Recently I have joined a Facebook group with the intention of improving my Norse garb. I have plenty of garb but I realized that I don’t have a complete set of anything. Even though my persona is late 12th century/ early 13th century French my most complete set is my Norse garb. It is also probably the simplest.
Silk Cap (Extant example) – Jorvik Viking Centre
The first challenge for the group was to make a Jorvik Hood. The extant is silk but linen was a probably material and what I chose to make mine from. I began with a rectangle of linen 9 in wide by 25 inches long which is a little loner and wider than the 8×24 that is usually suggested but I have a large head. I played with a large rectangle until it draped in such a way that it would not be forever slipping into my eyes or hang to my shoulders.
It’s construction is super simple as well. A seam up the back of the folded rectangle and a clipped corner with a couple of ties and vóila insta-cap. The challenge is to actually complete it with a little embroidery. The motif that i have seen the most often is the Ancthus vine done in the stem stitch. While that is all well and good I wanted to do something different. Thank God for the internet. There were other finds at the Mammen site that intrigued me, in particular, a short line of little alien-like faces. They were just odd enough to fit my sense of humor and I hadn’t seem them before.
Photograph of extant piece in Hald showing the Ancthus vine motif.
Compared to some of the other patterns it’s also fairly simple which suited me to a tee since I have little to no time to embroider large or heavily detailed pieces. Especially if I actually want to complete them.
I began the embroidery a little over a week ago now and have half of the faces done and have begun to put in the little colored leaves in between each face using the rendering found on Heather Rose Jones’ website as a guide. I did the faces in a simple back stitch and contemplated the use of french knots for the eyes but after one trial I decided it made the face look like they had googly eyes and I wasn’t fond of that look.
Below I place a couple of shots of the work in progress below. Fig. 1 shows the first couple of faces with the bottom having the french knot googly eye that I tested. Fig. 2 has one half of the faces complete. I used a water soluble printable stabilizer but was unable to print it due to my printer. Instead I chose to trace the design onto the stabilizer and go from there.
NOTE: The stabilizer works with inkjet printers not laser and doesn’t work well being loaded in rear feed slots.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
I’ve slowly begun filling in the leaves and I’ll post more pictures once I’ve moved further along.