Time flies....

Well, what can I say?

Of course, I owe you beautiful readers of this blog a HUGGGGGEEEEEE apology for not posting for so long but time has flown since the Easter event.

Life is good for us Vikings in the Low Lands. Eventhough, the mini-Viking-lady still doesn't attend complete weekend-long events, she has tons of fun when she is in Archeon or elsewhere.

Here she is in the kaftan Ger made and a light yellow woolen dress. I made the trim. You'll probably recognise the trim from one of my old purple tunics. The trim is tape woven in cream and green.

Here you can see the trim in detail, together with a naalbound doll I couldn't resist making... If you want the pattern for the doll, send me an e-mail!

Easter at Archeon

Archeon held their Easter event once again. It was too cold so Runa and I only joined the rest of our family on Monday morning. The kaftan made by Ger 't Jong fits perfectly and is warm too!!


Finally a photo of mum and daughter in costume :)

Quite the lady

Well, there's no time like the present so I finished the kaftan, dark yellow stem stitch included :)


Move over Cindy Crawford, Runa is here!!


Enjoy the photos, drop me a line if you want the pattern.

Summer kaftan

Muninn's Una Hrafna gave me a fabulous piece of fabric last fall. It was big enough for a kaftan for Runa! The lining is orange flanel (cotton) but I suppose nobody minds, the little one just needs to stay warm. A little bit of left-over tape weaving will be used to close the garment.



I intend to use dark yellow wool for an embroidered finish, you can see this on one of the sleeves. I'll show you the finished kaftan soon.

Toys

The new season is right around the corner and our mini-Viking will come along with us of course, but not without some appropriate toys! Not much was excavated from the Viking era, only some wooden horses. We decided to just make something up.

The wicker lady from Archeon made this lovely rattle for Rúna. Inside there are seven little pebbles to guard her from the seven sins. This is of course very 15th century but a lovely touch nonetheless.


Then I found this horrible linen duck at only 2 euro (about $ 2,50). It was the fabric I fell for because the quilt wings are ugly. But I knew I could turn this into something Viking looking with some embroidery.


I removed the wings first. Then a tape woven necktie and red embroidery around the beak made it more Viking already and the duck needed a new pair of eyes too; so a bit of darker linen and yellow blanket stitch did the trick!


Feel free to steal this idea folks, you'll have happy kids in your camp! Rúna gave the duck a big hug when I gave it to her ;)

Winter projects

Re-enactors often use the winter for finishing projects and starting new ones. The picture here above is Renz' tunic which I finally-finally-finally finished!


This is my old white undertunic. It needed some mending and I added some blue/white tape woven trim while I was at it, just to spice it up a bit.


This is really 'la pièce de résistance'. The embroidery on my new undertunic is from a stone carving found in Kiev and dates back to the 900s. Perfect for a collar!

As you can see, I've been productive this winter :)

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 :)