Medieval vacation, part 1: wedding #1 and a bit more

Friday 6th of August I left the safety of Umeå for the second time this summer. Last time the goal was quality time with the family, this time it was all about two weddings and the medieval week in Visby, Gotland (an island in the middle of Östersjön, it's a part of Sweden, but it'd be hard to find a gotlander admitting that =) )

Now, I have a confession to make: Lindy hop and vintage sewing are not my only hobbies. Before I discovered them, I was a total medieval geek! I still hold lessons in medieval dance once a week in my local SCA-group, but I haven't had time for sewing new garb or going to events (too much lindy hop...). ; ) But this year me and mom wanted a vacation together, and it was ages (5 years) since I was at the medieval week in Visby.
During my stop in Stockholm I had a cup of tea with my brother Joakim. He's leaving for a year in Japan soon, and I'm going to miss him something terrible!

Having arrived in Visby, we spent the evening at Edits place, preparing for the wedding the following day.

Edit had finished the 13 000 (!) pieces puzzle she's been working on a bit on-and-off the past 10 years.

Of course she discovered that there's one piece missing. The company offered to send a new puzzle, but lay the whole thing again just to find the missing piece? Probably not =)

We were a bit nervous, it rained all night and all morning until noon on Saturday, but then the sky miraculously stopped pouring down rain! Malin and Henric were beautiful in their viking clothes. They'd made their outfits themsleves, and everything was handmade. Henric had even made the gorgeous trim on his jacket himself! Impressive!

Between the ceremony and the delicious dinner, we entertained ourselves with viking games. Archery is so much fun! I hadn't held a bow for 5 years, due to the muscle inflammations in my arms, and I had forgotten how much I like shooting. I was quite good also, striked out two peolpe before my arms gave up and my hit-range went from 4 inches in diameter to about 20. But it was fun!

Tug of war, but a version where you don't end up muddy if you loose. Me and Edit went a couple of rounds.

Our battles all ended the same way...

... with me on the ground. But it was fun to try it!

This I was really bad at! It took some physical strength in the arms, and I don't have that. At all. But I like the pictures! =)

This is a good shot of the overdress I made for the wedding. I'm usually more medieval or - even better - renaissance, but now I also have a viking outfit. The buckles and the pearls were borrowed, though. The tricky part with viking dresses is that they're not supposed to have any closings, no buttons, hooks-and-eyes or lace binding. (One can add it, but there's no archeological findings to support such a construction, that I know of). The dress is just a tube, that one wiggles into. I was wary of making a dress my curves could be wiggled into, but that wasn't a tent. It worked though! Partly due to the nice, thin wool that stretched a bit too much on the bias to be a pure wool...

It was a wonderful wedding, everybody cried, the bride and groom were beautiful, and the company the best. A great start on the medieval vacation!

Coming up: the pavillion I've made, more tents, more clothes and a cute dog. So if you liked the temporary medieval theme on this blog: Stay tuned! =)

Love, Erika