Okey maybe not only lazy. I also have been really busy, there where a lot of events such as the viking weekends in Archeon and on the early medieval farmstead of Schothorst and the pagan/folk festival keltfest. And I got accepted to volunteer in the living history park Archeon as a viking.
First of all I bought a lot of stuff most notably my new felt hat (witch I traded for a bottle of mead) and a pattern welded sax blade.
Here you can see the sax blade and a close up of the pattern. I am gonna make the handle and the scabbard myself.
I also bought a bronze horn final decorated with knotwork and a dragon head.
I glued the final on my horn with birch bark tar.
Now my viking clothing is almost finished.
I made a dye bath of nettles in my iron kettle and i dyed my tunic and my felt hat in it. Again I used alum as a mordant.
Here you see the kettle full of dye and my tunic after the first time in the dye bath. I wasn’t really happy about the color which was more yellow than green, so I dyed it another time this time I got a nice olive green.
As you can see it is green now. (The color look more faded than the first but this comes from the photo, Also the color on the photo is different on every monitor so it may not be accurate.)
Also you can see my felt hat here, it came out a bit lighter than the tunic but it looks fine.
With a lot of help from my mom and aunt my trousers are also finished. Actually my mom did most of the work she sewed it all together by hand and my aunt did cut it out, I only drew the layout of it. but no matter what i got my linen trousers. (photos will come later because its already on the repair table)
And I made shoes. this time i made them out of chrome tanned cow leather as a test, but next time i am gona make them from vegetable tanned goat leather (that’s where most of the found early viking age shoes are made from)
They are made after the pattern of the Drumacoon bog shoe found in Ireland.
Next on my list are socks and other things to make my viking outfit cold and bad weather proof such as a cloak a hood and an under tunic.
Also I came to the conclusion that the pouch I made a while ago was not suitable to keep all my stuff in so a started on making a new one .
this one i made out of though vegetable cow leather (witch doesn’t make the sewing of it easier) and is made with very fine stitches. if i am done with it it should have two compartments and it will be completely decorated.
So that was it all
~BM
p.s.
For the people wondering what happened with my bow well it broke so i made nalbinding needles out of the wood.
bart martinszoon 