Apron dress plans

My wonderful and generous sweetheart has saved me from the fabric disaster that I mentioned last time. We split a 10+ yard piece 50/50, and I washed only my part, so his is still smooth and not fulled-felted. Fortunately for me, he had no particular plans for his fabric yet, so he has offered to switch in exchange for me making him a cloak from the now thick, fuzzy stuff. So my apron dress plans are once again on track.

I should say that Norse is way out of my normal areas of expertise, but I'm learning a lot as I do the research for this project, so it should be fun. I'm planning to do a closed tube style dress, with some shaping like the Hedeby fragment. Actually, I think I'll separate out my commentary on that particular find out into a separate entry - I actually found it very difficult to produce a pattern that meshes with both the details of that find and other contemporary evidence and general knowledge of clothing construction. What I came up with is probably not original, I'm sure someone's done it before, but I'm happy with it and it's a bit different from what I see most commonly in recreations.

I also picked up some additional very nice fabric from the liquidation sale at one of my local Hancock Fabrics. (Many but not all locations are being closed - there's decent discounts on notions, and fabrics if you get lucky.) I got 2 yards of a lightweight wool in a cream color - I'm thinking that I might experiment a bit with wool veils, and see how they work, and also 6 yards of grey wool in the most summer of summer weights that I've ever had the pleasure to find. The color is not ideal, so I don't know what I'll do with it yet, but the weight and hand were so gorgeous that I couldn't just leave it there. Based on drape I think it would be excellent as a full-on court bliaut, but I'm having a hard time imagining doing such a high-status garment in such nondescript color. (And I'm not keen on the idea of dying it - evenness has always been a major problem for me when I attempt that.)