Irish Style Embroidery on Leine

This is a long over due update on a project that was begun around a year ago. Hey! I say right in the introduction that there will be procrastination!

My persona is an Irish woman from around the time of the Viking founding of Dublin. This is some years after the Viking raids and colonization began in Ireland. It does, however, seem as though the Irish did maintain much of their own sense of person.

Unfortunately not much is known about the dress of this period. Possibly the best reference available is the Book of Kells. This presents many problems, however, because it is not known how accurate it depicts the day to day dress of Ireland at the time, or how much of it is artistic embellishment. My real issue with using the Book of Kells is that to me, the designs look very "Biblical." As they should - civilisations always want to depict their religious figures in a manner that will speak to their own people. This frequently involves dressing them (and giving them a haircut!) in the local manner. There is still a nagging sensation in the pit of my stomach, however, that the Book of Kells is likely depicting how the Irish felt the "Biblical" people dressed.

However, having little else to go on, I have made my Leine in a fashion somewhat as can be seen on the Virgin Mary in the Book of Kells. I have combined my study of the illustration with the information found in the packet: "Early Gaelic Dress: An Introduction" by Scott Barrett of the SCA.

I have created this leine as a just below ankle length fairly slim fitting garment with long sleeves and underarm gussets. The garment has no shoulder seam but the sleeves have been set in. I have added a hood and given a sort of V-neckline that I found visually interesting. The leine is appropriately made of 100% linen and was machine stitched where no visible and hand stitched where visible.

While linen embroidery threads might not have been likely at the time, I choose to do the embroidery in linen and choose colors I found pleasing, though they might not be as bright as the Irish tastes would have liked.

The sketch of my embroidery plan. It is hard to see, and I apologize for that. The design is based largely on a broach that dates from the time period. I have used Christian era spirals largely here, and have forgone the later "celtic knotwork" styles people largely incorrectly associate with the early Irish.

I finished the embroidery in stem stitch mostly. Also present is the satin stitch and french knot. These appear to be fairly accurate stitch choices to use.

This is the overall view of the embroidery. It is completed in burgundy, pink and pale blue.

The spirals based on the brooch I used as inspiration. Unfortunately I've lost the name of the brooch and the museum it lives in. If/when I find it I will have to post an update.

Here you can see in pink some generic spirals as well as a little "head" sort of figure that I found on the brooch I used as a basis. I combined the "head" with generic spirals as pictured in the "Early Gaelic Dress" packed I spoke of earlier.

All in all, I am very happy with the work. I intend to eventually elaborate and add embroidery around the hem (largely) as well as the opening of the hood and the wrists.

I did not set out to make a 100% accurate garment, but I did want to make something recognizable by those who have somewhat studied this type of garment. I do hope that I, in the end, created a garment with a bit of early Irish flair.