Norse Applique by Penelope de Bourbon

Norse Applique Tutorial
HL Penelope de Bourbon | 512-297-8182 | [email protected]
MKA Sara Jennings | Savannah, GA – Shire of Forthcastle
I get asked a lot of questions about this topic, so I put this tutorial together as an attempt to both teach
people how to do Viking applique and to address their questions, concerns, and frustrations with the
process and materials. This is a pretty easy thing to do with endless possibilities, and I want to make
sure that you have the tools you need to get creative and make it your own. I’m always happy to answer
questions or help out, so please don’t hesitate to contact me!
Introduction
The early-period Norse embellished their apparel in many ways –woven trim, bits of woven tapestry,
looped and woven wire designs, beads, bits of metal, embroidery, and with applique. From the finds I
have researched, the most commonly seen use of applique is to put strips of contrasting, often more
luxurious fabrics onto a garment. Luxurious colors might mean that the fabrics were dyed with more
precious materials to get red or blue, or that they were over-dyed to get a color like purple or green.
Other forms of luxury could be a particularly fine weave, a complex twill or plaid pattern, or that the
fabrics were imported silks. Some of the silks found on Norse clothing are patterned Persian silks from
the Middle East. The Vikings had vast trading and raiding routes, and we see a surprising amout of
interaction and influence with their neighbors. Because of this, appliqued bands of fabrics are a fantastic
way to utilize scraps, small amounts of expensive fabric, and add a suprising amount of color and
interest to your clothing very easily. It’s highly authentic, beautiful, and is just as easy as sewing on
modern strips of trim (at a fraction of the cost).
In the SCA, we see some bold,
stunning examples of appliqued
animals, knotwork, and other
design motifs. The only period
example of figured applique I know
of is from the Oseberg ship find.
They are animal shapes in blue
tabby wool, like this little head of a
bull or perhaps a bear, not much
bigger than a credit card. (The
image right is one of them, and I
tried to scale it correctly to size,
but your screen resolution may
change that.) Each was set in its
own roundel, embroidered with
chain stitch onto a strip of silk,
which was then sewn onto a dress.
Whether you want to be as accurate as possible or just create something bold and fun to wear, the basic
materials and processes are the same. It’s a great skill to have in your repertoire because you can give a
lot of impact and interest to something with rudimentary skills and far less time than it would take to do
something of the same size in embroidery.
Materials
The most basic materials are fabric, scissors, a needle, and pretty thread that contrasts with your fabrics.
Applique is especially nice to do with wool on wool because the wools will full together over time,
eliminating the need to worry about unraveling and fraying. Wool likes to cling to itself, like the felt
figures on Sunday school story boards. Wool fibers are highly textured and will bind together into
something like felt if they are wetted and sufficiently agitated. If there’s a fine woven wool you want to
use and are worried about it fraying, put it in the wash on HOT with an old towel or two for the longest
cycle, and it will solve the problem. You can use other materials, but additional steps have to be taken to
deal with the fraying. Those steps will be covered in a special section.
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A design that you can translate into some combination of applique and embroidery
Fabric of your choice – wool is easiest, linen and silk are also good choices
Fabric marking pen or pencil – I use micron pens
Pins
Embroidery thread of your choice (DMC, crewel wool, silk, very fine yarn, etc.) and the needle to
go with it. If you’re not sure, crewel needles are usually a good choice because they’re sharp and
have a large eye.
Scissors – make sure they’re sharp! This is a miserable process if they’re dull…
Optional:
• Fray Check or a lightweight lining fabric if you are using linen or silk
• Heat-n-Bond or other fusible interfacing, fabric adhesive spray (basting spray, quilting spray,
etc.) if you have a complex design or layers or don’t like stabbing yourself with pins
• Bobby pins for holding fiddly bits of the design together while you’re stitching
• Solvy water-soluble fabric stabilizer if you want to embroider a more complex design as part of
your applique
• Clover bias tape making tips for making tidy strips of fabric to applique
• Dye materials: natural, RIT, or Kool-Aid/food coloring/Wilton
Design
At its most basic, applique is attaching strips or shapes cut out of fabric onto the surface of another
piece of fabric, usually with decorative stitching over the edges. The process of doing applique is very
simple – the complexity of your final piece depends on your chosen design. Are there a lot of pieces?
How many layers or colors will there be? Will you embroider over sections of the design to create detail
and texture? What stitches are you going to do around the edges? The best designs for this have bold
lines and forms, make good use of positive and negative space, or can be simplified to suit the medium. I
usually have a large base shape that I’m building onto, often a slightly larger silhouette of the final
design. It gives contrast between the garment and other colors in the applique, and it’s a lot easier to
arrange and sew small pieces onto that than onto a finished garment. The animal heads from the
Oseberg ship were on round pieces of fabric, so it’s definitely an authentic approach!
As an example, here is a brooch from the Sutton Hoo burial that lends itself well to applique. It’s AngloSaxon, but many motifs are very similar to ones in Viking finds. We have the original, which has some
minor damage, as well as some complex checkered-looking areas that might be good spots to use
another color of fabric or embroidery for interest. Then it’s broken down into simple black and white,
which makes it easier to see how it might work appliqued. Finally, it’s in the sort of simple
positive/negative space layout one would use to pattern onto fabric.
I would use the cutout shape of the middle design as a base to place the more simplified pieces from the
third design onto. I would use two, maybe three colors of wool for this and draw inspiration for what to
make each piece from the original jewelry. Make sense? This is a more complicated design than most,
but it’s an excellent visual of how we can break down a non-textile artifact into its most simple forms
and use it for something like applique or embroidery.
Some great design resources are stone, bone, and wood carvings, jewelry, woven tapestries, and don’t
forget the neighboring cultures who contributed to the Viking aesthetic, like Pictish carvings of animals,
the Sutton Hoo find’s jewelry and metalwork, or early period manuscripts from the Celtic isles like the
Book of Kells and Gospel of Lindasfarne. The Oseberg ship has incredible finds in textiles, wood carvings,
and more that will translate beautifully to applique. If you can find them, there is a two book set by
Masters Gerald of Ipsley and Robert Coldcastle, called Celtic Embroidery. It is an invaluable resource
drawn directly from manuscripts, carvings, and extensive research that will give you designs, teach you
how to scale and manipulate them around garments, and goes over proper color choices – including
DMC color numbers that they would have been able to dye materials to match. They’re very useful in
scribal, carving, and other early-period decorative arts.
I scale and print or sketch out my design, then refine it on tracing paper if I need to. This is a good time
to thicken up lines if you want those to be negative space in your design and show the base fabric. If you
want to do a great big design and are not handy with Photoshop and advanced printer options, the folks
at FedEx Office or your local copy place can usually help you blow it up and print it on large format
paper. If you want to mirror the design on either side of a coat opening or shoulders, they can help you
do that, too. It’s a good idea to number your pieces if your design is complicated, then keep a second,
not cut up copy of the design as your guide.
I run off a couple of copies of my final design to cut out and use as templates. It’s a good idea to number
your pieces if your design is complicated, then keep a second, not cut up copy of the design as your
guide. If I’m using more than one color, I’m careful to sort the pattern pieces by color as I go so that I’m
not trying to figure it out later. Then I use those pieces as a template to trace around onto my fabric.
Process
1. Cut out the bits from your fabric. Don’t hesitate to reach for the embroidery or thread scissors if
you have small pieces. If you are working with linen or silk, now is the time to trace a seam
allowance around each of your template pieces so that you can turn the edges under and still
have the pieces fit together correctly for the final design. See the Appendix on working with silk
and linen for more hints and a better explanation of the process.
2. Lay your pieces out on whatever you’re going to stitch them to and make sure they lay nicely
together. Using fine scissors, trim away any excess that’s cluttering the lines of your design or
not giving you enough room to sew between pieces.
3. Pin or glue them into place and begin
stitching around each piece. You can do
it piece by piece or glue everything at
once – totally a matter of personal
preference. If you are working with
larger pieces, it’s often easiest to just
hold it in your hand and work without
pins. I like to use a bobby pin to hold
down fiddly sections when I do this, like
curly bits or animal legs. It’s more
effective than a pin and won’t poke me.
4. When you’ve finished sewing the design onto the base fabric, cut it out. Make sure to leave
enough room all around the edges for you to be able to sew it onto your final garment. 1/8 in. is
the minimum, and you may need a larger margin if you’re using decorative stitches.
5. If you want to add embroidered details, now is the time to do it. While you can always stitch
once it’s on the garment, you’ll find it much easier to do now. When these are done, attach your
applique to your garment. You’re going to want to use pins or a temporary spray adhesive for
this. If you’re using adhesive, make sure of the placement with pins before you glue anything on.
Appliqueing Strips of Fabric
If you want to applique strips of fabric along hems or sleeves or across the chest in the Rus style, there
are a few things that will make your life easier and better. Since I’ve already gone over the process for
attaching the thing to the garment, we’ll go over tips here.
1.
If you have a nice acrylic quilting ruler with a
grid and a rolling cutter, this is the time to use them.
The straighter and more even the strips you make, the
better. Stay on the grain to avoid warping and general
bad behavior during the stitching process.
2.
Figures have lots of curved lines, so there are
fewer issues with unraveling fabric. The strips tend to
invite it, so your stitches definitely need to enclose the
raw edge well. Make them tightly spaced and even.
3.
The easy way to avoid unravelling issues in a
fabric that’s prone to it is to turn the edges under. You
can do this by hand with an iron or by using a bias tape
maker. The bias tape maker won’t work with most
weights of wool, but it’s fantastic with most linen, silk,
etc. To use the bias tape tips, you just need an iron and
ironing board – and your strips don’t even need to be
cut on the bias for this! They’re really quick and easy
and run $5-9 each on Amazon, depending on size.
Clover makes them.
All you do is cut the strips to the size indicated for your
tip, push/pull it from the wide end and out the narrow
end, pin the tip to the ironing board, and slowly draw the fabric through the tip and under your
iron. You’ll get perfect strips with ample seam allowances for protection from unraveling.
4. For placing the strips on the garment, a clear ruler or metal sewing gauge is a big help. Since
they’re long straight lines, often stacked on top of one another, it’s important to take a few
extra minutes to make sure they’re really straight and placed right. Haphazard placement is
glaringly obvious, and you don’t want to have to redo hand sewing.
Appendix
1. Dealing with Wool and Finding Good Colors:
If you haven’t used wool, it’s a wonderful fabric to work with that drapes beautifully and holds up to a
lot. Tropical or all-season wool can be worn for 6+ months, even in the south. Putting it over a light linen
undergarment layer helps keep you from being itchy or getting too hot. Wool fibers are like hair, rather
than fur, and you can make them much softer and far more compliant by adding some fabric softener or
hair conditioner in with the rinse. Most people are put off by the cost ($20+/yd at the fabric store), but
you can find decent lightweight wool online for $5-8/yd, often less. Most wool suitings are appropriate
weaves for SCA usage: plain, twill, herringbone, plaids. The heavy boiled “coating” wool is the proper
weight for coats and makes for a superb cold weather Norse coat or cloak. Army blankets also make for
good rectangular cloaks ad wraps
The biggest challenge in working with wool is that
it’s challenging to find wool in a variety of colors in
the south. You can order it online. You can scour
your local fabric store starting around August to buy
suiting fabrics and hit sales. You can buy wool and
wool blend felts in the utility fabrics section at most
fabric stores. I buy 100% wool cream felt and dye it.
You can also buy sheets of wool intended for needle
felting, which comes in cool colors, but it is much
more expensive than wool by the yard. It’s also
MUCH thicker, so you can get cool dimensional
effects with it, like the green on this stage.
Do not use acrylic felt for this. It’s so cheap and so
tempting, but it pills and sheds and makes this weird haze of partially connected yet pulled up fibers all
over the surface as it’s used. It doesn’t take a lot of use to have your felt looking worn. Your time is the
real investment here, not materials. $5-7 in wool materials will make a LOT of applique that will last for
a long, long time, especially if you know how to work a coupon.
I buy the lightest colors of the purest wool suiting I can find online and in stores, then dye them. If
there’s a small percentage of something like nylon in there, it will give a subtle heathery or plaid effect.
You can also dye lighter colored plaids. Before picking a color, consider what you’ll get when it combines
with stronger colors in the plaid, i.e. a red stripe that goes through blue dye might come out purple. I
use RIT with some vinegar in the washing machine for a garment’s worth of fabric. Always weigh your
fabric so you know how much dye to use. I buy 10-15% more fabric than I need if I’m dyeing wool so
that I can still wash it on hot and allow for shrinking.
Here are some examples of dyed suiting. The teal/green
was light grey with a navy check that I tossed in the washing
machine with some teal RIT dye, and plaids in the Kool-Aid
section below came from something that looks like 70’s golf
pants but is pure wool and was $3/yd with free shipping.
Hey, worst case? You can always dye it a deep color like
wine, navy, forest green, or chocolate brown. If you get
fabric that’s a tan or grey, those are excellent base colors to
dye deeper colors onto (warm colors for tan, cool colors for
gray). It works like a primer so that you don’t have to use
SO much dye to get vivid colors.
Kool-Aid is ideal for small batch wool dyeing, like you would
do for the amounts you need for applique or for yarn. With Kool-Aid alone, you can make 135 colors. It’s
food-safe, you can do it in the microwave or stovetop, because the Kool-Aid already has citric acid in it
you don’t need extra chemicals, and you can get an enormous range of colors. With a little plain white
vinegar, you can use food colorings and icing gels in the same simple process. Wool is a protein fiber
(not a plant fiber), and it needs acid to bind the dye to itself. If you don’t want to use vinegar, you can
buy citric acid powder and use that instead. ONLY USE KOOL-AID PACKETS – DO NOT USE THE KIND
WITH THE SUGAR ALREADY ADDED. Walmart has the largest selection I’ve found, especially if you need
green or blue flavors.
This site is an incredible resource for dyeing with Kool-Aid, food colorings, and icing colorings:
http://www.dyeyouryarn.com/kool-aid.html Definitely take the time to browse the navigation bar on
the left to see your options for using materials you probably have in your kitchen or to get more
challenging colors, like blue, purple, and green.
The process is incredibly easy, and it’s fun to do with kids:
1.
Take your fabric and cut it into manageable pieces. Kool Aid is
not for dyeing yardage. Be lazy and wash it in the sink by hand with a
tiny bit of dish soap to get off any chemicals from the manufacturing
process. Sometimes, these
interfere with the dye or
prevent it from taking. Rinse it
well.
2.
Let it soak in warm
water for about an hour.
Squeeze it a few times in the water at the beginning until
it seems well saturated. Soaking the fibers preps them to
take the dye evenly. If you just washed your fabric, that
process counts as part of the soaking time.
3. Mix your Kool-Aid with enough water so that
your fabric or yarn can move freely, but not too
much excess. You don’t want it to boil over in the
microwave. The more dye you put in, the more vivid
your colors will be. I usually do this in Pyrex
measuring cups or large canning jars because they’re
roomy, easy to deal with, and can take heat.
4. Put your fabric into the dye and pop it into the
microwave for about three minutes. If the dye is
absorbing really quickly, give it another 30 seconds,
then remove it and let it cool down. If it’s not or if
you’re using more dye, microwave it in 30 second
rounds until the water is mostly devoid of color. If you don’t want to microwave or are doing a
larger piece of fabric, you can always do it on the stovetop or in the oven. If you’re doing the
oven method, put them all in a baking dish, put it in a cold oven, then turn it up to 300 or so and
check it in 45 minutes or an hour. This is an easy method if you are doing several colors at once
so that you don’t have to worry
about boiling over or babysitting
the microwave.
The key is to gradually heat your
fabric up, then let it cool down.
This way, it doesn’t shrink and gets
hot enough to let the dye
permeate and bond with its fibers.
Depending on what flavors of KoolAid you use, some of the dye water
will be clear, some cloudy. It has
no effect on the fabric and isn’t a
big deal.
5. Once it’s cool, rinse it gently in the
sink. Squeeze it out and let it dry
flat. The fruit smell will go away in
a wash or two.
Here are some examples of what I’ve dyed with Kool Aid in my kitchen. These are the plaids from our
example. Notice how you only see hints of the yellow, and note how the blue check has behaved when
over-dyed. The left sample had grape and berry blue in it, and the blue has turned into a deep plum
color. Blue plus orange has made brown. And blue plus green with a hint of blue has made a dark teal.
Here, I have a ton of lace-weight wool yarn that I’ve dyed with Kool-Aid and used in embroidery. Except
for the big yellow and red balls at the bottom (turmeric, saffron, and sunflower for yellow, cochineal for
red), all of these are Kool-Aid or Kool-Aid plus a few drops of food coloring. It’s much cheaper than
buying crewel wool to get the colors I want for embroidery and applique, and I have a lot of control.
2. Stitch Choices
The Norse people used a wide variety of stitches, both simple and complex. Most of the decorative ones
have a secondary function in binding edges or tacking down seams. Anything that binds the edges is a
good choice for applique work. You can always use straight stitch or whip stitch, but I encourage you to
try some of these out if you haven’t used them before. There are excellent stitch guide videos online,
and I usually re-watch one before starting - http://www.needlenthread.com/videos Needle Knowledge
also has very useful stitch guides (below) - http://needleknowledge.com/embroidery-stitches/
Chain stitch is an easy stitch to learn. You can vary its look
by making it rounder, longer, or boxier, depending on how
wide the space is between where you bring the needle up
and put it down on each link.
Blanket stitch, or buttonhole stitch, and
its variations are easy, highly functional
stitches ideal for this task. You can even
“tie down” the spaces between the
stitches along the baseline with small
stitches in a contrasting color. It’s a
beautiful decoration, and it solves the
problem of stitches that appear too
loose or uneven. There’s an example
done with silk on silk from one of my
dresses in the section on appliqued strips.
Herringbone and the related
crossed stitches are some of my
favorites. They’re gorgeous and
they create twin rows of straight
stitches on the underside of the
fabric, so they’re ideal for
decorative yet functional seam
treatments. You can do another
set of herringbone atop your
first and interlace them for
double herringbone – very nice
in a contrasting color. These can
be “tied” just like blanket
stitches. It’s not hard, but
definitely watch a video before
attempting this one.
3. Tips for Working with Linen and Silk
We wear a lot of linen in the south, and the Vikings loved to take silk they had gotten on raids and use it
in their clothing, so it’s important to know how to work with these fabrics. Because linen and silk will
unravel like crazy, we have to take extra steps to use them for applique work. There are a few options to
make this easier, and each has pros and cons.
1. Turn the edges under. Ideally, every raw edge will be turned under and secured well. This is the
ideal tactic for making strips with these lighter fabrics. You can turn the edges by hand as you go
or with an iron before you start stitching. In dealing with curves, this is definitely the time to sew
by the book and cut little notches into your seam allowance so that the fabric will lay right when
stitched down. If you’re going to use this method, you will need to add seam allowance to your
design when you’re tracing around your cut out paper pattern pieces. This method of dealing
with edges does NOT work on swirls and knotwork unless they are very large.
2. Line your pieces. This is how most quilting applique is done, and it’s best suited to simple
shapes or large pieces. Cut a duplicate of your pieces in a light fabric like muslin. Stitch all the
way around the edges, cut your notches in the seam allowance, then cut a small x in the middle
of the lining fabric. Turn your piece right side out through the x and iron it before stitching it
down. An awl or bodkin or chopstick is a big help in getting into any small areas. This is an easy
thing to do, it’s effective, and all of the pieces will be beautifully finished. You’ll need to add
seam allowance when you’re tracing your pattern pieces. This method of dealing with edges
does NOT work on swirls and knotwork unless they are very large.
3. Fray Check the edges. No matter how small or large your design is, you can go over the edges
with Fray Check and skip the turning under. You’ll want to give it plenty of time to dry before
stitching. Make your stitches a little bit closer and smaller if you’re doing this, because you need
the edge binding properties as added security. This method is ideal for designs with knotwork,
swirls, and small details. You can always use it in combination with the above methods – use
them for the large body pieces, then use Fray Check pieces for the details that layer on top of
those. ALWAYS test Fray Check on your fabric before starting. On some things, especially silks, it
can wick further up the fabric and leave you with a darker, uneven line of product.
I would wash anything I had used Fray Check on using the delicate setting and hang to dry. I’ve
been told that it holds up well long-term, but it still makes me nervous.
4. Machine sew it. You can use the satin stitch on your machine to fully encase raw edges. It will
look modern, but it’s a good option if you’re doing something that’s going to get a lot of abuse,
like a fighting tabard.