Appliqued griffins for Ronan and Clare

 I'm working on a tutorial for making a padded table for block printing, so in the meantime I figured I'd go back and fill in the gaps for what I did while I wasn't posting.

I spent about 6 months acting as Mistress of the Wardrobe for Mistress Clare de Lacey and Sir Ronan Geirson ta Rautalahti while they acted as Queen and King of Artemisia. In the process I made 8 outfits and a couple of cloaks.

This set here is the outfits I made for them in June to wear to Avacal's first Coronation. Because there were unusually warm temperatures in Avacal, these were first worn in September when Their Graces stepped down.

The base clothing is simple, so I went to town with the decoration. The basic tunic and cote are white linen lined in more white linen. I fulled the black wool leftover from cloaks I made to be worn over these and cut the applique from it.

It is hard to see in the pictures I have, but the appliques are layered, with each limb and the wings and feathers separate.  I then stitched them into place with a gold metallic similar to crochet thread.
They are blanket stitched to approximate the look of gold cord couched in place as would have been done for period applique. Both are trimmed with a black silk inkle trim I had made in Morocco. The beaks and other details were done with needlefelting. That technique is totally not historically accurate, but I didn't feel like I had time to do embroidery and I had painted other outfits so I wanted a different look for these.

As you can see from the hanging photo, the griffins are intended to face one another when Their Graces stand in front of the thrones facing the populace as a nod to the heraldry of our kingdom.