wool, linen, silk Another exercise in frugality, this is entirely done with old clothes. Plum wool gown from a friend, 2/1 twill. Damaged, with a few quarter sized holes in the front and one under an arm, with slashes between the holes that didn't go all the way through the cloth. The gown was already widely flared with additional large side gores, and cut all-in-one with the sleeves, if I recall correctly. As the lady I got it from is a bit shorter than I, the sleeves were too short, and tight, and the one with the hole was unsalvageable. I trimmed them off, cut the fold at the top of the gown, slit the front, and took it apart. The pieces were reversed so the slightly less worn, twill side was out (2/1 twill looks like tabby on the reverse), and sewn back together without the gores. I cut new sleeves from the gores, and underarm gussets from the old sleeves, though I misjudged somehow and ended up having to insert extra width in the sleeve. The inside is lined in linen, from a pale pink tunic and skirt set, another tunic dress in darker pink and grey, and a piece of pale pink linen I had from a garage sale or thrift store. The silk trim is from two silk shirts, in a heavy tabby weave, in colours that are documentably possible from kermes dye, which a fairly large amount of silk reaching Northern Europe in the Viking Age was dyed with. The wide trim on the front is due to the fact that the hole furthest from the centre line was about 15 cm (6") out, so the trim is 18 cm (7") wide. Gown-$12 CDN, from a friend Tunic and skirt set- probably about $11 from a secondhand consignment store, bought for working at that store (which had older clientele), but it always looked like a giant pink potato sack on me, and was definitely too "old" , still, I got several years of wear out of it Tunic dress and Jacket- same as tunic and skirt set above, only used the pink main portion of the dress, the wide grey hem and jacket were put aside for other things Silk shirts- both probably about $6 from thrift stores, one I bought a while back specifically to salvage silk from, the other I got free from my mother who didn't wear it anymore Total-$40 out of my pocket, Maybe as much $45, as I don't recall where the piece of linen came from; decorative stitching was done with leftover threads Time- several days, as I had to take apart 5 garments, sewing only took a day though, plus another day for the decorative stitching

Detail of a dress, in beige sueded knit, with bright rayon embroidery threads running vertically, in shades of purple, yellow and orange. The orange is recycled linen from a thrift shop shirt, and the "brooch" is part of a garage sale necklance. This is a 1X size.