HANDCRAFTED HISTORY

Tag Archives: Birka


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Magical places and Viking living

With this blog post, I am celebrating 10 years worth of blog posts on this blog. I had another blog before this, so I have been writing for a longer time, but when I moved here I decided to take with me the handcrafting posts, and the first one is dated to late October, 10 years ago.

So with this, I am sending a big THANK YOU to all of you who read and support the blog; by reading, sharing, liking, talking, supporting the blog on Patreon and doing business with me whenever we meet. It is thanks to you the blog still remains, without your support I would probably have lost the heart to continue writing here. Let’s hope we stay together for 10 more years to come!

This summer I visited the island Björkö again, where the viking city Birka flowered as a centre for trade and cultural influence during the Iron Age. Birka is such a magical place, and I can really see how people have chosen to live here for such a long time.

I wore my most recent viking outfit, I call it my Västerbotten Viking (which I explain in the blog post about the garments) and enjoyed wearing a comfortable and practical outfit as I strolled the pastures, enjoyed magical light and amazing sunsets.

One evening my friend Rand I enjoyed a nice view of the harbour when we got company from a friendly sheep and her lambs. Apparently, vikings give the best scratches, and handmade beads and bronze jewellery is great to nibble at. Yes, I now have lamb drool all over my things. Totally worth it.

We also enjoyed some adventuring; rowing out with this viking boat (…ship? Do you call it a boat or a ship? I know nothing about boat-things) which was fun, sweaty and a great experience.

In the viking harbour, several reconstructed boats were available for admiration and occasional trips around the island. Here another group of vikings set sail out into the evening sun. In Sweden, there are several viking groups specialising in maintaining and using these ships, and we met lots of friendly and knowledgeable persons that gladly shared their knowledge with us.

One evening we had a great feast in the village, with skilful cooks preparing a meal and festive-dressed vikings enjoying it. After a long time with pandemic restrictions, it felt almost unreal to meet so many other people at the same time and eat by the same table. But alas, some work was required to take nice photos without the hand sanitisers visible…

Pretty vikings with pretty flowers and glass replicas.

And even more pretty vikings up at the hill, enjoying a guided tour ending by the sunset. This year we got a guided tour by Max, who kindly shared all his knowledge and told us about strange finds from around the site.

Viking age clothing; linen sark, wool apron dress, wool shawl and a veil. From my brooches, my knife and needle case is hanging by chains.

Birka is one of my latest infatuations and I long to go back there. This is really one of the most amazing things with my work and hobby; getting to visit and live at these historical and lovely sites. It is also really hard, because I now harbour a deep love and longing to visit places all over Sweden such as Visby and Birka, but also Tällberg where the larping area is, as well as southernmost Sweden for Double Wars, and Hamar in Norway to mention a few… How will I have time for it all?

Do you also have a magical place that you keep in your heart?


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2020 in review

There’s a lot to say about this year, but at least I’ve been having plenty of time for sewing. Unfortunately, a bad shoulder gave me some pains, but with rest and a training program, I think we are mostly friends again!

I thought it would be fun to share some projects with you here, as an inspiration and a kind of journal to myself: I always forget what I have been sewing, and find myself longing to finish yet another personal “small project” but not understanding why I don’t make any progress…

72 garments finished during 2020; both for customers, friends and myself. I am not going to write about them all, and many have not been photographed yet. I also have a whole bunch of things not yet ready; commissions, old projects known as UFOs (unfinished objects) and some rather new ideas I have been working on.

Easy, simple and comfortable blue Viking dress. Want to make a similar? Use the Shift-making tutorial and the Insert a Gore-tutorial to make a long shift with 4 gores.

It was time to make some new viking clothes and I managed this blue dress, the red apron dress and some matching items, like the handwoven and woad plant-dyed shawl. I am really pleased with how the outfit turned out, even if the outfit might not be sexy to the modern eye… I love experimenting with different historical cuts that could have been in use, trying out how they look and feel when I make and wear them.

Later I made this early 14th century outfit as I finally, after a long period of 15th century-romance, have laid my eyes on new conquests. The 13th and 14th centuries are very nice, and I want to get to know them a little more. The next project will be something from the Maciejowski/Morgan Bible.

I have made several complete outfits for customers based on viking age and medieval clothing, and this was the year when I only met GOOD CUSTOMERS! I kid you not! Everyone has been polite, fun to work with and sent their payments. For those of you working regularly in customer service; you know my feeling here! How did I get to be so lucky? And, will this continue during 2021?

A hand-sewn 16th century shirt inspired by the Sture shirt (without decorations and embroidery). This shirt took over 40 hours to make, more than most dresses… Is it pretty? Yes. Was it worth it? Give me another year before I answer…

I have also worked on 18th century clothing, learning more about the period and the methods in use. There’s a couple of skirts, a jacket in wool and one in printed cotton, as well as a small linen cap. I am looking forward to going to new kinds of events and trying out the kit to see if it will work.

I made a new short-sleeved kirtle with a waist seam, similar to the blue Weyden-inspired dress from years ago. This dress is rather loose (I might need to take it in a bit in the side seams) and it’s made with a curved front seam. It is going to be a great working kirtle! The long-sleeved green 15th c dress also got sold, they mysteriously shrank in the wardrobe during last winter)

Apart from sewing I also dived into some video making, filmed lectures for the digital Medieval Week as well as setting up a new Youtube channel, and working with content for my Patreon page. Video editing and voice-overs still make me sweat, but my plan is to continue to improve in these new areas, creating more and better content for you readers. Patreon makes this possible since I get support to work with my content, and my hope for 2021 is that my page will continue to grow, inspire and teach handcrafting ideas to everyone interested!

It feels like it is early yet to plan for this year, but of course, I am hoping for a market season of some kind, and I have so much new content for sewing workshops and material for a new viking lecture as well. As for the blog, there is a long list with tutorials to make, as much as I have time for. All concluded, it really feels like 2021 will be a Great Year!


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Living at Birka

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At the beginning of August, I took my camp equipment and moved to Björkön for a long Viking-weekend. I had such a wonderful time and wanted to show you some great photos and inspire you to maybe travel there yourself when the world allows.

As many of you fellow viking-nerds know, Björkö was the place where the viking city Birka was situated, and it is very beautifully situated outside Stockholm, in Mälaren (so it is in the inner archipelago, not towards the sea) which makes for a great climate. Wild apples and cherry trees grow over the island, and sheep grass the ancient hills, grave mounds and ancient monuments still visible from the viking era.

There are still lots of grave mounds left as they were, but also a museum, a newly built experimental viking village with boats tied to its pier, and good paths to stroll to different sites on the island. As you can imagine, I got quite excited when asked to join some friends there!

When the sun set, we took a stroll around the pasture lands, enjoying the view over the water and the surrounding islands, with a small picnic basket with us. The path took us over viking age grave mounds, past the Black Earth (where the city Birka was situated) and toward the Homelands. When darkness came, we returned to the village to lit a fire, and enjoy the company of each other.

The village is built as an experimental viking settlement which allows a group to actually live in the houses, tend the gardens and the buildings, as well as sleep, cook and go around their daily life there- as well as greeting modern visitors during the day time. Not everything is 100% accurate with what we know today about the daily viking life, but things get mended, rebuilt and used in a historical way, with old tools and knowledge (and modern safety measures…)

It was so cosy going around the settlement, with the sound of cooking and woodworking, the smell of fire and tar, and vikings going around their day tending to their business. I brought my market stall and tent, setting it up with a nice view over the water, where I spent some time drinking coffee and chatting about all things viking age. I also held a lecture about clothing and dress in the Viking society, inside the interesting museum on site.

My friends Joel and Josefin took me on a guided tour since they had been here before, and we went to see the excavations going on near the shore a short walk away. This was so interesting and I learned a lot about archaeology (which seems to be such a hard job, working on your knees for hours, patiently digging through the ground.) It was also very clear how much the field has developed since the early reports, that we base much of our understanding on when recreating viking age. I look forward to the reports from this excavation!

Outfit of the day; linen shift, apron dress in woollen diamond twill inspired by the Köstrup find, woollen shawl and tortoise brooches to fasten the outfit with.

In the photo below, I just have the blue dress and loose hair, feeling a bit undressed, but also happy to finally be cool enough…

I spent the days in the market stall selling some viking things, or strolling around with new friends in the museum, out in the landscape or by the fire. This was just what I needed after a summer of staying-at-home, and even though we weren’t many it felt really good to be outside again, doing things I love.

If you want to know more about how to visit Birka, here’s a link with useful info, there are some lovely boat trips during the summer which will let you stay to see the interesting bits and take a swim before going back.