Viking Apron Dress Pattern

[WindChime]

I need some help finding a actual viking apron dress pattern or maybe a pattern that would be easily tweaked to look like the apron dress. I can only find things on line that I would have to draft the pattern myself and I am not very good at that. I sometimes suffer fro shaky hands and then the pattern looks horrible.
Thanks for any help you guys can give.

[isabelladangelo]

Is there any way you could get someone to help you cut it out?   For my Norse Apron Dresses, I just have a piece of material in the front (a little over a half yard), the same in the back, and gores on the sides.  I then add the straps out of small strips of material that I folded over and sewed down.   

DSC04528 par Isabella, on ipernity

I made this one last year for a $20 and under garb competition.   (everything you see there, I had a receipt for proving the entire outfit was created for under $20) 

What you might want to do, for the front and back, just use a material that has an even grain and you can just rip it in half - no cutting involved except for one tiny first cut across the salvage.  For the gores, get your measuring tape and lay it down from one corner of the fabric to the other.  (The fabric should be folded and about yard wide -so two yards of fabric)   This will create the diagonal you want.  Pin along the inside of the tape measure all the way up.  This will be your cutting line.  To make the hem part, you just need to pin the tape measure down at the top corner and then measure down to the bottom corner (both driver's side this time rather than driver's door to the passanger's back door side).   Typically, most people want about the 36" mark for their side gores.  Mark that on the fold.  Slowly, move the tape measure in towards your previously pinned line, leaving pins at the 36" along the way.  This will give you a nice rounded hem.   You don't have to do the other gore only because this one can serve as your pattern.   

I'll keep my eyes open for a Norse dress pattern but I honestly have never seen one except for online.

[WindChime]

Thanks that does help. I have the material I plan on using and purchased a rotary cutter to help me keep the line straighter. I got it last year when the JoAnn by my house was closing because the were building a new super store even closer to me. I got the $16.00 a yard linen for 75% off and I got about 6 or 7 yards of 2 different colors.

[operafantomet]

The apron dress isn't called that in the Scandinavian languages; instead it's referred to as a "strap dress" (selekjole). The reason why I mention it is because the word apron gives a vision of a straight and fairly short garment. The "apron dress" from Viking style could be that, but it could also be long and shapely. Think an overdress, but sleeveless and with only narrow straps buckled to the main dress to hold it in place. As isabelladangelo showed, triangles at the sides is a good idea, but the basic cut is fairly simple.

Though these aren't exactly patterns, the diagrams here might be helpful?

http://www.museion.dk/viking/prydkjoler.htm


ETA: go me... I posted the wrong link... Fixed now.

[amy]

Wow  that is a beautiful dress.    I have not often seen them made so pretty.   Love the embelishment at the hem and cuff

[Cilean]

You all are reading my mind, I have to create a couple of early period Garb- Roman and Viking, these are a true departure for me as I am a 16th Century lady.

So here are a couple of places on the web I have been researching, this link is awesome on how to create your own Viking Dress easily and  nicely!

http://www.dragonlore.net/costuming/apron_dress_3gore.php

And it is from this link:
http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/mjc/sca/aprond.html


I have some shot linen in orange/purple and deep purple linen for the apron dress, I hope to pick up some awesome breast plates from a friend.

Cilean

[isabelladangelo]

You all are reading my mind, I have to create a couple of early period Garb- Roman and Viking, these are a true departure for me as I am a 16th Century lady.

So here are a couple of places on the web I have been researching, this link is awesome on how to create your own Viking Dress easily and  nicely!

http://www.dragonlore.net/costuming/apron_dress_3gore.php

And it is from this link:
http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/mjc/sca/aprond.html


I have some shot linen in orange/purple and deep purple linen for the apron dress, I hope to pick up some awesome breast plates from a friend.

Cilean

The brooches are not breast plates.  :-)  The idea of "breast plates" comes from a pretty much discredited report where the lady in question forgot such basic things as decomposition.   When the body decomposes, things fall and get displaced (we see it all the time in Archeology - the Roman sites are the best documented imho).  So, anything at what is still "brooch" level will fall south - leading the lady who first proposed the idea of breast plates to think these brooches were covering the chest area when they weren't.   

I have a few very awesome links to Norse archeology reports that I'll post when I get home.  I have them saved on my home mini computer.

[operafantomet]

If it helps anyone, the brooches are usually referred to as "fibulas". It's a Latin term for special ornamental pins, and it reveals that the main purpose of the Viking versions were to pin the apron dress to the underkirtle. They also served as the ideal place to attach strings of beads. This is a good modern recreation:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/428280659_0019f2fdd2.jpg

[isabelladangelo]

http://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html is one of the links