At Mists Spring Investiture last, Lady Victoria of Lynwood asked if I could make her a heraldic patch with the ash leaf from her device on it. Of course, I agreed. Over several e-mails, we hashed out an exact pattern, which is the leaf on the bottom right of this sketch:

She requested that the leaf be outlined and have the central vein in black, and that the left of the leaf be white with blue veins while the right of the leaf be blue with white veins. I understood this as I have a counterchanged critter in my own device. She also requested that this patch be on a light tan background and machine washable. While it would not see the battlefield, it would be permanently sewn onto a mantle that would be tossed in the wash now and then. So I decided on tan broadcloth cotton for the upper layer and white broadcloth cotton for the bottom layer for stability, and pre-washed them together. I also hand-washed the black (color #310) and blue (color #796) DMC cotton threads in warm water with some mild soap before embroidering with it. I did not wash the white (color #BLANC) as I felt it wouldn’t need it.

Once everything was washed, I transferred the pattern onto the tan cloth with my lightbox and a white dressmaker’s pencil. Then the embroidery began, and I did everything in stem stitch. Five days of work and 18 ½ hours later, the embroidery was done.

Since this is going onto a mantle for good, I’ve decided to stitch down the edges underneath the patch with tan cotton thread like in modern quilting, then use a buttonhole stitch in either the blue or black DMC cotton thread to cover those stitches and attach the patch to the garment. Victoria had asked for a pretty silver something to sew down over the edges, but my perusal of Joann’s turned up nothing that was pretty, silver, and machine washable. So this will have to do. I will take the patch to this coming June Crown where I will sew it onto the mantle for her, and I promise to get a picture of it!

June Crown has come and gone, and finishing the patch went smoothly. I hand-turned the edges under and blanket-stitched it to her mantle. I managed to get it done right before I left site, so she would have her mantle to show off for the rest of the weekend. Below is the picture I took of the patch after finishing the attachment, and another of Victoria right after handing her back the finished product. She was so happy to receive it – it is nice to see my work be so appreciated! I would have finished off this report before now, but my camera with the final pictures on it went on walkabout and was only recently recovered by my boyfriend Jeff.