18 May 2009

Viking Finn Apron



This is my first attempt to make a Viking Finn Apron with some bronze spiral decorations. The wool is not handmade, I found the wool from normal Finnish fabric store and I dyed it little bit. So that’s why there aren’t any (tube) selvedges or tablet woven fastenings on the edges as it should be. The original fabric was more light brown than the result. The wool I used is the same fabric than my blue overdress. Dyeing changes the wool little bit fluffier (as the washing the wool does also). Then I made four strings to the edges and made four corner decorations to the apron. The string and the bronze spiral decorations to the edges are made as the instructions for reconstruction about archaeological findings of Kaarina Kirkonmäki from about 11th century. Only change I made was with the strings that are holding the spirals together. I am not very good to make 3-loop fingerloop braids, so I took a shortcut and made plain braids.


3 comments:

Mervi said...

Well done!

Unknown said...

where can one find the instructions for the reconstruction of the Kaarina findings? I am a reenactor in Canada and would like to have this information to help me in constructing my garb. Lovely apron by the way!

Eva Grelsdotter said...

Hi,

Thanks :D

Most of the information about Iron Age Finn costumes are unfortunately written in Finnish.

This study is very good (but in Finnish) http://www.student.oulu.fi/~jek/muinaispuku.html

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~jek/liitteet.html

And this book for example has some information about it: http://www.taitopirkanmaa.fi/Sinihameet-kultavyoet-muinaispukukirja

Here are picture of the Kaarina dress http://artos.pp.fi/heinola-seura/kuvat_4/muinaispuku_kaarina_525x700.jpg

But is there somethig special you would like to know about it or other Irona Age Finn costumes? I have a handout (paper version that we got from Iron Age costuming seminar couple years ago) instructions about how to make the dress (also sadly only in Finnish).