Vigil Planning for Matthias - Part 2

Now that we had decided on the vigil garb, it was time to look for inspiration for the detail pieces - particularly the embroidery portion of the outfit.

Thyra and I sat down and looked for inspiration.  Off the bat, we decided that a group of people learning how to do German Brickwork stitch was not going to happen (because we like our friends and want to stay friends with them).

We stumbled upon this lady's blog in searching for inspiration: http://medievalartcraft.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html  There are lovely examples of her inspiration of polychrome tiles from a church in Burgendy.  More google searching led to information of this being a thing in various portions of Europe.


In Slovinia - http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Slovakia/West/Bratislavsky/Bratislava/photo1450819.htm

In France - http://www.france-voyage.com/travel-photos/photos-brou-royal-monastery-2112.htm.  We also liked this from Kathy's blog - http://medievalartcraft.blogspot.com/2010/03/brick-stitch-pattern-20.html

In Germany (out of period restoration) - http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/7/4/466. You need a subscription for the article, but a google search of the church will yield some nice pictures.

In Vienna - http://www.stephanskirche.at/. St Stephan's Cathedral roof is wonderful.

St Stephan's Cathedral.  Vienna, Austria

We did some initial sketching before deciding on a modified version of Kathy Storm's blog and embroidery pattern especially since we found examples of tiny M's in some of the brick work roofs.

Feilinn and Thyra get sketchy and toy with different ideas for trim!  You can see we started off with a comet theme since no one wanted to embroider unicorns.

With the planning done, it was off to the Worshipful Company for figuring out how to do this and get it sewn.  Marieta worked with Thyra to do the layout of the design with a pattern website I found (https://www.stitchfiddle.com/en),  There was much hand waving and magic (and swearing and throwing things I imagine) and *poof* we had silk, a pattern traced out, thread from Akaterine, and it was off to the races with our embroidery kits.  14 kits in all done by 13 people. It was decided to do a backstitch for the embroidery since there were so many pieces.  Three strings of silk floss were used.

Here is my work for one of the sleeves of the purple silk over tunic.

One done.  You can see the pattern traced out on the plastic medium as a guide.

Two of four done for the sleeve.

All four done.  My husband's truck keys inadvertently provided for scale.

Compass Star - Cassandra Grey's Laurel Coat

This was my second embroidery project (finished for Yule December 2015).

I was convinced to help out with the laurel coat for Cassandra Grey's elevation since it was sold to me as a "small embroidery project".  Well..that and I couldn't say no. :)

Duchess Aikaterine spearheaded this project of a coat fitting for a middle class Elizabethan woman that incorporated Cassandra's compass rose design.  Each person would be given a kit to work on and they would later be appliqued onto the coat.

Aikaterine's design schematics

Aikaterine's finished applique.  Setting an amazing example for the rest of us.

I learned SO MUCH doing the embroidery for this like:

• Metal thread is a pain
• Couching! 
• Beading
• How to be sneaky with a group of 10+ people

The finished coat was paneled for Athena's Thimble and we were given competency for Free Embroidery, Applique, and Metalwork.

Some last minute finishing work was done the day off by the group right before the panel and before court.  Epic teamwork by all!

Go team sneaky embroidery!

I will post a picture of my individual star at a later date.  This is one I didn't get a chance to do progress pictures of.  On the plus side, everyone signed their names into the embroidery so we could keep track of them. Photos to come!

Embroidered Rose -Caoilfhionn's Rose Cloak

At Pennsic I was convinced to go to an Athena's Thimble guild meeting and panel a counted cross stitch Tyger's Cub I was working on.  I've done cross stitch since I was young so it wasn't a huge deal for me.  My first "official" project was handed to me while a bunch of people were over my place watching football.  It was to embroider a rose for a small cloak for Princess Caoilfhionn's (soon to be Queen Caoilfhionn II) at coronation.

Once I got over the "I'm making something for the queeeeeeeeeeeen" panic, I sat down and did it.  It's very simple and took inspiration from Anastasia de Monte's embroidered rose for the same cloak with keeping it simple.  I learned the reverse chain stitch for this and learned "back stitch" was actually the right name for my straight lines.

The tiny arrow points to my rose.

The finished cloak with all roses attached.