Cheater stockings for the late period dandy

My poor Husbeast has been wearing an old pair of my leggings, pulled down over his feet,  as stockings for the last 18 months. To be fair I've been scrambling to get (and keep) him in linens, and get him enough suits made that he's not always wearing the same thing. Then there's been household uniform to make and keep up, and new fencing helmet trappings. Never a dull moment in clothing the husbeast. But I actually finished his "leisure" outfit for War of the Roses this year, and wanted him to have something comfortable to wear on his legs that wasn't so obviously out of place as lycra dancers leggings. I did a little research and consulted with the wonderful knitting laurel Angharad, who specializes in stockings. Really he needs good knit stockings of wool or silk (wool for regular wear, silk maybe for his court suit) and fancy garters. The stockings would extend up into the trunkhose and be secured there either possibly by being laced onto the leg bands (by eyelets in some of the trunkhose in patterns of fashion) or I suspect by the older method where they pointed onto the brais, or into the waistband of the trunkhose even (And thence to the doublet). the very short trunkhose would require quite long stockings, and some way of keeping them up. I don't see why the method that worked so admirably for cloth hose wouldn't work here as well.

More research later. For now I just need to cover his nether limbs in a seemly fashion for this season. (I took a class about calculating patterns for knit hose this summer, SUPER EXCITING, and I hope to knit him a proper pair over the winter)

I will note that cloth stockings were worn by the lower to middle classes still at the time when his persona was living by the sword. However I have a couple quibbles about those. the first being I think they would have been on the low class end of how I clothe him. which is good quality clothing with  few flashes of fancy: Things he might have picked up in his travels or as prizes/plunder. The other problem is his legs. When the Husbeast squats, his thigh goes from about 22 inches to about 27..... This has resulted in a lot of drama with the leg bands of his trunkhose, and I have my doubts about the ability of bias cut cloth to keep up with that kind of increase. My final decision was to make sewn stockings from machine knit material as a stopgap. Not, to be sure, accurate, but better by a long shot than what he has now. Especially if accessorized with good garters! I consulted the wonderful Dreamstress for method and pattern, since I remembered her doing it for the historical sew fortnightly. What she was doing was different, but gave me an idea of what the foot pattern should look like at least.  Then I simply cut a long rectangle of knit fabric I had lying about, had the husbeast stand on one end and hold the other, and started pinning. There was a lot of pinning. Then I basted all the pinned bits so he could get it off without stabbing himself, and had him hold the long leftover bit up so I could mark a point at the top that could be pointed onto either brais or the waistband of his trunkhose.  Having made a few pairs of cloth hose came in really handy here, because I had some idea of what the top edges should look like to be comfortable and practical.

I marked all the edges of the basting, took the stitches out, and voila: one 3d leg rendered into 2d. Now I had to make more decisions. I decided to make a scant quarter inch seam allowance, as I would be sewing these with either stepped zigzag, or the serger. I cut around the drawn lines at that distance, then transferred the pattern to paper. At the same time that i did this, I made the heel point symetrical, although I left the foot shaped left/right. I also chose to make the foot portion separate from the leg, rather than leaving a giant dart that would have to be trimmed off. this allows for more creative arrangement of the pattern onto fabric as well.

it's a weird looking pattern. The () is where the foot attaches to the calf. So left to right on the pattern you have: the heel flap, the bottom of the right foot, the top of the right foot, then the leg, with the pointy bit being the  part for pointing into his waistband. 

 With a good pattern in hand, I cut the second hose from  the same scrap knit, and sewed them up. i didn't have light thread in my serger, so I used a stepped zig zag on my standard machine, being careful to not stretch the fabric out as I sewed.   this is one area where I'm a strong proponent of lots of pins. I faced the top edge with knit, interfacing the point with handkerchief linen so it would hold up to pointing. I top stitched the edge with a zig zag, and the point with a straight stitch, and worked eyelets in the point. Voila, a stocking. Repeat and you have a pair!

With this kind of stockings, he needed garters, to keep them from continually sliding down the leg
and exerting a lot of pressure on the attachment point. The garters also keep the stocking sleek over the lower leg, adequately displaying the manly calf of the wearer. Well turned calves were MUCH in style, even to the extent that men sometimes resorted to padding to obtain a more pleasing proportion. Small projects like this are why I keep a silk scrap stash. I decided (somewhat uncharitably probably) that these garters were a gift from me, his beloved, and therefore should be in my colors. (right? Right?) I also HAPPENED to have a scrap of violent green silk lurking around..... Fortuitous really.   I sewed these by machine, then worked over the edges in whip stitch to firm them up a little and give them some grip.                                     

Instead of tassels I made a little yellow silk needle lace edging on these, not a lot, just a row of loops worked out of tight blanket stitch to give the end a little pop. it's not my best work ever, but not terrible for a first attempt. Even though these are silk satin, which would NOT be my first choice (slippery) they stay tied just fine. Of course I'd like to make him several more pairs (maybe one with those fabulous silver tassels??) it's actually a really effective way to work on needle lace, because it's a small enough bit that you don't make yourself crazy with frustration!

Of course I'm getting around to posting this four months later (that being the soonest I got a picture of him wearing them) which means that I can update with how these worked. I haven't gotten to the wool ones yet, but the cotton pair have been really sucessful. He points them to the waistband of his trunkhose, and they look about a thousand times better than the old spandex leggings, and are less hot since they don't come up over the waist. I'm still hoping to knit him  couple "proper" pairs, but for now, these are working out ok. He doesn't even seem to mind the violent green garters! (and yes, better shoes are on the wishlist for him. but getting anything in 14 EEEE is difficult. I think we're going to end up having to go full custom which is $$$$) 

Spanish Traveling cloak (or the cloak of poor choices)

I decided in January that this was going to be the year when I finally entered SCA arts and sciences competitions, and to pursue that goal, I was FINALLY going to work on some more difficult fleece to garment projects. I've had a few of them lurking half researched in the corners of notebooks for a few years now. I tend to be so buried in Needs sewing, that i don't get around to doing projects that force me to work to my capacity, stretch my skills and grow as an artisan. I've been doing that in a small way, by learning new embroidery things for Athena's thimble, and it's been very satisfying, but I wanted to do it with more than embroidery, which kind of necessarily means larger scale projects. Competing gives me an excuse for that.

The first of these projects was my planned winter project for this year, a hand woven, hand embroidered hooded cloak for the husbeast to wear at chilly events like 100 minutes. My plan was to make as exact of a reproduction as possible of this "spanish style" cloak in the Germanisches National Museum.

This cloak is white twill wool, heavily fulled, embroidered with couched work in brown wool, and decorated with tassels and "bobbles" on the hood. Because white isn't a really PRACTICAL color for a cloak at events that may be say, muddy, I decided to do mine in natural brown wool with madder dyed accents.

Because I started it later than I wanted to and only had 6 weeks to work on it before the competition, I finished this with scaled back embroideries for entry into Keepers of the Central Flame, an East Kingdom arts and sciences competition that was hosted by my home barony, concordia of the snows. For that I did a VERY comprehensive write up of my research and the process. So if you want to read a 20 page research paper about it, Here's a linky! I'm hoping to finish the embroideries and enter it in the display at pennsic this summer, so keep your eyes open for "finished" pictures of the husbeast modeling it! Here's a bunch of the process photos and pictures of my display for your enjoyment. this was a real stretch project and I learned a lot. I can't WAIT to take what I've learned and start something new!

weaving in progress, you can see my measuring tool pinned to the left selvedge, just a strip of fabric a yard long that helps me keep track of larger projects.

Entire project may be hell, but that's a fine straight selvedge!

Cut from the loom, but not yet fulled.

Fulled down, I used an entire inch per foot of width in shrinkage and could've used more (or used more ends per inch in the sett to begin with.)

edge blanket stitched in weaving thread, and the 6 strand braid being applied

Starting the crossed blanket stitch hem. You can see the front facing flap that will be turned back along the line of crossed blanket stitch. This doesn't serve the usual purpose of a facing (to cover a raw edge) but rather firms up the front edge so it hangs nicely.

spacing all the "rays" which are self applique pieces, and basting them down.  I was confused. why applique something in a way in which you can't even tel lit's there? Well those pieces are all cut on the straight of the grain with the grain running vertically through the ray. sewn onto the partially bias semi circular cape, they act like a support scaffold and force it to hang evenly all the way round, and drape beautifully from the neck. 

Starting the hood marking. 

Rays all appliqued. 

This is cross stitch worked over 3 strand braid. some of the points are wonky. if I had it to do again I'd baste both sides of the rays down with the weaving thread (so it didn't have to be removed) and THEN do the cross stitch. That'd keep everything from getting funny. 

Hood totally marked and working on the couching.

Hood finished and lined with the bobbles mounted! Getting there! 

The home stretch, marking the fronts: first with prick and pounce, then with thinned whit gouache.

On the stand at competition! 

The finished hem. You can't see the stabelizing blanket stitch in the weaving thread under the crossed blanket.

Some of my display. The husbeast made me the wonderful wood display cards for my threads.

Embroidered Viking Kaftan

I decided last fall that I wanted to finally make myself a kaftan, and not only that, but I wanted to make a nice Kaftan, not just, fling something together as quickly as possible so I have something to wear. I have a shawl, I have a square plaid cloak, I can keep warm adequately at most events, but a kaftan is another layer, and more convenient in a lot of ways than a folded shawl or cloak.

while men's jackets, wrapped and belted in the style found in Hedeby, or in the case of Birka, fastened with buttons, are extensively (for viking garments) documented, women's Kaftans, or long coats, are not even a little. There are instances at birka, where silk loops, of the kind used to fasten a garment, have been found in a brooch positioned below the breasts. There was a hemmed piece of wool found running over the edge of a tortoise brooch. That and worked silver bands around the wrist area, not obviously associated with a serk, and decorative bands possibly associated with a lower hem, are about the the sum total of the evidence. Figurines are, notoriously, difficult. Women are shown wearing large triangular wraps which obscure the upper half of the clothes, leaving which layers are which at the bottom, debatable at best. But, considering the existence of a similar men's garment, and the practicality of another layer in a cold climate, it's not a far leap.

The presence of the single closure under the bust, the partially covered tortoise brooch, along with the practical difficulties of closing a garment over bulky brooch and beads, and the impracticality of covering your knife, keys, needle case, etc with a garment, argue for a sort of scooped cut away neckline, going around the broochs. This allows for the continued display of beads, and makes it possible for the chatalaine items to fall over the outer garment, thus remaining accessible. Some argue a high neckline could have been allowed to fold open, and while this is certainly possible, the shaped neckline of the hedeby mens coat, and the fact that the one fragment found over a tortoise brooch was hemmed, not folded, argues some against this.

The general consensus then, is that this was a long sleeved, calf length at least garment, with a scooped neckline, possibly trimmed with silk, held closed beneath the breasts with probably a Trefoil brooch threaded through loops. I will fully admit that this is the shakiest of all the viking garments in terms of evidence for it, and that building a full fledged garment from the very miniscule facts we have is questionable at best. Some people decline to admit such a garment even existed! But, my previous arguments about practicality stand, and I decided to make one anyway.

Having set my hand to the plow, so to speak,  I looked through my woolens, determined to use one of the larger pieces. I had a large peice of very soft grey, in a very pretty color, that I've been using as a mantle since the beginning of my little viking adventure more than three years ago. It had been in my mind to upgrade it into a kaftan for some time. But grey is very boring for a viking. They weren't much for undyed wools, and from chemical evidence liked flash and bright colors. Besides, the grey would have made a kaftan of scanty length. I also happened to have a chunk of heavy orange in plausible madder, which I quite liked ,but was too heavy, and too small to do almost anything with. That and the bag of wool threads my mom had given me, in shades of orange and red (originally intended for a color wheel that she never completed), sparked an idea: I would embroider the grey, to give it some flash, and then border it with the orange.

Of course there is the usual difficulty about large scale embroideries on viking garments, which can be argued ad naseum. I decided that I didn't care if it wasn't the purest interpretation of a garment already based on slightly dodgy evidence, and went for it. Animal themes are common in what embroidery we have remaining from the viking era, as well as in their artwork. I looked a lot of images, and decided to render a pair of my favorite birds, ravens, on the shoulders of the garment. I took the shape of the raven from a carving showing Odin with one of his birds perched on his shoulder (9th century rune stone from the isle of Mann), embellishing it from several brooches in raven form.

I particularly loved this little brass piece. it was listed as a horse harness ornament, but I was unable to find a specific date, or location for it. I loved how all the feathers had different textures in the tail. I decided to use different textures in all of the tail and wing feathers of my ravens, and try to use stitches to imitate textures found of pieces of raven jewelry.

I cut the kaftan in a very basic style similar to the hedeby coat. Straight fronts and backs with a sloped shoulder, with a center back gore, and side gores to provide fullness in the skirts. Since it's desireable to have the over layer slightly open in the front to display any decorations on the smokkr below, and since the coat didn't need to wrap like the hedeby coat, I did not use a split front gore. The sleeve has a slightly shaped head, and a underarm gusset, Because of fabric shortages the sleeve is a bit wodgy. The gosset is long and tapered at one end to give me more upper arm room, because I could fit that on the fabric I had, but not a wider upper sleeve. Considering the extremely funky piecing we've seen on some extant pieces I am going to call this totally period. Then I turned all the edges under, and whip stitched them down to finish the edges, using modern cotton thread in a matching color of grey. on a nice thick wool, it's easy to pick up the threads on the inside without your stitches showing on the outside.

I traced half of the upper back into my big sketch book, and drew one of a pair of ravens. The very vertical pose of these ravens makes them ideal to use across the shoulders, because they fit very nicely. The scale worked out so their tails end right above the tip of the back gore. Since they're not attached to odin's shoulder, I interlaced the toes for a little extra detail. You will notice the feet are staggered as in perspective view, but the same size. That's a typical feature of this period of art. I originally was going to use the curled beak you see on so many of the brooches to echo the curled toes and the swirl on the wing, but decided, as period as it is, i just don't care for it that much, and went back to the simple beak from the isle of mann carving.

Transferring it onto wool was, as usual, a lot of fun. wool is a super huge pain. I ended up measuring and marking reference points, then drawing the ravens on free hand with a fine tipped sharpie marker.

I chose to use chain stitch for the outlines. I worked the ravens on the cut out back piece before putting it together both to ensure I had enough embroidery thread to do the outlines all in once color (since I was working in a limited supply) and because then I didn't have to wrangle the whole coat around  I did not use a hoop for any of this work.  Although a hoop can be an invaluable tool, I don't generally care for using one in the first place, and particularly dislike it when working on wool. There are some situations in which it's unavoidable, but the way I work a lot of my outlining stitches make it somewhat counterproductive.

With the ravens outlined, I started on putting the kaftan together. My original plan was to use a decorative stitch both to construct and embellish. I had used van dyke stitch to construct a hood for Kitten earlier in the year, and it had both gone quickly and looked pretty. Since I was using one of the cousins of that stitch for this I decided to work it the same way. I ran the first half of the center back gore, from the point down. The ends didn't line up. This was odd, but I decided I hadn't measured correctly, and started the other side, working from the point down as well. This time the OTHER edge was longer. This was clearly not an issue of mis measurement. I laid the piece out flat on the floor, and the issue was clear to behold: the stitching was pulling up one side of the work as I went. Since I had worked both sides tip down, one seam had pulled up the gore, the other side the back of the kaftan. it was terrible and rumply, and steaming wasn't going to solve it. At this point the whole thing went into bad project time out for a few months.

Once I was over sulking and wanting to kick things. I took out all the stitching I had done, carefully, so I could re-use the wool thread (remember limited thread and no way to get more!) and (grumpily) basted all the seams. Then I went back and worked all the seams in the decorative stitch. It was really hard to get this as even as I wanted it to be, and I'm still not entirely happy with the outcome. I love the look of the stitch but don't love how un tidily I ended up working it.

Working the decorative stitch is a two step process.

I finished all my tails by the simple expedient of working a few split stitches on the seam allowance then running the tail under a short ways.

In between running the seams I worked on the ravens, being sure that all of the colors of thread used in the seams were also represented in the embroidery on the back. I used a feather texture worked in cloister stitch, a couched lattice work, spiraling split stitch on the lower beak, and bayeux stitch on the upper beak. I needed one more texture. I decided to run a series of tall and short osberg loops down the last feather to recreate the stamped circles used on a number of the brooches.

The first step of osberg loop stitch: pin all those loops!
(so many pins)

The bodies of the ravens looked empty and sad without any fill, after I'd filled in the feathers, so I used spirals to loosely fill in some of the upper bodies and sort of flying wedges of couched thread in the spiral of the wings. Again, textures taken off pieces of raven jewelry, which had knotwork or circles worked to fill in the bodies or portions of the body.

Finished ravens! 

Once I had run all the seams on the body, I had to attach the trim to the bottom. I had cut wedges and rectangles that continued the shape of the pieces of the main coat, I sewed them together and felled the edges down with white wool handspun.

 I sewed the seams with the allowance to the outside, trimmed the grey down short, and turned the seam up over the body, where I basted it down. I covered the seam with a couched down whip cord braid.

Then I hemmed the coat with a herringbone stitch, which shows neatly on the outside as a parallel row of straight stitches. This is a documentable period technique. Actually it's the only documentable period use for herringbone, as much as we vikings love to use it over seams on the outside for the fancy.

Whip cord braiding in progress with my
improvised bobbins.

Then I edged the front opening with bands of orange, and the neck edge with orange cut on the bias, which used the last scraps of the orange. I had enough cord to cover the raw edge of the bias wool with couched cord, but whip stitched the front edges down with white wool. That made it "finished not done" and wearable in time for Edlvatten's Winter Thyng which seemed like a reasonable debut. I'm now making more whip cord braid to finish edging all of the orange, and maybe run another line around the bottom somewhere, maybe with some decorative doodles. I'd also like to embroider some rondelles around the bottom, but have to figure out the exact design for that, so this project is on the back burner for now!

Of course no images of me actually wearing the garment seem to exist, but I did get some nice ones of it in outside light to share with you. It is a lovely sweepy flowy thing, and I do enjoy wearing it. It's also VERY warm. With the addition of my mittens and hood I am warmer than in a mundane outside jacket wearing it! And of course, for a really cold day I could add a cloak on top of this, plus wool stockings under my gown and possibly nallbound socks over them and under my turnshoes for outside wear.

Purple Smokkr

About a year ago, I aquired a lovely piece of wool twill, in a color I like to refer to as "plausible purple," with the intention of making myself a second smokkr, of the un-pleated variety, to expand my somewhat scant wardrobe. My black pleated smokkr is, at this point, more than three years old, and has made the rounds of many, many events. It's beginning to show some wear, and to be frank, I do get a little tired of wearing the same thing all the time. With the massive rush to get us ready for camping events last year, I did little to expand my own wardrobe, aside from necessary new undergowns and fighting gear. But this winter  I wanted to add a couple nicer pieces to my wardrobe, made properly, not in haste and out of absolute panicked necessity. With a kaftan and a second smokkr, I would be set for any events for the next few years, until my old things started wearing out at least. It would be a relief to just not have to worry about my own garb, and be able to focus on keeping the gremlins in clothing that actually fits.

As far as historical reference, I could go on at great length, but that would be reinventing the wheel, instead I would like to direct your attention to these two fabulous articles by Hilde Thnumen, who has gathered all of the primary source material, translated as necessary, and discusses the conclusions that may be reached at length. I cannot do better.
Viking Apron dress: Smokkr
 haithabu smokkr interpretation

Silver-gilt Viking pendant, Oland, Sweden,
6th century

I am going to be basing my reconstruction on the Haithabu smokkr, which is closest geographically to my persona's residence in what is modern Scotland, and on this wonderful little figurine, usually interpreted as a Valkyrie. I love the surface detail of the braided decorative bands. although this figurine seems to be wearing a separate trained garment over the top of her smokkr (we assume it is a smokkr, although we cannot see the turtle brooches) the slightly trained silhouette seems to be a theme among the figurines, and, as I find it graceful personally, I have maintained it in my recreation.

I started out by pinning the wool around my bust, to a comfortable tightness. that gave me a measurement of 41 inches (without seam allowance) separating half to the front, and half to the back, and adding seam allowance, gave me two panels of 21" Measuring down from where the top of my smokkr sits now, to where I wanted it to start to flare, gave me a measurement of about 8"

Then it's a matter of fitting the pieces onto the available fabric in the most efficient way possible. there are a number of hypothosized layouts for the fitted style smokkr, and you can make one work for almost any size and shape piece of fabric. I made the first cut with the front and back, then unfolded the leftover square to make the side gores. I did not curve the bottoms of the side gores because I wanted a train effect, the longer, diagonal side will go towards the longer train side. This also keeps the front relatively flat while flaring the back out, which matches with the shape of existing figurines.

With the rough seams sewn, I popped it on. I had the usual problem in the back, and had to take a large pinch out. I have an extremely curved lower spine, and it makes for a funny fit for almost all the basic layouts. One of the advantages of the pleated front smokkr is it alleviates this issue. I will probably have some horizontal wrinkling on this dress almost no matter what  I do, although cutting the back top down some helps, as does not trying to fit it tightly through the waist, which would be unflattering on me at present anyhow. with it on inside out I placed pins for the darts at the front, and also for the loops to hang my brooches from.

although I did run the long seams by machine, it was easier to run the very narrow darts (no more than a quarter inch at the widest!) by hand. Although the original piece, the ridge appears to have been set to the outside, then covered by fine braid, I had an oopsie here, and went on autopilot and put them to the inside. This is incorrect, however I plan to cover them with braid, so it will not be obvious.

Then I overcast all the seams by hand with contrasting thread, which is a period approved method of seam finishing.  I used blue DMC floss, since my ball of blue linen has gone walkabout. I'm not... entirely thrilled with the results. it's not as tidy as I'd love it to be, although certainly it's just as tidy as the overcast stitching on the dart of the extant garment.

 A number of the smokkr fragments found have been lined, or faced, with linen. It's impossible to know whether they were fully lined or not, since no full length garments have been found. because I ended up cutting the back of my smokkr down quite fat to make up for my curved spine and prevent unsightly wrinkles, I had a long bias edge from brooch to back. I wanted to stabelize this and keep the weight of the gown and pulling it on and off, from distorting the edge, so I used a partial lining of a natural colored linen. I also used this linen for the bottom brooch loops. Linen is actually more common, particularly for the hidden lower loops, than wool on extant smockkrs, probably because it wore better. I sewed the long hidden seam by machine again, doubling seaming it along the armpit/back portion.  Then flipped it into the inside of the dress, hand top stitched with purple wool, and used threads pulled from the selvedge of the linen to whip stitch the loops, and hem the lining down to the shell of the smokkr.

Fragment from Sarnanger b 10722 showing corded hem

Then remained hemming. I had my imagination caught by a fragment of twill, edged with a cord overcast with woolen thread. this seemed tidy, and like it would give the hem a beautiful shape. According to the article about the find (Thnumen covers it in her paper about smokkrs) it's a braided cord, whip stitched over with a two ply thread. I extrapolated that the cord was probably wool, since it still remained, although it could have equally been linen. I had wool, so I braided a 3 strand cord. The easiest way was to baste it to the edge of the smokkr, which kept it even, then overcast it with 2 ply wool, as seen in the fragment. you can see that the stitches are close, but not crowded. I attempted to recreate that, as well as the scale of cord/fabric. Of course I ran out of thread with an small section left in the center front. I was left with a few options. I could use another color to do the front section of the hem. I could undo the braid for the darts and use that thread to finish the hem, then make different braid, or I could find a way of decorating the front that hid the block of missing hem. Number one would have been the most historically accurate, and in the end, the least time consuming. Of course I chose the less historically accurate, more difficult, and super fancy option, and decided to make the front block purple, and root an appliqued tree into it.

My original plan had been to tablet weave wide trim and apply it in horizontal bands like on the valkyrie figurine. That plan is completely authentic and documentable (by viking standards) The new plan was less historically proveable. We do know that the vikings did use applique, the Osberg ship find included a wool gown with blue animals applied to the hem. Valkyrie figures show bands of decoration on skirts, but there is not real evidence for large scale blocks of decoration of this type. Even so, I liked the idea so much I ran with it. the best tree image I could find, was this one from a church in sedestal (for people with so many trees in their mythology, they sure didn't use tree images that much. Or my google fu for viking stuff has gotten weak), it's 12 century, so later, but the art has the proper shapes. I loved the acanthus like tree leaves. Acanthus shaped embroideries were part of the Mamman find, which is 10th century, so I felt the use of acanthus shapes was not out of context for my persona.

Also at Mamman was a embroidery showing two beasts (perhaps leopards?) facing a tree in the center. This was a common motif in oriental textiles of the period, which we know the vikings had access to, particularly from the pskov find that Thnumen goes over in her articles. It is thought that this motif was a reproduction of that style of artwork. Working from this base, and digging through my wool stash, I decided to use an appliqued tree with two Eastern Tygers facing it. Making my dress both a reference to the extant embroidery finds, and a nod to the east kingdom.

I drew the tree onto some aqua wool, and pinned it onto the gown. and then I started basting. And basting. And MORE basting. Followed by stitching it all down. I used small whip stitches, spaced out slightly. I've seen this technique used on early surviving applique pieces, and it was the most apt for the material I had to work with. The wool was more loosely woven and less fulled than is ideal for applique, so the edges required more stabelization, and I needed to cover more of the edge to keep the applique from just tearing out of the stitches.

That done, I sketched a quick Easter Tyger, slightly simplified to be more in line with the style of the mammen embroideries, and the extent oriental textiles. The extreme detailing of the EK tyger is much more in line with later artistic styles, so I just dialed it back a bit while trying to keep it recognizeable.  I cut that out of a gold wool skirt that I had for upcycling (moth holes) and pinned/basted it down. and by baste I mean overcast the edges with very tiny whip stitches to keep the little points from flying apart when I tried to applique around them.

Then I couched blue cord around the Tygers. Technically the Eastern Kingdom Tyger is blue on a field of yellow, but this looked good, and was still a nice nod at the East.

With the embroidery done, and thoroughly steamed (Even being careful it gets a little lumpy while you're working it) all that remained was to baste the braided trim (six strand braid in two colors like
in the Haithabu fragment) over the darts, and make the shoulder straps. Although there are plenty of examples of Smokkrs with both the upper and lower loops out of linen, I decided that I preferred the look of the matching straps, and made the upper straps/loops out of a remaining scrap of purple wool.  these were whip stitched down to the lining with my newly found blue linen thread, and my new EK Smokkr was done! and in plenty of time to wear to Birka. Of course Birka then didn't go as planned due to car trouble, and I missed the fashion show and only got to wear my new getup for a little bit. I did however, get to wear it with all my other fancy for walking into court at a part of my friend's pelican procession this weekend at dancing fox. I had the privilege of being the person who got to put together all the bits of his regalia cloak (it was a group project which a lot of hands worked on), and they asked me to carry it into court, which was a surprise and an honor! so I was happy that I had my new fancy EK Smokkr to wear. Now I just have to get an eye bleeding gold Serk to wear under it!

Of course there are no actual pictures of me wearing it in which you can see the garb.
Edited 4/19/18 to Add: Someone took a picture of me in it!

A couple final notes: because it's more fitted through the body, it makes my serks shorter! ACK. So I will at least make my fancy court serk to wear with this longer. Also, this lay out doesn't lay as gracefully across my back as I would like, due to the previously noted curvature of my lower spine. I think I need to add a small center back gore to alleviate this problem and make the gown flow gracefully from top to hem. Possibly I could also flip the center back pieces so the angled edge is at the center back, and the straight edge at the side back and get a similar effect, although that would effect the side flare (which I like) some.  As it is cut, there's a little wrinkle lump in the small of the back now, and there's not much I can do about it. I'm going to take the gown to my mom's and put it on inside out and see if with another set of experienced hands I can somewhat sort the problem, but alas, the only real solution is to put at least a small gore into the center back seam. Again, the pleated front smokkr doesn't have this problem. it's actually much more modest in fabric use as well. It's interesting the things you discover about fit while doing this sort of reconstruction work. I wonder if one of the reasons for the pleated fronts was because it provided good fit with less fabric. We'll never know of course, but it sure is fun to speculate!