Elevations

I always forget to post these kinds of projects because they have to stay secret until they're given to the recipients, so by the time that event and court has happened, I've likely already moved on to other projects.

However. Last year I was honored to be asked to make two elevation garments.

One was the Laurel hood for Sir Murdoch Bayne. I was very honored to be asked, as well as more than a little nervous- because immediately after his Laurel ceremony, he took me as an apprentice- so I absolutely did not want to mess this up! Luckily, he had a very specific idea of what he wanted, and that gave me a really great framework to work within.

The hood is linen with silk leaves and piping. He wanted scallops, but shallower, more "flowy" ones, with stemless laurel wreaths inside and more leaves creating a framework on the hood.

The cloak was cut as a full circle and then it was folded into quarters and the scallops were cut in. The leaves were a bit of trial and error to see exactly how big they needed to be to create something that resembled a complete laurel wreath even at a distance- too many leaves and they would need to be so small as to drive me into insanity, but fewer, larger leaves might not "read" as a wreath. Once I had the ideal size, I created a stencil and then traced and cut about 350ish leaves onto wonder under- double sided fusible interfacing. The interfacing was then fused to the silk and then leaves were individually cut. Each scallop layout was done by eye, tweaking leaves as needed. Once everything was in place, I pressed all the leaves of a single scallop down, and then used a very small zigzag stitch on my machine to go around each individual leaf to hold it in place.

The chalk marks around the outside are placement reminders for the piping, so I didn't get too close to the edge.

I made the silk piping with the same green silk cut on the bias and lightweight cording. I wanted to make the scallop edges stand out but also give them some structural integrity to make sure they didn't stretch over time (having learned my lesson from the Knighting cloak below). With the piping pressed under and stitched in place, I laid the lining inside and hand stitched it, using a single scallop at a time and smoothing as I went.

The hood leaves were placed in the same way, just using larger leaves.

My husband being pressed into modeling.

I was really happy with how this came out (as was Sir Murdoch, I believe, as he still gave me an apprentice belt!). The leaves became almost meditative after the first fifty or so, and I was lucky to find a great show to listen to while I worked.

The other was a knight's cloak for a dear friend, Lothar. He's also a member of Hus Faerhaga and has been my husband's best friend since college.

This cloak likely would have been a pretty simple project had I not recieved the suggestion "wouldn't it be cool if his heraldry was the cloak lining". And yes, yes. That would look cool, particularly as Lothar's heraldry is pretty graphic and striking.

Exterior of wool with two metallic cords plied together and stitched into a chain.

Please excuse the fact that things were in need of ironing.

In my head, this was a matter of creating a cloak pattern, cutting one out of black linen and one out of white linen, slashing across the lines and then mixing the pieces to make the appropriate heraldry. In my head, this was simple. And perhaps it would have been, had I not forgotten that linen likes to stretch on the bias. And those gorgeous, visually dramatic, angled lines really, really want to stretch. Things came out OK in the end, using a good amount of very lightweight fusible interfacing to give everything enough structure and quilt basting spray to make everything stay put and very fussily matching corners. If I had to do it again, I would not do things the same way. Definitely a different fabric. But Lothar likes it, so it worked out in the end.

**Court pictures by Jinx (Michele Vicchitto) who graciously uses her incredible talent to capture all the best SCA moments