Inspired by the show Vikings, some truly bad ass costumes I’ve seen at Texas Renaissance Festival and on Pinterest, and wanting to wear a costume in the freezing winds of the Orkney Islands, I began researching Viking costumes with a smidgen of historical accuracy. I made three viking dresses, embellished two sets of tunics, and assembled/made quite a few accessories for myself, my husband, my friends, and my mother to wear in Orkney and at Texas Renaissance Festival. Since I made so many items and took a ton of pictures, I’ve had to break it up into five separate blog posts. This post focuses on the Viking apron dresses and under dresses for us ladies.
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Both my friend and I used a medieval dress pattern (BUTTERICK PATTERNS B4827 Misses’ Medieval Dress and Belt) for our under dresses. My blue under dress (above right) is the same dress I made for my Lady Stoneheart costume. I love that I can now use the dress for both costumes. Her green under dress (above left) used the same pattern that I already had cut up. The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) has a lot of information out there for reenactment and costume making, and I was able to find a really nice (and simple!) adjustable pattern to fit both our bodies. A special thank you to Genoveva from Honor Before Victory for sharing the pattern on her blog. It was very easy to follow and calculate/adjust to fit our measurements.
My apron dress opens in the front to accommodate my large chest, and my friend’s opens in the back. Though we have similar measurements, some dress styles look great on her and horribly unflattering on me, and vice versa. For my apron dress, I attached a lovely trim that I found on Etsy, and I added some scrap fabric trim on the inside of the opening to stiffen/strengthen the front. I also braided the shoulder straps to shorten them while maintaining strong support for both our dresses.
My friend Katy did not purchase trim for her apron dress. Instead, I purchased a cord foot for my machine and learned a new skill. She brought some yarn over that complemented her dresses and coloring, and I used a decorative variation of a zig zag stitch to sew down the yarn. I had so much fun with this technique and am in love with the way it turned out! And…yarn is WAY cheaper than purchasing trim, viking or otherwise.
The rest of our costumes pieces, including those for our guys, are below. We wore these ensembles in Orkney during our British Isles cruise in September. Read on for my mother’s under dress and apron dress, worn at Texas Renaissance Festival last month.
Costuming Vikings: The Accessories
For my mother’s under dress, I used a different Medieval dress pattern (Butterick Ladies Sewing Pattern 4377 Historical Costume Dress & Cape). I used Genoveva’s apron dress pattern for her as well, but I made hers open in the back and gathered the fabric under the trim in the front to be more flattering to her body. The trim was leftover fabric from one of my Outlander costumes.
She was so proud to wear a costume to the renaissance festival that I had made for her, and I was proud as well. The weather was terrible that day (cold and raining) and she was the most appropriately dressed!
Next…Costuming Vikings: The Tunics
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