Yes, I realize that’s a mouthful. And I never really got good at describing it . . people would ask what I was working on and I’d say the above, and they’d pause then say, “what?” No matter – it’s done and out of my house, which is all that counts.

In early 2005, Mistresses Catherine Lorraine and Isela di Bari joined forces to create new kneeling pillows for the kingdom. Each would take a pillow top to be embroidered then Catherine would complete the pillows as well as cases for them. I asked if there was anything I could do, and Catherine suggested labels for the outside of the cases. I agreed. She made a copy of the charts she was working from, which are goodly sized works in themselves, for both the king’s side pillow with the laurel wreath and crown as well as the queen’s side pillow with the laurel wreath, roses, and crown.

My job was to make a smaller version of each pattern, which I did on 32-count linen. At Catherine’s direction I used over-1 tent stitch in three strands of DMC cotton for the roses, wreaths, and the crowns, filled in the crowns with three strands of gold DMC cotton in over-1 basketweave stitch, and filled in everything else with four strands of gold DMC cotton in over-2 and over-4 double Hungarian stitch. In addition, I outlined the roses with one strand of dark brown DMC cotton in backstitch. And it might sound like I’m bragging . . but I’m really good at those stitches now.

For this project, I tried something I learned from Lady Caiterina nic Sheamus, which was to put pieces of cut up wire hanger in the hems of the linen squares, then wind the stretching stitches around that. Although it wound up looser, it wasn’t a problem – the field became perfectly straight with no tugs at the edges like usually happens when I just sew the stretching stitches through the bare hems. A very cool thing to keep in mind for future projects!

I started with the queen’s label because it was the hardest and it’s better to do that stuff first. This label took me four months to complete, and I worked on that puppy to the detriment of all else. I ran across a couple problems right off the bat: first, the crown was originally placed too low inside the wreath, which I discovered only *after* I had stitched it. I discussed this with Catherine and Isela, they agreed and reworked the pattern, and Catherine and I (who had already stitched our crowns) proceeded to take them out and re-stitch them higher up. BTW, a great way to drive yourself insane is to tear out over-1 tent stitch on 32-count linen. Yikes!

The second major problem was where the double Hungarian stitches met up with the tent stitches. The root of the problem lies in the nature of the stitches themselves: tent utilizes the spots where the threads of linen cross one another, while double Hungarian utilizes the spaces between those threads. Having those two stitches meet creates a spatial problem – where does one place the stitches so both can be seen while at the same time covering all of the linen ground? The answer is nowhere; if it’s as close as it needs to be to cover the white of the linen, the double Hungarian will “bubble” over and obscure the tent. Move it away by even one line of linen and there’s white space. So I suggested to Catherine and Isela that to alleviate this problem, we add an outline of gold tent stitch around the entirety of the wreaths/roses as a “buffer zone”, so the double Hungarian can bubble over onto something of a similar color, thus leaving the green and red tent to be clearly seen. It turned out really well, despite the extra work.

I finished the queen’s label in time to show it at the 12 th Night 2006 artisan’s display. I was ever so happy to show it because that meant that it was done. After the display, I gave it to Catherine to take home and place on the case. Then I got started on the king’s label, which after all the practice and sans the roses only took two months to complete. I showed that one at the Darkwood White Shield artisan’s display, and once again gave it to Catherine to take away. The cool thing about using both the basketweave and double Hungarian stitches was that once I took the pieces off the stretcher bars, they stayed put. Usually tent stitch makes pieces angle slightly, which requires blocking and other such post-stitch work. But not this time! Catherine then sewed the labels onto the flaps of the haversack cases in her signature frame style.

I very much liked the dimensions created by having the tent and double Hungarian stitches side by side. I wasn’t too thrilled with the problems I encountered, but they were lessons well learned. And I once again got to work on a big project. It’s also very cool to have contributed something to regalia; hopefully, courts of the future will see the artwork on the cases and because of that treat the cases and pillows with respect.

I shot the first six pictures. The first two were with my cruddy camera phone – bleh! Catherine shot the last four once she had completed the pillowcases.