Another branch of the rabbit hole - Viking garb

Historical textiles has been of major interest to me for many years so when we found a local SCA and Carl agreed to actually go to a meeting, I was overjoyed and overwhelmed!  Over the last couple of months we've been getting more involved and I've been slowly chipping away on our garb.

For our basic starter sets, I ordered 10 yards of essex linen blend from Dharma Trading Co. not really knowing what to expect.  It came and it's really lovely!  Sturdier than I expected and not scratchy, but nice drape.  I started with my under dress and Carl's tunic, since they're pieced pretty much identically, just changed the measurements.

I pulled heavily for starting measurements from this website which has a pretty good calculator, with a few things that didn't make a lot of sense for us.  I definitely felt like I needed to widen the neckhole a little, to avoid choking or having a split down to my belly button, and would have liked a tiny bit more ease in the sleeves (I think a product of narrow but long arms.

But ultimately I was able to lay out the pieces and it all made sense!

For the gores, I used a string and treated it like a compass in childhood, to make a curve.

I made 2 in this way and cut them in half to have to in the sides, one front, one back.

So far, so good!  The underarm gussets were the most confusing to place, I think actually laying it out flat and pinning so I could envision everything before I got near the machine REALLY helped.  So it's not 100% complete but my underdress/chemise or "serk" is basically ready, on to the overdress or smokkr.