks, here's the first Viking photo of our little miss sunshine. It took us about 5 minutes to place her on sheepskin and underneath an embroidered cloak. Life of even the smallest Vikings is bliss... ;)

A new Viking!

Dear Folks,
Our daughter Rune Gjilke was born on January 29th! We are very happy :)
But, I guess, posting on this blog will be a bit difficult within the next few weeks/months so please be patient. There will most definitely be new projects and such in the future!!

Within our Viking-group Tjursläkter Rune will be called Rúna Einarsdottir.

A baby in camp

Of course having a baby is life changing but having a baby in camp is probably an even bigger challenge. We both really want to continue with living history so to give us some room to move we've decided to make the little one "history proof" as well. The first step was to buy this wicker crib and our cat Sensei shows us here it is very comfy! This crib is most likely not authentically Viking but it's not bad in our opinion.

I'm now looking into mini-clothes for the baby, but at the same time I realise they grow out of that so fast, and they sleep most part of the day. So perhaps dressing up this crib with Viking blankets is a better strategy.

Hints and tips are welcome!