Early 19th century Swedish Farmwife’s Everyday Dress

Back in April I attended an event held at the open air museum of Fredriksdal. It focused on Swedish civilians and soldiers ca 1800-10. We got to live in the houses, cook in the fireplaces, even sleep in the beds. I didn’t do the latter, as the weather was cold and windy, I’m having a bit of a tough pregnancy, and to top it off, had just had pneumonia. I thought it safer to sleep in my own warm bed, and just stayed the one day, but still had a good time. The event, which was rather small and intimate, still attracted participants from the whole country, and even a few from Norway. Fredriksdal is located in the county of Skåne (Scania) and most of the houses are from there, so those women in attendance who, like me, are from this part of the country, chose to dress according to the local fashion, which in this case meant folk costumes, still in daily use at the time. Our feast day clothes wouldn’t do, so we tried to tone it down for an everyday look. Trickier than you might think, as very little evidence remains as to what was worn then. When it comes to the fancy clothes, much is known, but as usual, no one really cared to document what people wore when working in the kitchen garden.

I made a brown wool skirt for the occasion, which I intend to also use as a petticoat for my fancy folk costume. Brown wool skirts from my parish are mentioned in estate inventories, but are far from as common as the usual blue and green, or the reasonably common black. I had a suitable fulled, twill woven wool at home though, so it had to do, even if it was brown.

It is constructed from straight panels. My fabric was 150 cm wide, but as the extant skirts I know of are usually made from narrower widths I cut my panels in half, and stitched them back up again, making four narrow ones in total, and a width of close to 3 metres. The hem was faced with a strip of unbleached linen. 

The skirt is smooth in front, as seen in extant skirts, and has the fullness taken in by stroked gathers at the sides and back, that are secured with rows of stitches, seen only from the inside. 

It closes by a sturdy brass hook and eye half way to the left side. 

I don’t know how they did about pockets – in some mid-19^th century folk costume skirts there are stitched in pockets, like in modern skirts of the time, but for earlier decades I’m unsure if they wore loose pockets or not. I left a slit open in the right side seam anyway, so if need be I can tie a pocket round my waist.

In the end the brown skirt ended up used as a petticoat at the event, as I decided I wanted two skirts for warmth, and wore my usual blue skirt on top. In the period manner I flipped the blue skirt up over my shoulders to keep out the wind every now and then, so I didn't make the brown one in vain.

I also made a new bodice. I intend for it to be trimmed with blue silk ribbons, and replace my old fancy silk bodice as that one has become rather too small. For the event I used it untrimmed though. It’s made from fine brushed wool, lined with unbleached linen, and closes in front with three pairs of brass hooks and eyes, but most of the closure is hidden beneath the skirt. The wide opening would be held by buckles and a chain for best, but for everyday was likely left as was. 

At the bottom of the bodice a rather thick, padded linen roll is stitched, on which the skirts rest. Having a full figure was considered attractive by the country folk at this time and place, and you do feel rather important in an "I break for nobody" kind of way when you come walking along the road in all your matronly fullness, especially when you wear several wool skirts on top of each other. It's far from what is considered an attractive figure today, which make rather few people recreate it as close to the originals as I try to, but go the more 'inspired' route. I'll post more detailed pictures of the bodice when it's trimmed and have the buckles attached.

As for the apron, I didn’t want to use my fancy one, as I expected to cook and do greasy dishes – a good decision it turned out. Instead I whipped one up from a piece of cotton fabric that I had intended to purge from stash. It’s not perfectly period, the fabric isn't quite right and it's much too narrow, but woven stripes were popular, and the fabric had a sort of washed out, sun bleached, worn look to it that I thought would do for everyday.

I never got any decent pictures of myself from the actual event (though I can be seen in a couple of these), so I took proper pictures the other day. The weather is a lot warmer now than in April, so I could ditch the knitted spedetröja I had to wear to the event, despite it feeling too fancy. For the pictures I wore the bodice and skirt over just an unbleached linen shift (for an everyday shift I’m not sure if it should have a collar or not...), and accessorised it with the ever present apron and head kerchief. As the temperature is pleasant I went without stockings or any form of shoes. I want a pair of wooden clogs, but all in good time.

The outfit might have been a little later than the event called for, as most of the sources I base it off are from Ca 1825-50, and I generally aim for the 1830’s-40’s in my fancy version of the folk costume, but ah well. I’m still not quite sure how historically accurate this outfit is, but at the very least I think it's plausible and believable. I may have to revise it in future, but then we always do, don’t we?

Sources:
My Pinterest board of extant clothing and period images from the area. Mostly fancy versions.
Allmogedräkten i Oxie härad, (1978) by Helge Andersson.

Hankasärk II - A Swedish Folk Costume Shift

Some years ago I made a hankasärk, a sleeveless shift from the very South of Sweden, to wear with my folk costume. Now I’m working on a Ca 1810 everyday version of that folk costume for an event I hope to attend in a few weeks, and need a new hankasärk. The old one is a bit too loosely woven for my taste, and a smidge tight. In the beginning of March I made a new one, but I never got round to blogging about it until now.

I had the cover of an old mattress, probably used in the early/mid 20^th century in a military or hospital setting. It was made from a very sturdy, handwoven linen, and though it was stained here and there and had a few unsightly mends, I thought I could get a hankasärk from it. The densely woven fabric, with nice selvedges, was too good to pass up.

I had a 1:10 scale pattern, taken from an extant hankasärk, that I used as a guide when making my first one, so I knew what the pattern pieces should look like, and I looked at pictures of extant hankasärkar to see what similarities and variations there were. I then decided on the measurements for mine, measured on the fabric, and cut to a thread. All the pieces are rectangles of various sizes: one for the front and back (there are no shoulder seams), one in each side, two narrow ones to form the waistband, and four to make up the skirt. In the originals there are usually three skirt panels, but my fabric was a bit narrower than the ones originally used, so I chose to use four to get a similar width in the finished garment.

The bodice part is made up with back stitches, with all seams neatly felled to one side. I then hemmed the sides, that would be arm openings. After doing this I discovered that I’d sewn one side inside out – oops. Several friends advised me to let it be; similar mistakes are seen in extant shifts. I pondered what to do while working on the skirt part, and then unpicked the armhole hem that was inside out, and stitched it again, to the right side this time. I left the side seams be though: they were discreet enough not to bug me. All seams and hems were made as narrow as the fabric would allow.

The skirt panels had neat selvedges, so to make maximum use of the width, I whip stitched them together. This made almost completely flat seams when pressed. As I have upcycled the material, there are holes from the previous seams, but hopefully they’ll mostly go away in the wash. 

The skirt is attached to the waistband with stroked gathers. They turned out a bit less tight than I’d wanted (I might be  bit wider than the original wearers, or I didn't do the gathers fine enough), but it’s acceptable. 

The waistband and bodice (with all edges, including the bottom, hemmed) were then joined by whip stitching.

I managed to avoid the worst stains when cutting out the hankasärk, but there are still a few fainter ones. I decided not to let them bother me though. There were also the few holes that had been mended by machine. Though reasonably well done, machine mending on a shift I intend to be from well before a proper sewing machine was invented just wouldn’t do. I unpicked the mending, and redid it by mending a larger hole with a patch, and two smaller ones by sewing/weaving linen thread over them. These flaws make the shift look well worn and cared for, something I don’t mind at all. There’s no fun in looking all sparkling new, like you wore a fancy costume instead of proper clothes, especially not in a lower class living history setting.

For all sewing I used linen thread that I strengthened with bees wax. For the monogram – common in large households in a time were all linens looked more or less the same – I used cotton embroidery floss. Most people in early 19^th century Sweden used patronymic surnames, so the first letter stood for the person’s first name, the second for their father’s first name, and the third for son/daughter. It’s a practice still used in folk costumes. You can also see the seam that ended up wrong side out.

This will be my first entry in this years’ Historical Sew Monthly. It could have fit under February’s 'Re-Make, Re-Use, Re-Fashion', but obviously it was too late for that, so instead I’ll put it under April’s ’Circles, Squares and Rectangles’.

The Challenge: #4 Circles, Squares and Rectangles.

Material: Handwoven linen.

Pattern: Based off of period examples.

Year: Ca 1800-1850.

Notions: Linen thread, bee's wax, cotton floss.

How historically accurate is it? Pretty close in both material,construction and sewing.

Hours to complete: No idea.

First worn: Hopefully at an event in a few weeks.

Total cost: About 50 SEK (5,25 Euro, £4,49, $5,6), not counting the work.

19th Century Swedish Commoner’s Kerchief

As one of the co-moderators of the Historical Sew (Monthly) Fortnightly Facebook group I feel it a duty to actually take part in a challenge now and then. The HS(M)F is very inspiring, and have for the past two years spurred me to sew historical things even when I didn’t really feel like it, or felt short on time – very rewarding when finished. Busy as I am though, the items I do for the challenges are more often than not quite simple. This is one of those things. But a simple thing can still be well made and well researched.

I am always on the lookout for fabrics and other things that will fit projects I’m working on or am planning. As I have had a very narrow income for most of my life, I’ve got in the habit of waiting for a thing to show up at a price I can justify, rather than getting what I want when I want it, or accepting poor alternatives. This is especially true of periods I don’t commit fully to at the moment. It’s not an ideal way to go about costuming, as it can take years - decades even - to stumble on the right things, but what can you do if you’re a poor perfectionist...

Fabrics for women’s clothing during the 19^th century (lower to middle class) is one of those things I’m always looking for, and smallish checked tablecloths can be very good to pick up, as they are often of the right size (ca. 70-100 cm depending on the year) and often have woven in borders that were typical of  head- and neckerchiefs. 

This is how you see them worn all over the country, 

but there were also other, more regional styles.

Simple checked kerchiefs were worn by all ordinary women, as the wearing of hats and bonnets were often looked upon as dressing above one’s station. The group pressure in the countryside was severe enough in many places that this informal rule was usually adhered to right through the century and into the next. In towns and cities it was less rigid, but many couldn’t afford other headwear than kerchiefs anyway. There were other kinds of kerchiefs as well, but I won’t go into that in this post.

 

"Ge på hand" av Carl Andreas Dahlström (1806-69). 

Nationalmuseum, nr. NMH 231/1906

How these checked kerchiefs looked changed over the 19^th century. In the early years they were made from linen, with blue, yellow and/or red checks on a white base. As the century wore on they were often made from linen/cotton and then cotton. Darker shades, often with red and light blue checks on a dark blue base, appeared. The season also affected the colours: lighter colours were worn in the summer and darker colours in the winter. Sometimes you see two kinds of borders on the same kerchief, so when folded into a triangle, depending on what half you showed off, it would be proper for different occasions, one often being simpler and the other brighter, or more elaborate.

A linen kerchief, Malmö Museer, nr. MMT 001509

These kerchiefs were often woven at home, sometimes in greater quantities, to be sold on by the weaver, or, more often, by peddlers. In some parts of the country it became tradition for brides-to-be to weave kerchiefs for their friends.

Cotton kerchief ca. 1840-60, Nordiska Museet, nr. NM.0134189

This one I got for a small price at a charity shop a few years ago. The colours and border look enough like period kerchiefs to make me quite glad I found it. I cut of the tied fringes, and hemmed the square by hand with blue linen thread, just like in some originals. 

Tada! a finished challenge. In the pictures I’m wearing it with the Insanely Pieced Dress. 

This style is seen in the county Skåne (Scania), alongside the other.

The Challenge: #2 Blue

Fabric: Cotton

Pattern: none

Year: About mid to late 19^th century

Notions: Linen thread

How historically accurate is it? Pretty much.

Hours to complete: About two.

First worn: For the pictures

Total cost: Between 10-30 SEK ($1,19-3,57; £0,77-2,32; €1,04-3,13), for the fabric I think, and a little more for the thread, though that came from stash.

References:

Eldvik, B. Möte med Mode - folkliga kläder 1750-1900 i Nordiska Museet. Stockholm: Nordiska Museets Förlag.

Sewing Roll

For a while I have seen many Swedish textile crafters, historical costumiers and the like make sewing rolls (or mesma/marsma as thay are often called). Sewing rolls don’t have a historic base in most of Sweden (unlike the housewives of other places), as it seems to have been a Sami thing here, and, as Anna pointed out in a discussion about them, as in so many cases all over the world, the majority of a countries population, thinking themselves very civilized, don’t want much to do with the indigenous people’s traditions. It is however a very clever thing for when you need to bring your sewing kit along when travelling, which is probably why the Sami used it, being nomads. As many people today go away from home more or less frequently, and many sewing people bring their projects with them on vacation, to school, work, the beach, sewing groups etc., it comes in handy. I’ve been meaning to make one myself for years, but somehow I never got round to it, as there have been so many other things to do. The past few weeks however, the making of sewing rolls has really taken off in a sewing group on facebook, and I fell for the pressure and finally made one. 

Neatly rolled up, with braided wool ties keeping it closed.

As I intend it for modern use I could go for whatever design I wanted. I chose to be inspired by 19^th century rural folk textiles from my county Skåne, and the thing turned out to be a nice marriage between a historic item from the far North of Sweden and historic textiles from the far South (which would still considered quite far North by most of the world).

I used heavy wool left over from my folk costume skirt (same as I used in my pincushion), and embroidered it with wool yarns - wool embroidery of high quality is often seen in cushions and covers in this area during the 18th and 19thcenturies. 

 The outside.

 The lining is made from lighter wool, as are two of the pockets and the bound edge.

Proof of a mishap and change of plans: originally I had another embroidery here 

(my initials and the current year), but it had a quite severe, military look about it that I didn't like. 

I unpicked the embroidery and did this instead, when the pocket was already stitched 

firmly in place - thus the now uneven edges. Sigh.

The pockets are all lined with striped cotton, slightly resembling the ones often seen in country women’s and children’s aprons in 19th century Skåne.

The small pocket will be good for holding Nalbinding needles and such.

The metal button is supposed to bring the thought to the silver buckles, buttons, chains, clasps etc. worn with the folk costumes for best. 

 The lid of the pocket closes with a sewn loop.

The bottom pocket is made from the test knitting I made before beginning my folk costume spedetröja a few years ago. It is bound with a strip of silk, as the finest spedetröjor was. I’d been saving the test piece for this purpose, thinking it too pretty to throw away. 

 Knitted pocket bound with silk.

Examples of extant women's clothing and jewellry from my area can be found here.

Scissors, thimble, thread and more.

I’m quite pleased with how the sewing roll turned out – it’s almost a little piece of art in itself, and will look nice in my sewing room, and when I bring it along with me.

Detail of the embroidery on the outside.

I have a new skirt to post about as well, that have been pending for a couple of weeks, but I need some photos first, and in my present state of late pregnancy, I don’t often feel like going through all the hassle of a photo shoot, not even a small one.

Researching Swedish Folk Costumes – a Short Guide

One of my most popular, and most commented, posts is A Long Post on Swedish Folk Costumes. A lot of those who ask for help researching Swedish folk costumes are Americans with Swedish ancestry. To help you I’ve put together a list of a few good search words.

Doll in costume from Skytts Härad in Skåne (Scania). 

Made in 1891, but the costume is from about 1800-60. Headdress missing.

Before I present the list I will first point out a few things. First, not every location in Sweden had a traditional costume, far from it. Actually, most places did not – the people there wore a local, simpler take on the current fashion. (During the late 19th and long into the 20th century, areas that had no documented folk costumes created their own, sometimes based on one piece of clothing, at other times based on nothing at all but what the comity thought would look nice. In those cases it will of course be impossible to find any solid documentation.) 

 Second, the costumes that did exist did not look the same through the centuries or even the decades – they may have evolved slower than the regular fashions (as a set of clothing - especially festive clothing - was often supposed to last your whole life, and was frequently inherited by your children), but they did evolve. When wanting to make a costume you have to decide on when and where (narrow it down as much as you possibly can) it’s supposed to be from, so that all the individual garments will make a proper outfit. 

To illustrate how a certain style changed over time while still retaining some of it's characteristics, the pictures in this post are of bodices from the same dräktområde (meaning an area where the costumes where much the same), under close to a hundred years, from about 1770 at the earliest to 1860 at the latest.

Liv (bodice) from Vemmenhögs Härad in Skåne (Scania), ca. 1770-99.

Maljor (buckles) for lacing, silk ribbon trim (very frayed) 

and a linen valk (the padded roll at the bottom) for the skirts to rest on.

Here’s a list of names on different garments:

Särk: shift

Strumpor: stockings

Skor: shoes

Liv, livstycke, snörliv: different names for a sleeveless bodice, laced, buttoned or hooked closed

Kjol, klocka, stubb: different words for skirt or petticoat

Livkjol: a bodice and skirt stitched together, often, but not always, made from different fabrics

Förkläde: apron

Tröja, kofta: jacket

Mössa, hätta: cap

Klut, huvudduk, huvudkläde: head kerchief

Halskläde: neckerchief

 

To complicate matters, Sweden has a lot of different dialects, and so the names of clothing often had local varieties. I do not have knowledge of them all.

Liv from Oxie Härad in Skåne, ca. 1800-25. Maljor missing.

Some words that might be useful regards the materials used in the clothing:

Lin, linne: linen

Bomull: cotton

Ull, ylle: wool

Halvylle, verken: a fabric woven on a linen or cotton warp with a wool weft

Silke, siden: silk

Sammet: velvet

Spets: lace

Läder, skinn: leather

 Liv from Oxie Härad in Skåne, 1820-40. Maljor missing.

Some useful words describing methods of closing are:

Snörning, snörhål: lacing, eyelets

Hyska, hyskor: eye, eyes

Hake, hakar: hook, hooks

Knapp, knappar: button, buttons

Liv from Vemmenhögs Härad in Skåne, ca. 1840-60.

A good place to start searching is DigitaltMuseum; a database used by several museums, most prominently Nordiska Museet. You can specify your search by period (tidsperiod) or location (ort).

I hope this quite short list of words may help you in your research. Google Translate will help you further, but some of the words listed here are a bit too specialized for that. If there’s a word you wonder about, please drop me a comment and I’ll include it in the list if I can.

Swedish mid 1800's Commoner's Dress, a.k.a. The Insanely Pieced Dress

The blog has moved and this post can now be found HERE.

Swedish 19th Century Country Toddler's Cap and Apron

For the sixth HSF challenge I made a cap and an apron for a small country boy in 19^th century Sweden. After swaddling (still very much in use amongst country people in Sweden at this time) was over, boys and girls were dressed in long gowns, called kolt in Swedish. To this day toddlers are still called “koltbarn” (barn = child) sometimes. I used little B’s 14^th century cotte from last year, which still fits well enough, though a tad short. The kolt was worn with a cap tied under the chin (the same kind of cap that had been worn from birth) and an apron. 

These three dress elements were used by both boys and girls, but the construction was different. Girls koltar had a gathered skirt sewn to a bodice, a cap constructed from one piece reaching from forehead to nape of neck, and two sidepieces, and an apron tied at the waist, like their mothers'. Boys koltar on the other hand were cut in one from the shoulders, their caps were constructed from 4-6 gussets, and their aprons had bibs. To most people today they’d all look like little girls, but a person of that time and place could tell one from the other at a glance.

Girl's silk Christening cap, made from one 

middle piece, and two side pieces, c. 1810-1830.

Boy's silk Christening cap, made from five gussets, c. 1810-1830. 

It matches the girl's cap above - where they made before baby was born, or for twins?

 Boy's silk Christening cap, made from six gussets, c. 1800-1840.

Not much is known about everyday clothing of these children – the few surviving garments are all for festive occasions, and most are from the county Dalarna (Dalecarlia), as the people there kept their traditional way of dress longer than most others in Sweden. This means you have to think one extra time - is this typical of children in Sweden, or typical of children of Dalarna? Most extant caps are christening caps, and as such, are made from the most expensive materials the families could afford. I, who wanted a simpler outfit for my little lad, had to guess what to use.

For the cap I used cotton scraps I had in my stash. Seeing more than one fabric in these caps is very common, so I decided to do that. One is a sort of plaid, the other striped (scraps from making a baby wrap, that have seen much use, first with my youngest brother, and then with little B), the lining is a striped, much worn kitchen towel. I decided to put a stitched down tuck over each ear, for better fitting: I don’t know if it’s period, but it looks all right. The cap is bound with cotton tape from my stash, and the ties are made from the same.

The apron is made from an old pillowcase with woven in stripes (as stripes were so typical in aprons among the commoners here in the 19^th century) that I bought at a charity shop. The ribbon used for ties is woven for the purpose – I had the yarn at home. 

I have a loom for weaving ribbons, but it’s in storage, and how I miss it! For making the ribbon I had to figure out something else. I decided to make a rigid heddle. I want a real wooden one, but that’s not a priority at this time, so I had to make do with an improvised one, made from a milk carton and a couple of pencils. 

It worked tolerably well, except that the pencils kept escaping. Now that I’ve used one (poorly constructed though it was) I really want a real one! It was such a pleasure to work with.

 

The skirt part of the apron is pleated to the waistband, and the bib sewn in flat. A loop around the neck holds it in place, just like in originals. 

The Challenge: #6 Stripes

Pattern: None, draped my own.

Year: About mid 19^th century. If made from wool, they could be earlier.

Notions: Waxed linen thread, cotton/linen yarn for weaving, cotton tape.

How historically accurate is it? Tolerably, though I had to guess a whole lot. At least it’s hand sewn with period stitches.

Hours to complete: Good question…maybe 10 hours total, including the weaving.

First worn: The apron has been worn several times when B has been helping me baking, the cap was first worn for the pictures.

Total cost: 10 SEK ($1,5, £1, €1,2) for the apron fabric, the rest was scraps from my stash, including the cotton tape.

 And all that work just so that I can have a companion when being photographed in my common women’s dress for challenge 10.... 

Folk Costume Head Kerchief

For the fifth Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge, Peasants and Pioneers, I went for something exceedingly simple: hemming my folk costume kerchief. It needed doing, I just never got round to it before. It’s hand woven, and has two selvedges, which, when you look at originals, are often left as they are. I did the same, and had therefore only two sides to hem. It went quick.

 From the left: finished hem, the less neat of the selvedges, 

the zig zag it had when delivered to me.

  

I posted a picture recently of my full costume. That time I was lacy and wore my hair in a bun. For these pictures I wore my ribbon bound hair coiled round my head, as it should be. 

Mark the difference the hairstyle gives the kerchief! It stays put better too. Hair is, as always, important in period costume. I much prefer this look. 

The Challenge: # 5 Peasants and Pioneers

Fabric: Hand woven cotton
Pattern: None
Year: Most of the 19^th century
Notions: Blue linen thread, bees wax.
How historically accurate is it? It’s woven after extant ones, and hand stitched with period stitches, so quite accurate.
Hours to complete: Maybe 2
First worn: For the pictures.

Total cost: Well, I’ve had it for a few years, so nothing at this time. Originally it cost me 600 SEK, which would be $94, £62 or €72. Folk costume fabrics are expensive, at least to my slim budget. Had it been today I’d never bought it, but I was single at the time and had no child to care for, and large expenses did not affect anyone but me.

Since this project was such and quick and easy one I’ve been able to start a couple of other fun projects, and even finished one of them. More on that later.