Pics or It Didn't Happen: The Viking Sailor Senshi at East Kingdom University

We set a goal of trying to get a lot of these dresses done by EKU in the Barony of Endewearde this past weekend. We are all mostly together and we had many of the Senshi attending.

A few of House Strangewayes:


From left to right: Lady Bianca Anguissola as Sailor Jupiter, Becca as Sailor Mars, Lady Fortune St Keyne as Sailor Moon, Jacquemine van der Bel as Sailor Mercury and Lady Cecily Windham as Sailor Neptune

And the very important shot of the bow!
 

Yeah, we are even more fun in person.

I taught a class on viking garb mostly using resources from previous classes on the apron dress and "Vigdis" style underdress. I also included a tutorial on wool felt applique and the Eura underdress.

It was a fantastic day as most East Kingdom University's are, full of learning, fellowship and laughter. The autocrats are super heroes, as the location changed less than 24 hours beforehand and aside from the map in the guidebook being wrong YOU COULDN'T TELL. Lady Yzabell du Perche the event steward and her team did an amazing job and Baroness Isabelle de Montreuil sur Mer who heads the EKU effort pulled off a miracle.


And a huge shout out to Morgan Donner and her 16th Century Sailor Moon! I had to pick myself up off the floor when I saw that you'd been inspired by this project. Full on swoon I tell you!

Fancy Finishes: Embroidering The Sailor Moon Viking Dress

Let's get down to business. To defeat, this dress!

Embroidery:

Now, I've done seam treatments on viking dresses before using the herringbone stitch and someone who I'm sure didn't mean to say in the way it was taken (peer-like qualities Fortune, try to see the best in people) looked at my dress and remarked how interesting it was to see only one line of herringbone stitches...

Well. F'nah. So this dress I intended to do two lines of red and yellow interwoven herringbone stitches to the seams. Because I like to work with the garment as flat as possible I did this before sewing the back two trapezoids to the front.

Here is how the herringbone stitch works by itself:

Also called a catch stitch, this was used primarily as a decorative seam treatment, occasionally as a hemming stitch in period.

I fell in LOVE with a website showing all the different "Dark Ages" stitches from Viking and Saxon garb that was extant. http://nvg.org.au/documents/other/stitches.pdf Research heaven.

Detail of one of the seams:

Seam Treatement Detail of Viking Sailor Moon

The other stitch I used extensively was the blanket stitch. Now, I'd been told time and time again that the blanket stitch is not period. Well, time and time again I'd been lied to. Thanks to the above link I found no only was the buttonhole stitch used in period but it was used to apply bands of silk tablet woven trim to fabric. Used to apply bands of trim you say? Like on the under dress?

Red "glove" bands on the under tunic dress

One way to procrastinate finishing your underdress is to research a variety of blanket stitches.

So I did:

http://www.needlenthread.com/2012/06/up-down-buttonhole-stitch-video.html

https://www.coletterie.com/tutorials-tips-tricks/tutorial-5-simple-blanket-stitch-variations

http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/stitch/blanket-stitch/double-blanket-stitch/

http://sarahwhittle.blogspot.com/2010/07/blanket-stitch-variations.html

I also got fancy and whipped a line of blue along the blanket stitch. The finds at Bjerringhøj (Mammen parish, Denmark) known as the Mammen finds show whipped stem stitch, so creatively and anachronistically a whipped blanket stitch isn't such a stretch right?

I also did this detail on the faced collar.

I'm a little punchy at this point

 At some point I will do an entire post on the faced collars, but the detail pictures are all on my iPad.

Here is the finished underdress:

Sailor Moon Underdress

 

The other stitch I used extensively on this project was a whipped backstitch on the butt bow detail. Pictures of which are in the wool applique post.

A Good Time: 10th Century Sailor Senshi

I haven't mentioned anything about my SCA household so far really. I'm a member of House Strangewayes. We're out of the East Kingdom and most of us live in the beautiful Shire of Quintavia (Central Massachusetts). We're a service household, we're constantly helping run events, gates, dayboards, feasts, retaining and creating things for our Kingdom.

I love my Household, we're a big dysfunctional family, we dress alike, we have our own vocabulary (F'nah), and we love stupid jokes and puns. (Exhibit A: the Sequin Rose Incident)

Which brings us to.... Sailor Moon.

 The Inner Senshi: Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus

 

The Idea:

 

Yes. I did say SCA earlier. I know what you're thinking. Many of the household have otaku and cosplay roots and most of us have seen quite of bit of the series. It was hard to avoid as a nerdy girl of a certain age.

 

So when Elvira, who gets very sudden and very intense ideas, messaged the ladies of the Household in late December about a Sailor Senshi themed group costume challenge it was embraced immediately. Almost too quickly for a pack of late 20's, early 30's ladies who may have just finally grasped their chances to be magical girls and defeat the Negaverse.

 

The Design:

 

Sailor Moons Says: This is a ridiculous idea!

 

How to interpret this for a large group with vastly different levels of sewing prowess? Easy, 10th century Viking dresses. They are easy to construct, easy to embellish, and in the SCA we often do large felt applique on this style of dress.  

 

The thing about Sailor Moon unlike other superheros is that they all dress in the same base outfit of Japanese school girl outfits/sailor suits with color variations. Each Senshi also has the astrological symbol, in some cases slightly modified, to represent their planet as well. At various points during the series, movies, manga et cetera they get powers or other representations.

 

So, I chose Sailor Moon, because I'm blonde and Sailor Venus was taken. (No one is bitter Elvira)

 

In my case, Sailor Moon is red and blue and has the gold crescent moon symbol. 

 

The Plan: For the underdress I am planning on a white linen base, with a blue linen facing on the neckline for her sailor collar and two red guards on the cuffs to represent the red accent on her gloves.

Underdress

Apron Dress

 

The apron dress is cobalt blue linen with red and gold contrast stitching on the seam lines in interwoven herringbone stitch and will have a red ribbon of wool felt around the base and pale gold crescent moons on each of the three panels. (I don't want the moons too yellow, but we have a kingdom level award for service called the silver crescent and I also do not want to be mistaken for falsely advertising my accomplishments)

 

To top it off crescent moon pins and red beads to represent the front bow. I may also do a back bow appliqued on in wool felt to start the red ribbon that undulates around the hem, I haven't decided yet. I'm trying to walk to line of inspiration vs literal interpretation.

 

Supplies Needed:

• White Linen - 4 1/5 yards
• Blue Linen - 4 yards
• Red Linen - 1/2 yard (I could probably have gotten away with 1/4 yard)
• Red Wool Felt - 2/12 yards
• Pale Yellow Felt - 1/2 yard
• DMC #321 (red) - 4 skeins
• DMC #729 (gold) - 4 skeins
• DMC #796 (blue) - 4 skeins
 

Using the modified Vigdis underdress pattern from this post and the apron dress pattern from this post I cut out my fabric.

 

Then I realized something. My blue linen was thinner than the usual 58" wide that I use. Which led to adding a second gore at the front and a small gore at the top:

Pretty sneaky if I do say so myself.

 

 

Next time: Embellishing the outfit!