Valkryie Needle Case

Needlecases5Valkyrie Needle Case

Lady Unna Farulfsdottir

(Jaye Sudar, jsudar@gmail.com)

In Piecework magazine Volume XXIII Number 2, they featured a Little Girl in Red Needle Case to stitch. It was based on a needle case from the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. It was made out of felt, and I thought it adorable. I’d been looking for a needle case to fit my SCA persona, and kept coming back to this magazine. I figured that I could adapt a piece of Viking art and hunted Pinterest until I found the artwork I wanted. A Valkyrie.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_4NVbtvPiV3dnVYalZiOG5JOEp2Y1RHT2w4RHlRVWJocXdR/view?usp=sharing

Instructions.

You will need:

5 colours of felt.

Pearl Cotton

Beads

Bead ends

Print off the sheet with the two patterns. Keep one as your reference. Using tracing paper or Swedish pattern paper, trace off the outline. Then cut the valkyrie apart to provide the rest of the patterns. You should have a face, hair, cloak front with beads, cloak, apron dress, and two under dress pieces as well as the felt backing. No seam allowances are needed as everything abuts the adjoining piece. You can cut the face a little bigger in order to tuck it under the hair. Cut one 1 inch square for the needle holder. The shoes are simply part of the backing piece.

I use ivory/off white for the face and under dress pieces. The two cloak pieces are the same colour, and I have tried to contrast the apron dress. The felt for the hair should match the pearl cotton you are using for the hair. A sheet of felt can do 5-6 valkyries.

Order of sewing:

Face, Hair.

Under dress A, Under dress B, Apron dress, cloak front, cloak, needle holder.

Each piece abuts it’s neighbor. You’ll see a tiny hook at the edge of the cloak front. That helps align the pieces, as does the hair piece.

The pieces are stitched all the way around with matching thread, except for the cloak. The cloak is only sewn at the very top edge and down the back. Sew needle holder under the cloak.

Embroidery:

The needle case is decorated with stem stitch. I changed the embroidery on the apron dress bit and it is only one line that matches the top line on the pattern. You are welcome to change it. If you start at the shoes and move from the heel to the toes, you can then work under dress A, then B, and finish with the line across the apron dress in one go. Outline the eye with stem stitch.

Hair: Work a row of stem across the front hair line. Cut 12 lengths of pearl cotton approximately 30 inches long. Stitch them into the underside of the stem stitch hair line so that you have 24 strands of hair. Gently braid the hair and twist it into a knot following the drawing. Stitch in place with matching sewing thread. Make sure to stitch all the way to the bottom of the felt hair. The braid should extend at least an inch below that point.

Necklace. You will need 4 beads about the size on the pattern, one seed bead and one necklace end. The necklace end is your “brooch”. Use the seed bead to anchor it. Then string and stitch down the beads.

You may need to make small adjustments as you sew, but stick to the outlines and you should be fine. The hardest piece to fit is the cloak as it must cover the apron dress ever so slightly.

You can find some of my research work in my pinterest sewing folder. https://www.pinterest.com/jayesudar/sewing/

Pictures can be found here: Valkyries

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