Mending: Sashiko/Boro Backpack

Several years ago, I bought a backpack from the Surplus Store on the corner of National and Venice in Culver City. (I love that store. I still go back every time I visit family in L.A.) I carried that backpack to work daily for five years, which is a very respectable lifespan. It had enough room for a packed lunch, a crafty project, and a book (three things I never leave home without) AND a bunch of groceries besides. Alternatively, it could comfortably accommodate clothing, toiletries, and entertainment for a 3-day business trip or, stretched to its limits, a week-long backpacking trip. It had plenty of separate pockets of different sizes so that I never had to go fishing for my keys, wallet, or work ID in amongst the jumble of other random crap. It was a good backpack.

At long last, however, the fabric started to tear around the top of the right shoulder strap--the one I use to pick it up all the time. I no longer trusted it to carry heavy loads without ripping farther. I removed it from service but couldn't quite bring myself to throw it away. After all, we'd been through so much together, and none of the other backpacks I could find offered the same carrying capacity, or so many convenient pockets. I bought two other backpacks whose zippers ceased to function in less than a year, and they barely had enough room for my sewing, lunch, and book, let alone a week's worth of clothing. As Steve and I were packing for a week-long stay on a hippy commune, my eyes kept straying to my poor injured backpack, and I decided it was time to give it a new lease on life. I got out my trusty sewing kit and set to work.

Sewing: Brown Herringbone Smokkr

Tablet weaving at an
event in simple garb.

When getting ready for the 2017 Raglan Fair, I started working on a new Viking smokkr or apron dress. I got as far as drafting the pattern and cutting out the pieces before finding my old smokkr, at which point I decided to spiff that one up instead of rushing to finish the new one. In the weeks that followed, I slowly chipped away at the new smokkr, picking it up and putting it down as my energy levels and free time allowed, and it's now in a wearable state.

I have very mixed feelings about the smokkr as commonly reconstructed in re-enactment circles. It's a garment that has become more or less the uniform for re-enactors portraying women of the Viking period, but all of the information we have on this garment is based on a few tattered fragments, and minuscule fossilized loops of cloth preserved inside of metallic brooches. Those tattered fragments and scraps can tell us a lot about what the smokkr was made from--fibers and dye plants used, thread count, weave, amount of twist in the yarn--but they can't tell us much about the shape, fit, length, or degree of ornamentation of the finished garment. We do have some visual representations of Viking women on runestones and gullgubber, but they are heavily stylized and difficult to interpret. And yet, there are plenty of re-enactors who will happily criticize any interpretation of this garment that differs from their own. I have some very strong feelings about this, which I hope to write up separately one day, but for now I'd like to focus on the garment that I put together as an expedient way of expanding my wardrobe for a week-long SCA event.

Problem-solving: embroidered early 19th century shift

The University of St Andrews' special collections department has a rather wonderful blog, Echoes from the Vault, on which I was an occasional contributor between 2012 and 2015.

In 2014, their blog had a theme: 52 Weeks of Historical How-To's. Every week, a member of staff (or some enthusiastic volunteer) would choose an item from the collection and use it as an instruction manual to do or make something, and write about the experience. Some people baked, others brewed, some made paper cut-outs, others took baths, some made ink and paper, and still others went on holiday.

For one of my contributions to the blog, I dug up an 1825 tailor's manual and followed the directions to make a lady's shift. That blog post is here.

A few weeks later, I decorated it by following (more or less) an embroidery pattern in an 1825 ladies' magazine. That blog post is here.

Unlike when I write for this blog, however, I have deadlines when I blog for work. And hand-sewing and embroidery are not particularly conducive to meeting deadlines.

Event-based Motivation: Spiffing Up Garb for Raglan

One of the good things about moving to Wales is that one of the biggest SCA events in the UK is (relatively speaking) right in my backyard. Raglan Fair takes place every September, when hordes of SCAdians descend upon on the grounds of Raglan Castle, set up camp, and proceed to cook, craft, shoot, and bash each other with sticks for ten days straight. For me, the upshot of this is that, for a week and a bit, I get to hang out with a significant number of people I adore but have very few opportunities to see in person. Last year (our first in Wales) I spent just one afternoon at the castle as a member of the general public, not as an attendee, but this year I decided to take a week off work and register for the whole event.

I've had friends in the SCA for most of my life, but I've always been more of a Renaissance Faire kind of girl. This means that most of my garb is a.) not overly concerned with historical accuracy, and b.) designed for 100+ degree weather. In other words, throwing together enough SCA-appropriate garb for a multi-day event was going to require some creativity and a little bit of sewing.

There's nothing quite like a looming deadline fuelled by fear of mockery to motivate me to finish a project. In this case, I used the few days before (and during) Raglan to spiff up a couple of old costume pieces and start one new one.

First finished object of 2015: the Black Herringbone Linen Tunic

Right, so, this post was supposed to go up at the end of January, except that a combination of insufficient natural light to photograph a black garment, other priorities besides blogging that took up most of my creative energy, and some good old-fashioned procrastination got in the way.  Better late than never though, right?

This week (i.e. the last week of January), I am very pleased to report about my first finished project of 2015: the black herringbone linen tunic. This was a (relatively) quick project, begun over the Christmas holiday using a remnant of some fabric that I bought for my husband's wedding clothes. (I confess I might have bought a *teeny* bit more than I strictly needed.) My aim was to create something that would work equally well as either modern or Medieval(ish) clothing, and that would be comfortable and go together quickly but still incorporate some decorative details.