Late last year I was sucked down the rabbit hole by Mistress Portia as a helper for some garb for Her Majesty. The part we took on was the apron and head scarf for Her Majesty's 11thC Finnish viking garb based on the Eura find.
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/FTP_Files/Ancient_Finnish_Costumes.PDF
Now being a person who really does much later or much earlier period than this, this was kinda cool. What I was asked to do was the spiral work apron decorations as well as the spiral fringing on the apron.
With my partner, Master Owain, help we turned up massive lengths of spirals which I then turned into short pieces (5 ring lengths) for the fringing and pulled apart longer lengths for the decorations. All done by hand as there was no other possible way. My hands were sore for a month!
I'll do a 'montage' of pics below. But we used bronze wire for all spirals and red wool as the thread for making the decorative pieces. Lovely piece of wool was supplied to use for the actual apron. We had to hand fray and attach the extra thread for all the fringing.
At the end of the project all helpers were asked to do a 'work assessment' to add to the documentation which reads as follows:
"Apron:
Coils made from 175m of bronze wire inc the 75m that was sent to Heilwich for the shawl. Cost was $15 per 25 m roll.
Time to make coils was around 10 hours (2 evenings and a little here and there), 95% Alex, 5% Owain.
Fringing took around 27 hrs.
3 row at bottom - coils all Alex, with Alex & Portia tag teaming on the additional fringing threading.
Top flap Alex & Portia both coils and threading.
Decorations took about 3 hrs a piece inc attachment. Alex made, Portia attached.
Red wool was supplied by me for the decoration internals, around 3 hours to make the needed lengths (plaited). Portia
Portia did all the edging up the side of the apron and coil attachment there, not sure on the hours.
Hemming the veil was all Portia, no idea on exact time taken.
Belt fans took around 1.5 hrs for making and threading (Alex) and then weaving the ends into the tablet weaving was another hourish (Portia)."
And now for a montage!
Making Spirals
Fringing and Spiral Trim
Making the Decorations
Final Stuff!
All in all, I had fun, it looked awesome so total win!
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