Embroidered German-style Brustfleck - Eagle Design

I recently had the opportunity to help make an embroidered German-style brustfleck for His Majesty. The talented Sir Eva designed and traced out the complex design as well as supplying the materials.

The designed was traced out in Frixion pen and embroidered with DMC floss in one, two or three strands (depending on the area of the design). The main part of the embroidery was done in split stitch, but there are also elements that have satin stitch, backstitch and double running stitch.

Once the embroidery was finished, it was cut out and adhesive was added on the back. I fused the bird to the silk background for extra stability and stitched the panel edge down with tiny stitches. Then I couched down over the edges with silver cord.

The completed panel was then given back to Sir Eva for points to be added. Many thanks to Sir Eva for doing all the hard work in a very limited time frame!

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.