Remember the award medallions that I was embroidering on and displayed at Pennsic?  I finally got around to starting to make them into actual medallions last night.  

I was taught how to make award medallions aeons ago, one evening sitting around in the barn with a bunch of people at Great Northeastern War.  I actually haven’t seen any made this way here in Aethelmearc, so hey – mine will be very identifiable!  The basic method is:

1. Cut 2 cardboard circles the size you want the medallion to be
2. Cut a circle just under 2x the size of the final medallion around the embroidery, and cut a second circle of the same size to make the back.
3. Stitch around the outside of each fabric circle using running stitch; leave a long tail on the starting end.
4. Place the cardboard circles in the center of the front & back and use the running stitches to gather the fabric around the cardboard.
5. Attach the front and back together and edge them in some way.

Step 5 is where things get kind hairy. In the past, I always made a fingerloop braid and sewed it on, stitching the front & back together at the same time.  I tucked the raw ends in and sewed a jump ring on to run a cord through.

This time, though, I decided to get creative… I wanted to try the edge finishing technique described in the Museum of London book, and used on period aumonieres.  I took a class on how to do this technique a 3 ravens a couple of years ago, using fingerloop braid.  I THOUGHT I remembered how to do it, but I was wrong.  So I backed up and decided to try a woven edging.  The basic technique is to put your weft on a needle and use it both to sew the pieces together and as the weft.  This is probably reasonably easy on something biggish like a purse, but it was a major pain on something as small as this (large) medallion.  It was very hard to keep the band even, it pulled the tension of the fabric stretched over the cardboard all out of whack, and balancing the warp tension so that it could wrap around the medallion and yet still have enough to weave effectively.

All of these would have been problems I could have dealt with, though. Where it all went down the tubes was when I got to the end and tried to figure out what to do with the beginning and end of the weaving.  I wanted to lap one end over the other and create a loop with the top one.  But… I just couldn’t get it to work out.  

So… fall back position.  I made a quick six-strand square fingerloop braid and stitched it around the two pieces.  Instead of using a jump ring, I did go with the idea of making a loop from the edging, which was really easy to do and looks a lot nicer, I think.

I’m working on a portfolio for Aethelmearc Kingdom A&S Championships and one of the items that I’m putting in the portfolio is the Pelican cushion I embroidered in … A.S. 37.  So here are some good pictures of it, which I didn’t have before.

The ground fabric is scrap linen from my first set of 13th c. rapier armor; the embroidery was worked in Medeira silk floss. The design was taken from the Bostocke Sampler.

The whole thing. It measures about 6″ x 10″.  I used Caryl de Trecesson’s chart for the central figure and charted the border myself. 

Detail of the central figure. 

Detail of the border, and a squashy corner.

Detail of the bottom edge and border.

I keep mentioning the award medallions I’m working on, so I went ahead and scanned the two that are done.  For the non-AEthelmeartians, that’s a Keystone (AoA-level service) and a Millrind (Grant-level service).  The Millstone is the one that was getting all the attention at the Pennsic A&S display; the spirally background was kind of an experiment in giving the background (it’s a fieldless badge) more visual interest.

Right now I’m working on a Millrind on a red background, where the background “pattern” is more in line with what you find in extant Opus Anglicanum pieces. At some point I’ll bite the bullet and start doing OA medallions – an OA Keystone would be stunning, since that’s on a gold field anyway (it’s one of the few AE badges that aren’t fieldless).