I first met Don Rodrigo Bernardez through the lady who first introduced me to the SCA, Lady Avalyn of Whitehaven. While Avalyn has since stopped playing, I have continued my friendship with Rodrigo while seeing him at sporadic events. His birthday falls somewhere around March Crown and I made this device patch for him one year after I had first met him. He liked it so much that he’s attached it to one of his tunics; it always warms an embroiderer’s heart to see her creations so well used.
I found his device, which was created by Klaus Rother, on the Shire of Cloondara’s heraldic devices site.
I doodled on graph paper until I had a working pattern for Rodrigo’s device then cross-stitched it onto Aida cloth. Yes, this was done a loooong time ago when I was still taking baby steps outside of my comfort zone of modern cross-stitch. The floss used was DMC cotton, and the colors have since been forgotten. Once done, I backed the embroidery with velveteen and stuffed the interior with a heater-shaped piece of stiff paper. I sewed it up and delivered it to Rodrigo, who was very pleased with the present. I later saw that he had sewn it onto his dress tunic, which can be seen in the second picture below, taken by Keradwc at 12 th Night 2004. Unfortunately, I do not have a close-up image of the embroidery itself; if I manage to snag one from him, I will certainly post it to this page.
