It's been 2 days since I hit the sales floor. I've sold around 500 dollars worth of gear. Not too bad. I'm liking it but there is the ever looming stress of trying to get people to sign up for the club card visa. They push that really hard.
On the viking front, I have finally finished up pending orders. Now I can get to the alterations and skull caps I wanted to make to sell at ACF and the Allthing.
Winingas are my favorite easy viking kit item to make. They are basically just a long rectangle strip of wool.
My method is not period accurate. However, stitch Nazis can kiss my peachy ass. If I hand wove and blanket stitched my winingas, no one could afford them.
I start with a nice long length of 100% wool or acceptable good looking wool blend fabric. Yes, there are gorgeous blends out there that look authentic enough and tend to launder better than 100% wool. In this case, the fabric I used is 100% at $23 a yard.
I used a dark chocolate brown. I did the unthinkable and washed and dried the entire lot of it when I bought it. Pretty smooth perfect wool is boring and washing and drying it pre shrinks the fiber and tightens the weave. This is also known as felting. It is mildly felted. I washed it in cold and dried it in a medium heat dryer. It's also a lot softer.
This length of fabric was originally intended to make a Birka style coat. It was snipped away for warm tunics, trims, and winingas. Now, there's probably enough left over to make a hood. And damn it, it will be used to make a hood. I'm tired of freezing my na nas off at fall and winter events.
Back to the Wingdings. (Side note, I called them "Wingdings" when I became tongue tied trying to say the word for the first time.)
I cut 4 1/2 inch X 9 1/2 feet strips of wool. My client Nate has giant calves. Longer Winingas are appreciated by large girthy mammals. Just ask Zac.
The entire length could not be cut in one continuous length. I joined the ends with a half inch seam. One edge of the two is cut in half and hides under the longer edge when pressed flat and blanket stitched over the edge. See the picture. This is a quickie way to do a french seam.
I used pinking shears to cut the wool. See the picture. This prevents the edge from fraying and when I use the seaming+overlock stitch to reinforce the edges, it makes the edge look rough hewn but it really isn't. See the picture. Tricky and clever if I do say so myself.
So, to get away with using your machine on this whole process, you have to use a thread that is identically color matched to the fabric. It basically has to dissappear to the eye. You can only see these stitches are there and machine done under very close scrutiny. If someone is bending over close enough and long enough to inspect the winingas on your legs, do me a favor and smack their ass hard enough to make it sting and lose their balance and say, "Good Game Stitch Nazi. JJ sends her love."
It's been ages since I posted an edition of Becoming a Viking. A lot has happened since then.
*I swore my oath to Jomsborg, the Storm Commander, the Styrsman, and the Jarl. Yays!
*I graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology, minoring in Sociology from Texas State University.
*Made lots of new garments, a couple of which made it to the viking markets in Europe. Not all documented I'm afraid. Sad face.
*Made new friends as they come into the fold of Texas Viking Invasion.
*Suffered the pangs of unemployment, poverty belly, and living in a house that is falling down around our ears.
*Took several commissions for Viking kits. This is ongoing. By the way, I'm always taking orders.
*finally landed a job with all Texas Vikings favorite store, Cabelas. I'm hired and all my paperwork is done. Just waiting on the saliva test to come back clean. No worries there. Contact me if you would like to take advantage of my employee discount. AMMO, GUNS, CAMPING, FISHING, AND HUNTING GEAR!!! My high tech, super thin thermals and back pack for the viking markets will certainly be coming from here. I'm talking to you Doomsday Preppers.
So, I just finished Tina Ravenstein's first kit. All fabric came from fabric-store.com.
Natural softened linen, some scrap hunter green rustic linen, and Mecca Orange linen. All pieces are machine constructed with all top stitching by hand with individual strands of white linen yard that I manually separated for use in stitching. The embroidery is floral based on a design found in the Mammen grave. The thread is DMC all natural linen.
