Sew your own Viking clothing: patterns, fabric and a first tunic
Viking clothing is rectangles and triangles. A tunic is a body panel, two sleeves and four gores, and a competent beginner can sew one in a weekend. Buy wool and linen by the metre, cut with a plan, and hand-finish the visible seams.
Why reenactors sew
Because ready-made kit is expensive, because the fit is better, and because sewing is part of the hobby. Winter craft evenings in a reenactment group are mostly sewing. A first tunic is the traditional first project, and every group has someone who will lay out the pattern on your kitchen floor.
The construction
Viking Age garments were cut to waste no cloth: rectangles for bodies and sleeves, triangles for gores that add width at the hem and under the arm. There are no curved pattern pieces except the neck hole. This makes the clothes easy to cut and easy to size from your own measurements.
A first tunic
Measure from shoulder to knee, around the chest, and from shoulder to wrist. The body is one long rectangle folded at the shoulder, as wide as the chest measurement plus ease, with a hole cut for the head. Sleeves are rectangles tapering toward the wrist. Four gores, two at the sides and two front and back, are triangles that reach from hip to hem. A small square gusset under each arm gives movement. Sew the sides, set the sleeves, add the gores, finish the neck and hems.
In linen this is an undertunic; in wool an overtunic. Two to three metres of 150 centimetre cloth is enough for most adults.
The apron dress
A tube or a wrapped rectangle of wool, from just under the arms to the calf, with narrow straps front and back that meet at the shoulders and are fastened by the oval brooches. Interpretations differ on whether it was closed or open at the side; both are seen at markets. Simpler than a tunic to sew and dependent on good brooches.
Trousers
Two legs cut as tapered rectangles, a wide crotch gusset, and a drawstring or belt waist. Wide-legged versions based on Hedeby finds and picture stones are popular and comfortable.
Fabric
Wool for outer layers: a medium-weight plain or twill weave, not felted, in a natural or plant-dye colour. Linen for underlayers: medium weight, washed before cutting because it shrinks. Avoid blends. Fabric shops in the Nordics stock both; online specialist suppliers in Sweden, Germany and Poland sell wool in period weaves and colours. Expect 15 to 40 euros a metre for wool, 10 to 20 for linen. A complete first outfit uses about six metres.
Hand or machine
Machine-sew the long internal seams if you like; nobody sees them. Hand-finish everything visible: hems, neck facing, the felling of seams on the outside. Two stitches, running and whip, do almost all of it. At strict markets, visible machine stitching is the one thing that gets noticed.
Learning
Groups. Books on Viking Age clothing with patterns exist in Swedish, Danish, German and English, and museum publications on the Birka and Hedeby textiles are the deep end. Traders at markets will often show you how a seam was done. Start with the tunic, wear it to a market, and ask.
Related events
Last updated 2026-09-06. Prices and opening hours change; check the venue before you go. Back to Gear and reenacting or the festival calendar.