DIY Viking dress embroidery.

I know I haven't been posting anything new lately... I've kind of been busy, with real life... away from the cyber madness! 

And I have made many MANY new items! Seems like I've been working non stop... while jumping around and trying to find new material to work with.

So, last week, I decided to embroider wolves onto my viking dress. I know I should have used authentic wolf designs from actual viking archaeological findings, but unfortunately all the wolf embroidery found looks like anything but wolves!

So, I opted for a beautiful design by a talented artist (©Ari-Usni.deviantart.com).

Since my dress is really dark... I used a white pen to draw the wolves onto the dress as I could not figure out a better way to transfer them without messing up the fabric and leaving huge stains...
 Another perfectly symmetrical wolf needed to be on the opposite side as well...


 And here are the two angry wolves facing each other on the upper chest part of the dress...

Next, the serious work started! 

 After around an hour, the first wolf was outlined... I am not so good with embroidery so I used the easiest stitch I knew, the chain stitch, and I improvised on the rest!
 I then decided to add some color to the inner designs, I tried many alternatives, but what worked best was this royal blue! I finished up by adding claws and teeth in off white.
 I did the same on the left one!
And here is the final result! I also lined the collar line with matching red stitches, to match the rest of the dress... 


It took around 4-5 hours of work... shoulder and neck pain... but it was all worth it!


Some fanatics might argue that vikings did not have black linen... I do not underestimate the vikings, they had more knowledge and it is yet to be found... Black fabrics were very expensive, all dark colors warm colors in general... a few knew how to achieve it on linen, and just because archaeologists haven't found remains yet, does not mean it did not exist...

So, until that day, I will wear my dress with pride!

Check out my crafts on my facebook group Midnight Crafts

You can contact me directly for your orders. I make everything myself, I am not a merchant... I am just an artist, and I absolutely love what I do...


Let me know what you think, leave a comment, share if you feel like it... if you have any advice, I would be more than appreciative!

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