sister_raphael | Entries tagged with circlet

Rock crystal and sapphire with little silver roses destined for a stylish 14th century diadem.

It's another one of those projects that I've got half underway and then not been completely happy with and set aside to come back to at a later date.

Happily, that time is now, and I've got all the bits and pieces out again to see if I can solve my issues and get it finished. One of the biggest problems is that I need a drill press for the holes on the silver band, and I don't have one. Drilling without is an unsteady business and I scratched my practice one a little.

The wire stems aren't sitting as flat as I want them to also, and I need to find a better way to bend them.

To be honest, I really should take a course or something, but that's an expensive option, and it's not like I'll be making them prefessionally. Mostly, they're just for me.

It's a making circlets kind of day.

A few for me, but most to sell for a little pocket money to fun this crazy hobby we do!

Brass flowers. 18kt gold flowers. Pearls, peridot, carnelian, red coral. I've had all kinds of troubles getting the brass bases and initially I had two shorter ones joined together, but I've now been able to get a longer brass but it is thinner, which I find acceptible, but whether other people will remains to be seen. There will only be a few at the upcoming Reenactors Market or Abbey Kids Day, and posting none I'm sorry.

I've got to say, that as pretty as they are at the end, the making process can kind of take over the entire kitchen and dining room!

I do love a little medieval bling!

Circlet making supplies are arriving! Quite a few years ago I bought some very pretty but very expensive gold plated flowers which I used to make a circlet for myself, but they were far too expensive to get more and then the Etsy shop stopped stocking them. Well, I've found somewhere that sells them. At cost price.

I ordered one packet in case they were cheap rip offs, but when they arrived, they were identical, so I ordered a heap more with the idea of making some circlets to sell. I've found a source of garnets which is also cost price and the same for nice freshwater pearls, so I'm all set!

I will be having an epic crafting day soon over the Xmas break and will sell them next year before the festival or at the big festival.

The upgrade on this circlet was a real headache. Not quite literally, but almost.

The issue I had with this project, is that when I originally made the circlet, I wired the brass closed at both ends and equally spaced out the metal flowers and fittings. The design used alternating decoration, which looked really lovely.

Unfortunately, the Lady's head was even smaller than mine because I usually wear a hairpiece to bulk out my hair as she doesn't. I needed to cut about an inch out of the circlet for it to fit her well. Here lies the problem. If I had have used the same decoration all the way around and not alternating decorations, I could simply cut out a section and rejoin it with no disruption to the design. By taking an inch out of it, the decorations then had two the same butting up together, which just wouldn't do at all.

After a painful thought process, I thought that the whole thing could be dealt with in a less than perfect, but perfectly adequate way, by adding a central element which is different to both of the existing ones. The large silver rose in the middle now is flanked by gold cups with carnelian flowers and then small silver flowers which echo the rose, but in a much smaller way.

I had to remove the circlet lining to cut the circlet itself, so after the decoration was in place, a fresh one needed to be glued into place.

It really isn't what I originally intended, but it solves a problem, and it's not for a re-enactor anyway, so it ticks all the requirements and looks very pretty too.

Here we see the culmination of three of the projects I have been working on for the Opening Ceremony of the Abbey Medieval Festival 2022: The Shield of Valour, the Mantle or Temperance and the Crown of Chivalry.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how it looks on him, and I'm super pleased with this photo by Adamare Creations who captured me bestowing the crown on our lovely Sir Richard Sheffield.

The entire Opening Ceremony went really well, with laughter where it should have been, seriousness where it should have been, lots of colour and a great Lord Herald narrating. It was a huge amount of work to organise, but on reasonably short notice, I'm pleased at the feedback. The CEO and Director of the Museum were both delighted, so that's what matters.

Further posts and photos of the event to follow... lots happened and much was extremely successful.

I give you another one of the props for the Medieval Festival Opening Ceremony- a medieval flower crown, the Crown of Chivalry. This is to be presented to the Knight along with the Shield of Valour and the Mantle of Temperance.

It was made by me along the same lines as the last two- with the additions and decorative features added on pins with flat heads to secure them. here's a close up look at the tiny silver flowers and freshwater pearls in between the large silver roses.

I was particularly excited to source the flowers, and anyone who makes beaded jewellery may notice that they are, actually, bead caps. The brass pins and the pearls make the flower centres.

I was exceptionally lucky to get the silver flowers for a bargain price as the owner of the bead store could find them listed in the inventory and wasn't planning on getting more, so they just made me an offer which was so good that I bought every last one they had in the shop.

The roses themselves look a little large, but they need to be seen from further afield, quite literally, than others. I considered that in some medieval artworks, these might be quite large anyway, so I felt that after the ceremonies are over, I can wear the circlet for myself on other occasions.

Another job ticked off my list for the Abbey Medieval Festival.

Medieval wedding circlet based on artwork from the 14th century

I love making things and I wanted to make a little something for a young friend who had recently married. I just couldn't decide what, exactly. Something she didn't already have. Clearly, more bling was the answer, but what kind of bling?

I pondered for exactly 5 seconds before I knew that a circlet was the answer! Something hand made and a little bit special. I had a few bits and pieces already, but could I make something nice? I was going to try!

First I gathered my tools and looked at the base items. I silver circlet, gold-plated roses and freshwater pearls. I already had a plan to attach the roses with pins through the pearls and roses and bend the backs over, which is a reasonably medieval technique. I felt that some colour was in need, and remembering that the young lady has a gorgeous orange silk kirtle, decided a deep orangy red carnelian would make a nice contrast to the silver and gold and match her dress also.

The pins have large, flat heads on them to secure the pearls and carnelians. Here's what the underneath of them look like when they're waiting to be added. I carefully punched evenly-spaced indentations with a hammer and nail then drilled the holes into the circlet itself. Nail-biting stuff as I was anxious about scratching the silver circlet.

Once the holes were drilled, I poked the pins through and bent the backs over which is harder than it sounds, believe me. They need to be really folded down or the roses and carnelians on the front sort of sag sadly.

Once that was achieved, I glued the band to the inside so the back of the pins don't snag on the veil and scratch the young lady's head. I'm really pleased with the results, and have another similar-but-different one in silver to make for myself

the hand-made medieval circlet finished.

Was the young lady excited? As I write she's only seen pictures and won't receive it for another few weeks. I'm hoping she will love it!

I've been putting together a new (sort of new outfit) for a friend to wear at the next festival. You might recognise the reproduction brooch I had made, but probably not the wool surcote which is years old and has been shunned in favour of other surcotes of more exciting colours. You might not recognise the pearl-edged veil either, because it's been quite a while since that's been out too.

What is completely new is the silk fillet with the flowers made of freshwater pearls and carnelians. I made a bunch of these for the Circlet of Bling and had a couple over which I thought would be perfect for a silk fillet one day. That day was yesterday. The silk is simply folded over a linen base, the flowers spiked through the fabric, the spikes folded over and then the silk folded to cover and stitched down.

Here's a picture of the fillet inside out while I sew the seam down with tiny, little stitches.

I am pretty pleased with how this has come together.

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Rosalie's Medieval Woman

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Rosalie Gilbert

Author & Medieval History Enthusiast

Entries tagged with circlet

More work on the silver circlet

Circlets in progress.

Circlet supplies

Circlet upgrade

Ceremony of Chivalry, 2022

The Crown of Chivalry

Medieval Wedding Circlet

Circlet of flowers