Ginevra Fiammetta di Silvestri

Early in 2015, shortly after I started attending my barony's A&S meetings, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take Mistress Aelfwynn Gyrthesdohtor's class on the Skjoldehamn tunic. In her two handouts, Mistress Aelfwynn lays out how to take your measurements and translate them into dimensions for pattern pieces. 

​

I had ordered some lovely medium weight (5.3 oz/yd2) softened IL019 linen in "Sea Green" from Fabrics-store.com, which I decided to use for this project. 

​

I have a tendency to overestimate how much allowance I'm going to need, and I definitely did that with this tunic! As you can see from the image on the left, the tunic is too big in the torso and the sleeves are too long. I also cut the neckline significantly wider than I had intended! 

​

This is one of several garb items I made shortly before my first Pennsic, for which I needed enough garb to get me through more than a week. One of the major problems I ran into was an issue with the tension on the sewing machine, which I didn't have much luck troubleshooting. The seams are largely a loose, uneven zigzag stitch, and are otherwise unfinished. The collar I did by hand, but I only folded the edge over once, so this tunic, like several others I made at the time, is in a pile of mending for me to tack ribbon over the edges to prevent fraying. 

​

Another major issue with this garment is that I didn't iron it at any point after initially ironing the fabric after prewashing it. The seams, therefore, look bunchy and lie oddly. 

​