Baroness Sabrina de la Bere has teamed up with Viscountess Anne of Bradford from Oertha to create kneeling carpets for the West Kingdom. They have designed two carpets, one for each side of the royal pavilion, and have split each carpet into 5 pieces that can be worked separately. Lady Felicia Margerye Amondesham and I were asked to work as a team on the central panel for the queen’s side carpet. We have decided to individually work on it for two weeks then switch off at choir; since I picked up the kit, I had the first go at it.

Anne is quite knowledgeable about period carpets, although I do not know what if any period inspiration she had for this project. The field fabric is a stiff 10-count canvas and the threads used are three strands of colored Paternayan crewel wool. We are using tapestry needles and the continental stitch. Theoretically, we are supposed to have stapled our pieces into a wooden frame, but that is proving elusive with the panel Felicia and I will be working on. Our piece is 40” x 22”, and since stretcher bars are not made in 40” lengths, I was given two 18” and 22” bars to hook together to use. The problem with that is that the bars now have a point at which to bow, so a taut working surface is impossible. I don’t even see how glue and nails could work, which would also effectively ruin the bars. My current solution is to use much smaller bars (about 10”) for the sides and just thumbtack down a piece at a time. This is not a perfect solution, as it does loosen over time, but it’s the best I can do for now and it makes the panel much easier to manipulate.

The project is going surprisingly fast – the large count done in thick wool in counted stitches makes for quick work. I am not, however, keeping a time log for this project, as I am splitting this piece with Felicia and it will already be difficult enough to differentiate her work from mine in pictures. I have only worked for about 6 days on this, and am swiftly completing the bottom borders.

It has been a while since I worked on the carpet, and much has happened. I handed my piece over having finished what can be seen to the right.

I asked Felicia to give stretching the piece a go, and she did a remarkable job at it. She managed to put together bars large enough to take the entire piece of canvas and stapled it to the bars with a mostly taut tension (as good as can be had with such a large piece). She finished the squares I had started and did the trellis work on the left-hand side of the piece. I have since finished the trellising on the bottom and have filled in the left-hand trellis bit that Felicia had done. It is going exceedingly quick, particularly filling in the trellis with the gold background. That’s the sort of thing I can just let my hands do as quickly as possible while letting my mind roam, a habit which has earned me the title “The Sewing Machine” from my costuming Laurel sister-in-law.

Felicia also lent me her floor stand frame, which I managed to loose a washer or two from and thus cannot use the thing. So I’ve made do by pressing a couple of my dining room chairs into service as workbench legs. I have one more week, possibly two if Felicia allows me to keep it that long (I spent all of last week finishing Collette’s Laureling cloak. I hope to finish all of the interiors of the existing trellis bits, and if there’s time I will start on the central wreath.

It is time to return the panel to Felicia, and I have finished what I said I would, plus some. I am just barely shy of having finished all the trellis and its interiors and I have completed one half of the wreath. This is a shared project, so I feel it’s fair that Felicia get a wreath half to do herself. I am very pleased with how much I’ve been able to get done in the last two weeks and am looking forward for time away from it to focus on other projects, namely Oonagh’s rose pouch.

A month has passed and Felicia gave the panel back to me at this last choir meeting. To the right is how much she’s since accomplished.

In order to add stability to the frame, she inserted two wooden bars crosswise between the long side bars and stapled them into place. This is working very well, but will eventually need to be moved in order to finish the embroidery above it. I have noticed that the piece is starting to get heavy; not surprising seeing how much thread we’re packing into it. I believe that much of what I will be focusing on over the next couple of weeks will be the fill-ins, and possibly the bits of green trellising and flowers on the sides.

I handed the kit back to Felicia at choir this last week after two weeks of work. I got much of the background inside and around the wreath filled in, and am pleased with how it is turning out.

I managed to work one interior bar loose of its staple – yay me. I want to point out that we are over halfway to the deadline of 12th Night, and we are a little more than halfway done with the project. I think we will be pushing the deadline, but that is something I’ve thought since the beginning on this project.

Here is a belated picture of what the panel looked like before I last handed it over to Felicia:

And here is what it looks like now that it's DONE:

Felicia finished this project off and it looks spectacular. Neither of us can believe it's done, but we're both extremely relieved. I'm thrilled that we finished in time for 12th Night.

So - it's been a while since I finished my part on this, but it was only this last weekend that the finished carpets were presented to Their Majesties in court. Unfortunately, no one said exactlywhen court would be, so those of us who daytripped thinking to show up when court usually starts found that court had already ended and we had missed the presentation. :( This made me very sad! I wish there had been a little more communication to get everyone involved in the project together so we could present it as one.

I did, however, get to see them while they were on display, and I managed to snag a few pictures of them. Here are the pictures I took of the queen's side carpet: