Work on the to-do list continues!

One more off the to do list, a quick modification to an older project adding pearls. Next, a conceptual drawing for another past due project (knife sheath) that is on my desk and about to go to patterning. I am also working on a third project that I cannot reveal until it is handed out to the recipient. 

Projects from the quarantine bunker!

I am still working full time, but the rest of the time has been spent in the quarantine bunker waiting out these hard times. I was lucky enough to have a good supply of raw materials on hand before the lock down so I was able to keep working on a few projects. Recently I completed two Baronial Coronets for Baron Snorri skyti Bjarnarsson and his wife Baroness Annika Iosafova. Commisioned by Their Graces (at the time Majesties) Timothy of Arindale and Gabrielle van Nijenrode.

 

The coronets are tooled and painted leather. I went outside my wheel house a bit and tried my hand at just painting on the heraldry instead of attempting to tool it first. I did this in large part because I was worried that size and detailing required for tooling the heraldry might leave it looking a bit "muddy" (in other words in might have been so small it was beyond my skill to do well). 

This was a challenging project due to the lock down. I had what materials I had (mostly the leather) and there was zero room for error. There are a lot of small mistakes here and there, but I had to push forward and ignore them as there was no option to start over. In the end I am pretty happy with them, but as with all things, if I had a time machine I would make some changes next time around. 

Heraldic belt

This was a project I wanted to work on for a while and was a long overdue second payment for some seamstress work. It is a heraldic belt for Baroness Miriel du Lac (SCA). The belt is tooled and painted leather (the main belt is dyed black). The hardware is from Billy and Charile's. White is always a difficult color to work with (at least for me), and I hate to fall back on the "pictures don't do it justice" defense, but in this case the photos do fall a bit short. The shells and pearls are shaded in gray and highlighted with mother of pearl white. It is a rather striking effect in person. I was not too certain about the black dye for the belt but took a chance. I now wish I had gone for blue. Overall I am pretty happy and I think Miriel enjoyed the belt as well.

Court Baroness Coronet

My latest project was a Court Baroness coronet for my good friend Mistress Ysabeau Tiercelin (now Baroness). As I have said before I am not much of an artist so settling on the cosmetic aspects of this project was a challenge for me. I went back and forth on design, the basic pattern, and color scheme for a while (too long given the tight deadline) and finally came up with this. The main coronet is very basic (I think maybe too basic in hindsight) and the primary feature is the tooled personal heraldry on the front.

The tooling is some of the smallest detailed tooling I have done to date (the Horse is about an inch tall) and I was very happy with it. I was almost sad I had to paint it but I did like the “pop” the color gave the finished project. The paint job was not my best. A few spots of the white primer are peeking out here and there and some of the paint is thicker than I like. It is hard to notice in person but it will forever haunt my nightmares.  It was a tight deadline and I should have spent less time debating on the design and more time painting.

I had another plan for mounting The “Pearls” on the top but I was concerned about durability with an untested method so I went with something I could trust on a mechanical level. Each Pearl is mounted to the inside of the coronet on a stainless steel pin. I turned the end of each pin over to for a hook that was then sunk into the leather. Over each pin I glued a soft leather tab to cover the pin cosmetically and to firmly anchor the pin and pearl in place.

As with most projects it was a learning experience and given the chance I would do several things differently but the project seemed well received. 

Thanks for looking!