Heraldic embroidered badge

Today I had the opportunity to present a piece that I finished a couple of months ago. It is a heraldic badge to go on a doublet. The project got off to a very rocky start as I had to begin over because I couldn't get the tension on the ground fabric right and the stitches kept pulling and warping.

I realised that the ground fabric was too flimsy, and started again on heavier fabric. This was much more successful.

The outer white edge was done in white crochet cotton in stem stitch. The blue was done in cotton perle thread in stem stitch. I used stem stitch because I wanted this area to stand out and be clearly defined. 

The inner white section is DMC blanc cotton (2 strands) worked in split stitch. The tree has padded leaves and is worked in DMC black 310 cotton in satin stitch (also 2 strands).

Once the stitching was complete and the device had been trimmed, rinsed and edged, I whipped the edges under and added a felt backing.

 I wanted the badge to stand out and not be too flat, so I added an extra, smaller piece of felt on the back. Then I edged the whole shield-shape with some silver gilt thread.

Here is the badge sewn on the recipient's new garb. The recipient is the perfect example of all the courtly graces, so I was very pleased that the badge looked so nice and was received so well.