Norse Hood (a tale of delayed gratification)

Last year sometime (or maybe before), my stepsister started dating a SCAdian (again), and thus was once again in need of garb. Early Viking, in particular. At Christmas last year, I was looking for a last-minute, minimal-to-no-cost gift, I had spent some thoroughly enjoyable time researching Viking garb and thought a hood like this would make a lovely, simple, not-overly-fit-dependent gift, with at least a nod to accuracy. Then I had no time and decided I would just give her some bits of vaguely-period-appropriate fabric from stash. Then our Xmas times with the Dads didn’t coincide, so I hadn’t had a chance to give her anything yet. So shortly after Christmas I cut out and started hand-stitching this nice wool(ish) remnant into a hood. It actually didn’t take too long, maybe about a day and a half from first cut to finish. (And then I didn’t see her, and didn’t see her, and then they were going to get married so I thought it would make a decent wedding present considering they were going for the most low-key and under-the-radar kind of ceremony…)

But eventually I managed to deliver it, and so finally I can share a post about it! Not that she reads my blog, that I know of, but you never know. 

It’s a simple pattern—rectangles for the hood part (Or one long one, as I used) and squares for the front and back gores. My construction isn’t quite true to the historical base, but I’m cool with that. I’m less cool with my craptacular hand-stitching, but such is life. I wish I’d had grey matching yarn, but I was sticking with the stash. It also seems to be The Single Most Typical Viking Costume Piece On The Internet. Ah, well. She can get creative and do in depth research for her own stuff. At least it’s not a horned helmet.

My remnant was big enough for the main part of the hood, with a very narrow strip left over. I was, however, able to cut that narrow strip into four and piece two chunks together to get two squares—the front and back gores. Symmetrical? No. A reasonable abuse of the principles of rectangular construction? I think so.

The seams are butted and completely flat. I love doing things like that with heavy felted fabrics like these.

One of the sources I read talked about how well-constructed Viking clothes were, it is often hard to tell which side was the inside. That would be the case here, although I’m pretty sure my coarse stitching would be an affront to any self-respecting Viking seamstress.

I actually really like how it looks as a whole, though, and the scale worked out well (which is fortuitous since there was no measuring involved, just a quick “I have this much fabric, will it fit if I do it this way?”) I think it’s quite a bit bigger and more drapy than the original find the pattern was based on. Not actually worried about that.

It’s actually pretty warm, even just being worn for a few pictures.

The hood is quite big, luxuriously so. It hangs over the face in a satisfyingly Sith-like manner.

Yeah, so. She’d better like it, or next year she’s totally getting bath oil.

(Edit: I think they like it. Based on the argument over who got to wear it first when I gave it to the happy newlyweds. 😉 I should probably make another one so they don’t have to fight over it. Pretty sure I have some other remnants of coating that would work…)