I wrote before that I was starting my first embroidery project. See My first embroidery project started…
At that point, I had one row finished:
Well, I finished it yesterday. It is three rows of Herringbone Stitch in gold embroidery floss on 8mm China Red silk habotai. I will cut out the piece and put it on the yoke of the apron dress that I will make for Spring Coronation, after I finish the one I’m working on right now.
Here is the embroidery:
Underneath the embroidery hoop is the marigold medium-weight linen that I will make up into the smokkr, or apron dress.
After I finished the three rows of gold embroidery, I went back to add blue to it in a Double Herringbone Stitch. The idea was good, and it looked fine on my test fabric, which is a tan-colored muslin, but I just didn’t like it on the red silk. So I unpicked the blue. I’ll just stick with the single Herringbone Stitch in gold.
Meanwhile the blue apron dress is coming along well. All the machine-sewn parts are done, as well as two-thirds of the hand sewing. Just some hemming left to finish, which I hope to do tomorrow evening at Sewing Circle. If I’m still welcome there, after pooping out on the Tea Party. See Too sleepy to go…
Here is the material for the blue cotton flannel twill apron dress. It lies on top of the blue underdress that I made a few months ago:
I’ve also gotten a new follower here on my blog who is a fellow Scadian! 🙂 Her name is Baroness Tyra Jonsdatter, and her blog is called “Art and Culture in the Norse Period.” Right up my alley!
You can find her blog here: Art and Culture in the Norse Period. She has some really excellent work on her blog, including wire-work bracelets she has made: Bracelets for the Gulf War gift basket
And quite serendipitously, she has written a post about a book concerning the Vikings’ use of silk! See Silk in Norse Society.
What a wonderful discovery! Don’t you just love the blogosphere? ❤
Let Us Live Like We Mean It! 
The herringbone looks good.
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Thank you, April! 🙂
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Oh that is intriguing. Vikings using silk. Now we thought the trade between east and west was disrupted by the demise of the Romans… wonder if it was Chinese silk or silk from other sources that came into the Vikings’ hands?
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According to the Baroness’s post about Vikings’ use of silk, it came from the Zoroastrians in Persia, as well as from the Byzantines.
You may remember that Vikings were employed as the Byzantine Emperors’ personal guards, called “Varangians,” in Byzantium, which was the Eastern Roman Empire, centered on the city of Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul. This eastern branch of the Roman Empire survived for over a 1000 more years after the western branch, based in Rome, perished.
When the Varangian Guards would travel back home to Scandinavia, they would take trade goods such as silk with them.
Other Viking traders who were not part of the Varangian Guards also made their way to Constantinople, via either the Mediterranean or, more usually, through the river system to the east of the Baltic Sea through the lands of what is now Western Russian, Belarus, and Ukraine.
Check out my post called “Post-event reviews are in!” to learn more about that river route and the amazing Viking/Rus’/Slav Princess Ol’ga of Kiev! 🙂
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Oh yes, the Viking traders did do the Volga trade quite intensely and a lot of exotic goods made their way north this way.
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