The Drachenwald A&S Exchange seeks to encourage creativity and joy in the Arts and Sciences through organized exchanges. The first exchange opened August 11, 2013, and ended January 2014. We encourage all in our great Kingdom to consider participating, from our budding artisans to our honored Laurels.
The sign-up opened in August and originally, it was to be for 15 participants. Because the demand was high, 18 were allowed to join. Over the course of the next several months, emails flew about personas, interests, tastes, and sizes. It was great fun. I have now both given and received, so I feel free to write about the experience. My recipient was Dona Victoria Alcon de Castile from Polderslot. She has a late period persona overlapping the Spanish and English courts, so I chose to embroider an English-style redwork coif for her. I had good white linen in my stash, so I only had to buy red silk for the embroidery. I looked at several extant coifs on the V&A Museum website for inspiration, then used information from the Attack Laurel's website for sizing and construction. I selected flowers and animals to embroider based on my recipient's personal preferences, but all were reproductions of period pieces. I did carnations, foxgloves, pea pods, grapes, a butterfly, a parrot, oak leaves, and several other designs. I took them from the examples at the V&A as well as from my reproduction copy of Scholehouse for the Needle. I used stem, chain, and running stitches, depending on the section I was working on. In hindsight, I wish I had made the embroidery a little more dense. It came out looking balanced to the modern eye, but in period it would have been more crowded together. I also wish I had added some spangles, just for the effect. Here are some photos I took before mailing the coif.
These are photos taken by Victoria after the coif made it safely through the vagaries of the Post. Hopefully I will be able to add a picture of her wearing the coif at some point.
The sign-up opened in August and originally, it was to be for 15 participants. Because the demand was high, 18 were allowed to join. Over the course of the next several months, emails flew about personas, interests, tastes, and sizes. It was great fun. I have now both given and received, so I feel free to write about the experience. My recipient was Dona Victoria Alcon de Castile from Polderslot. She has a late period persona overlapping the Spanish and English courts, so I chose to embroider an English-style redwork coif for her. I had good white linen in my stash, so I only had to buy red silk for the embroidery. I looked at several extant coifs on the V&A Museum website for inspiration, then used information from the Attack Laurel's website for sizing and construction. I selected flowers and animals to embroider based on my recipient's personal preferences, but all were reproductions of period pieces. I did carnations, foxgloves, pea pods, grapes, a butterfly, a parrot, oak leaves, and several other designs. I took them from the examples at the V&A as well as from my reproduction copy of Scholehouse for the Needle. I used stem, chain, and running stitches, depending on the section I was working on. In hindsight, I wish I had made the embroidery a little more dense. It came out looking balanced to the modern eye, but in period it would have been more crowded together. I also wish I had added some spangles, just for the effect. Here are some photos I took before mailing the coif.
These are photos taken by Victoria after the coif made it safely through the vagaries of the Post. Hopefully I will be able to add a picture of her wearing the coif at some point.
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