Clothes

and other fiber arts

My other Garb pages include:

Romano-British ...and other peplos or chiton dresses

Most of what I offer on this page are examples of things I have made presented as examples for styling, based on the work of others. I try to include links to the researchers who have done the real work of compiling resources for historical recreations.

This website by Ollamh Esa inghean Donnchaidh offers information about Early Period Celtic garb.

Useful instruction document for making a peplos by Countess Gwendolen-Isabella Stewart: Here

I really like this write-up about Gallic clothing. It's written in French but it's not text-heavy, you can copy and paste the text into Google Translate. This is a good starting point for deeper dives into specific clothing finds in the archaeological record, and it includes examples from central Europe outside Gaul.

Photo by Nicole Vassalo/Sinn Larensdottir

This dress was made using Countess Gwen's pattern, linked above. It has slits at the top of the tube for the arms, which is now thought to have been a rare patterning choice, with the more common design consisting of a tube sealed all the way up.

This dress has both slits at the top and a few inch-wide folds pleated under the fibula at each shoulder. This raises the front neckline and allows the back to have a deep drape for ventilation. I pin this to my bra straps at the shoulders for security.

photo by Ursus

This is another dress with slits at the top for the arms. The pleats at the top of the dress are entirely speculative and not based on any archaeological finds.Some items here are late Bronze/ early Iron Age central Europe. I made the metal link belt and it is based on Dalj type Bronze Age belts. These belts are mostly found in the Carpathian Basin and date from La Tène C but one was also found in the cemetary at Dürrnberg... where a birch bark hat, like the one I am wearing in this photo, was also found (although they were not in the same grave and may not be contemporary).

The green linen peplos below is a full tube, belted with a body chain that was inspired by a 4th century CE Romano-British body chain in the British Museum. Body chains like this in the historical record have joiners both in the front and back, each with four loops for attaching chains. I only had one joiner with three loops (made by Badger Bronzeworks), so I made do. I like what this chain does to the peplos waist.

Late Bronze/Early Iron Age

Information about Central European Bronze Age costume is well-summarized in the class notes of Agatha Iris, here and the webpage of Álfrún ketta, here.

Wool survives much better than linen in the archaeological record, but since the SCA holds events in both warm and cold weather, I made one outfit from wool and other options from plant fibers.

Skirts from this period in the archaeological record are big tubes, held with a belt or drawstring at the waist. I took the dimension of around 90 inches circumference from the Huldremose skirt, which dates to the the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age (500-1 ВС). Okay maybe that's not really *early* Iron Age but it's one of the few finds for which we have dimensions. Once again it's useful to link to the work of Álfrún Ketta, here. She conducted an excellent exploration into tube skirts in the Bronze and Iron Ages. She wryly refers to them as "ugly" skirts due to their lack of tailoring but is clearly smitten with them, as am I!

I also made a sheepskin shawl based on the Huldremose find (see link to Huldremose article above). The original was bigger, made of multiple skins patched together, and consists of two layers, one with the fuzzy wool facing out and one with the fuzzy wool facing in. Mine is only a single layer and smaller, made of only a single skin, but it's a start.

The white wool tunic below is based on the Martes de Veyre Romano-Gallic find. A thorough project on this find can be found here; I do not love the ad-heavy platform but it's the best documentation I have found for a recreation of this find. The author may be Libby Brooks but no SCA name is given, possibly to avoid judging bias, as it was a submission for an interkingdom A&S at Gulf Wars. Another good, and more easily-accessible project can be found here.

Wool

This top is made of nettle fabric. Some Bronze Age crop tops had keyhole necklines and some had boatnecks. The most famous of these crop tops was found on the Egtved Girl, who was a teenager at burial. I made this second top a little longer for dignity at my age. Here the linen skirt is worn with the top edge flopped outwards.

This was my first attempt at the crop top, made of linen. The linen skirt here has the top ruffle tucked in and down over a second, hidden belt worn underneath.

The pattern for bronze age Danish crop tops conserves fabric and makes a distinctive T-shaped seam in the back; see links above for more information. The top folds over the shoulders and the bottom wraps around the torso.

Here the tube skirt from above is pinned at the shoulders and worn as a peplos top with pants, and accessorized with Iron Age belt and fibulae. There are two giant pleats in the front to take up the fabric, since the tube is so wide. These big folds of fabric are not pinned, but the weight of the fabric holds them in place. This is a good ensemble for doing work around the camp or demos where a longer skirt could get in the way.

This is a tube dress, worn with a bronze age necklace. This outfit is meant to be transitional: late Bronze, early Iron age. What I really WANT someday, is to make a repousse plate belt. What I HAVE here is a cheap brass belt with a chain in the back, wrapped with a Hallstatt-design cardweaving (not woven by me!). It's a first step toward what I want.

Well and truly Bronze Age: This is a recreation of the outfit worn by the Bronze Age Danish Egtved Girl. I made this outfit to be worn at Pennsic 2025, while presenting my version of the brew found in the Egtved Girl's grave, at the A&S War Point competition (I won the Food and Beverage Non-Laurel category!). I did not weave the string skirt, it was woven by Morgan/Jen Croft, but I felted the tips of each strand. I did make the T-seam crop top from nettle fabric (the original was wool but Pennsic is hot). The belt disc is from Altmarkbronze, the sprang hairnet was woven by Sasha Scheinman of Least Weasel Weaving, the neck ring is discontinued stock from the Crafty Celts. There are many ways this outfit could be improved, but the outfit was not the A&S entry, the brew was the entry. The outfit was for fun! A truly fantastic and considerably more accurate reproduction of this burial clothing was conducted by Sulicena filia Vassurae, also known as Sylvan Thorncraft, documentation available here.

Kid garb

This was the very first piece of baby garb I ever made!

Many parents do not have time to make carefully constructed, hand-stitched garb for their children over and over again every year as the children grow. I make them and pass them on.

photo by Ursus

I have loved seeing this garment on so many other babies.

This one had pockets. Keeping children happy at the event is sometimes more important than whether or not garments are accurate...although find D10580 from Herjolfsnes did have slit openings the child could stuff chilly hands into.

Tablet weavings

I have not done much tablet weaving since the early 2000s, and it was never advanced by any means, but some of my work is still floating around out there. This one reproduced some Birka strapwork.

This pattern left some of the card holes empty so that the yellow weft shows through.

Making things to fit the aesthetic of the recipient can be more important to me than historical reproduction. Sometimes it's about teaching, other times it's about connecting and meeting people where they are.

Ill-fated Sprang hairnet

This did not come out great but I'm still glad I tried it. Making the loom was more fun than the exacting work of weaving. I like experimenting with crafts that an average woman from my time period might have done. Maybe this should go on the hats page. Whatever.

Chain Stitch Embroidery

I took the meander pattern from an Iron Age wood tub found at Glastonbury; image from Early Celtic Designs, edited by Ian Stead and Karen Hughes

First I drew it in a circle

Then I drew it on the cloth. I used the lid of a babyfood jar to guide the size and shape of the repeating circles.

Then I embroidered it (mostly) onto a handsewn tunic.

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