Eva's journal

I plan to make a page about it on the web page too, but don't hold your breath. Anyway, here is my new viking outift. The apron dress is based on Hilde Thunem's interpretation of the Köstrup find (in Denmark). Except that the pleating on mine is "locked" with rows of backstitching, like on my Uvdal dress. It's from a lovely soft herringbone wool twill in blue and green that I got from my ssiter as a present when I defended my PhD. The shift is simple rectangular construction, with the neck opening taken from the Kraglund kirtle from the 11th century. Because I like it and it's plausible for the period and the same culture. It's a linen fabric that I bought at the market at Hovdala castle at Double Wars.


The tablet woven ribbon is made by Hanna Johansson and bought from Eikthyrnir in Norway. it is not a reconstruction of the ribbon from the grave, although she has made one of those too. But I don't want to copy anyone, and it's the right style for the  time period. I also have no idea of where my tortoise brooches are from, but they're small and pretty. The shoes I wrote about in my last post.



I like wearing viking clothes without a headwrap, because in the period artwork we find women with long braids in fanciful knots, or buns of hair, no veils. Since I have short hair I have to use a false braid and while my hair is a bit short for it to be secured really good, it will hold up for court, though not necessarily for a whole day of running around and working. But this is a fancy dress, not a working outfit anyway.

This weekend there was a viking fair at Ale Vikingagård, which a "reconstruction" of a viking age great man's house. I haven't been there since Maja was one, but since Rickard now has a driver's license and we belogn to a car pool I thought it would be nice to just make a short trip there (it's something like 40 km from Gothenburg). I also thought that I might find tortoise brooches for my viking apron dress, (reconstrunction from the national museum of antiquties)  which I also did. That wasn't the only hsopping, since we also found new shoes for hubby, from Viking leather crafts and som lovely linen for a tunic for Maja. In the Middle Ages linen was only used for underwear in the Nordic countries, but it was probably different in the Viking period and in any case I make some exceptions from authenticity when it comes to childrens' clothes. I don't know if you could dye linen purple, but both madder (red) and woad (blue) can be used on linen so I pretend - it's Maja's favourite colour.



( And some photos from the actual market )