The finished neck facing.
There are only about six archeological finds of embroidered textile from the Viking Age and it is quite clear that embroidery was not really adopted by the Vikings until late in the Viking Age when the trade with foreign cultures was well developed and their influence made its way into textile decoration. Carolyne Priest-Dorman gives a nice outline with references of Viking Age embroidery . A few examples of embroidery as part of a garment were found in two 10th century graves (12 and 15) in Valsgärde (Uppland, Sweden). The excavation was catalogued by James Graham-Campbell (1980) and the object of this project is described on page 102:
356 Silk fabrics
Valsgärde, Uppland, Sweden
Uppsala 59(15)
Valsgärde grave 15: silk edging for a cloak, embroidered in silver with a pattern of foliate derivation. There is a pair of similar edgings for cuffs from grave 12.
Figure 1: Reproduction of an illustration of the silk edging.
Expensive textiles from silk were important trade goods during the Viking age and many examples are found in graves like those at Birka and Oseberg. Most of the silk found is thought to have come from Byzantium, as is probable for the object of this project. James Graham-Campbell (1980) considered the piece to be a cloak trimming, though no supporting evidence is provided for this conclusion.
Embroidering the tunic facing
I traced the motif from the published illustration (Figure 1) and scanned, resized and printed out a work copy (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Motif traced from a scanned image of the original illustration.
The literature specifies the motif to be about 4 cm high and I scaled the scan to roughly the same size. I then laid out a pattern that uniformly spanned the entire circumference of the neck opening. Each period was embroidered one at the time after transferring the pattern onto tracing paper and pinning it to the correct location. The original was a red silk tabby fabric embroidered with silver thread, and on display at the Museum of Norse Antiquities (Uppsala, Sweden)5. I decided to embroider the pattern directly on the linen facing of the tunic and use silk instead of silver thread. Coffee brown 2/20 silk was used for the foliate patterns and hunter green 2/20 silk for the buds. I used stem stitch for the outlines of the vines and a combination of stem and chain stitch for the buds.
Initially I planned to fill in the entire pattern (like in the original), but I kind of liked the look of just the outline of the vines. I decided to wait and see how I will feel about it after wearing it for a bit. After I started the first pattern, I quickly realized that stem stitch allowed me to curve only in one direction. Trying to mirror the stitches of the vines with respect to the bud location created a distinctly different look of the stitch from clockwise to anti-clockwise direction. I figured out that I would need to get S and Z thread to create mirrored stitches, so I decided to just use the same direction stem stitch for the entire pattern.
Bibliography
Arbman, Holger (1940) “Birka I: Die Gräbern”, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (Uppsala, Sweden).
Beatson, Peter (undated), “Kaftan”
http://miklagard.nvg.org.au/costume/rus/trader/kaftan_text.htm (last accessed 04/07/17)
Geijer, Agnes (1938) “Birka III: Die Textilfunde aus then Gräbern”, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (Uppsala, Sweden).
Graham-Chapman, James (1980) “Viking Artefacts – a Select Catalogue”, British Museum Publications Limited (London, UK).
Bender Jørgensen, Lise (1992) “North European Textiles before 1000 A.D.” Aarhus University Press (Aarhus, Denmark).
Priest-Dorman, Carolie (1997) “Viking Embroidery Stitches and Motifs”
https://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikembroid.html (last accessed 04/07/17).
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