Leave it to me to do things at the last minute!   Last Fall I made myself a wool Viking apron dress, but now that it is getting warmer weather I needed one in linen.  I found some red linen in my stash and figured it would be good to use.  Especially since I wanted it for an A&S event this weekend.  Since they are easy to make, I figured I could complete it this week.  WRONG!!  Things will go wrong when one is on a time frame.

 I spent Monday cutting out the pieces and even a couple Jorviks (caps).  I started sewing the dress pieces together but when I wrapped it around me for testing I noticed that it was "too small".  I followed the same pattern as my wool apron dress, but something was wrong.  I remeasured the pieces, re-checked my measurement notes --- everything matched.  I could not figure what went wrong!  I sent out emails to a Laurel whom I rely on for help.  All the while stressing myself out even more, as I really wanted this done by  Saturday.  I know that this material width was 50" instead of the 60" I used for the wool, but that should not cause the problem.  The length was perfect, just the width of the dress was off.  I did not take into consideration that wool has a "give" to the material whereas linen does not.  What to do?  I know how to make it smaller, if needed, but how to make it larger?  I racked my weary, aging brain even more, getting more stressed to the point of walking away and leaving it alone for a while.

If I added a small,  reversed gore under the arms, that might work.  But thought about the top looking like a "tulip" and being too large at the top.  How did they alter clothing in period?  Would they have added the smaller gores under the arms or long strips at the back?  No one knows for sure.  So I took my best shot and added two narrow strips down along the back panels.  It worked!  It now wrapped around perfectly.  But, another slight problem, it did flair out a tad at the top, looking like a tulip.  More stress, more altering.  This time it was an easier solution; I just took in the two front seams a bit from bust to the top.  With the straps pinned on, you do not notice the small alterations.  But then, if one is a Viking perfectionist, then they might notice.

The straps; I could manage with just plain straps for this weekend, but I have the rest of this week to work on them, so I wanted to decorate them.  I figured I would have time to do this task as well.  I decided on the small faces motif from the Mammen Viking mans burial (from Denmark).  I hand-drew the faces along each strap, 17 faces each.  I am doing the face outline in black and the leaves in white, gold, orange and blue.  Hopefully, by Friday I will just need to sew the strap seam and attach them to the apron dress for wearing on Saturday.  Next week I will decide on how to decorate the rest of the apron dress.