Pilgrim diary
Description
In the late summer of 2004, I will join some ten other people who are going to walk through a big part of Norway following the old Pilgrim trail through the country. The plan is to dress and act a bit medieval’ish, which of course means that I will have to learn a bit about the dress of the middle ages, which I would say is an advantage. A better plan will follow swiftly, but for now the plan is:
+ two smocks one done
+ one or two kirtles
+ hose
+ nålebinding socks (or whatever)
+ headgear
+ hood one done (greased?)
+ cloak (greased?)
In addition I will nead tons of strange camping gear, but I haven’t been thinking that far yet. To be honest, I only resited what other people have told me before above, and something more independent will come later on.
30 March 2004
 I bought some wool yesterday, and allthough the colour is not at bright as in the photo, it's very pretty. The only disadvantage is that
the fabric-salesman must have misheard me,and as a result, he only gave me 1,8 metres of fabric, when I asked for 2,8 metres. As a result, I haven't
sewn a thing. That is pretty annoying, I have prewashed the thing, and I desperately hope that they have more left. If not, I have a problem. As it is, it's just enough for the
gussets and sleeves, but not enough for the body, which would be highly annoying. I'll just keep my fingers closed and hope for the best. Another note: When I prewashed the fabric, I got this
terrible feeling that "this isn't wool". I did a burn test, and it reacted just like my hair when I burn that. Besides, when I ironed the fabric, my whole room smelled of
wet dog. I hope that is sufficient evidence that it is the real thing. It looked quite different after being prewashed too.
07 April 2004
I have started the sewing, so now the shoulder seams and one fake seam is done. The plan for today is to make one more fake seam before starting on the facings for the neck opening. I am happy, the nerdy school
geek part of me is less satisfied, though. The essay about the erase of the norwegian council/kingdom in 1536 misses me. I always end up looking at the 16th century portraits instead of reading about the political development.
I must add that handsewing is a dull affaire. I am not the slowest with the needle, but I still can't help but thinking
that my beloved sewing machine would have done everything faster than me. Still it comforts me that the fake seams wouldn't have looked half as pretty with machine seams. Besides, it pleases me to have seams that are equally pretty on both sides.
I guess that it's the sign of a true perfectionist. I just hope it will turn out allright, as it's my first attempt at something medieval.
 13 April 2004
I have never seen a fabric that has a more changing colour
than this one. When I look at it in the dim evening light, it looks almost brown, like dark mustard. In bright daylight, it looks alarmingly orange. I am still in love with the fabric. The fright that it isn’t wool has passed after I did another burn test and asked everyone what it smelt like. Of course everyone said “burnt hair, take it away” or something like that, and that relieved me a bit. So, - have I made any progress? I am done with the neck opening.
I really should have had a better photo of this, because it is all done my hand, and it’s very pretty! I have also fastened the side gores, so the next thing to do is mounting the front ones. I took a
photo of the thing, but to show it’s colour, I had to alter it quite a bit.I have also made a few scans, so perhaps a more thorough
project description is on it's way?
13 May 2004
 I was looking through my scraps, and found a narrow piece of wool that cost me £1 some years ago. As we have loads of old yarn in the attic, I found something to do. I made a pouch. The embroidery is made with “dobbel leggsøm” (couched something?) and contour stitches. The trim is normal 3-ply braid. I don’t know if they used pompons as buttons, but it looks pretty, doesn’t it? The colour is a much purer and fairer grey, and the edging is really rust coloured. A bigger, but quite blurry photo can be seen here
22 June 2004
I know that this update is terribly delayed and without any pictures. I still thought that I needed to update this thing, allthough it is no more than a short progress report. I have made: one hood that looks a lot like the sunnfjord hood. I read somewhere that it was dated to 1450 or something, and allthough that is terribly late, it looks alot like this one from leaf ten of the Maciejowski bible. I messed up a bit, but it looks allright. The dress is almost done. I need to fell a few more seams, especially those inside the sleeves, and make some buttons. I have made one and a half smock too, and half finished the cloak, which is made from a heavy army blanket. I am not totally sure whether the colour is period or not. Next up is to finish the gown, sew a woolen belt as I haven't the time to tablet weave one, and decide whether my burgundy wool is destined to be one more hood or a pair of hose. I have some quite thin green wool that I intended to make hose from, but I only bought it because it was the cheapest wool in town, as the colour is not period at all. (I think that it's bleached from black or something like that) so I am not sure what to do about that.
16 September 2004
The clothes were finished in time for the long walk. For my part, the walking bit was reduced to fifteen kilometres, but at
least I had a great time. You can see some photos on the Pilgrim Gallery Page
Bibliograpy:
Art History of Norway
The Maciejowski Bible
Some Clothing of the middle ages
This page was last updated 16.09.2004.
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