A coronet for Bianca

So I have this housemate, Bianca.

And she's one of those sneaky background people that gets things done. She remembers things and scoots around behind royal court taking care of stuff and she looks AMAZING doing it.

She was presented with a court baronetcy recently and at the last minute to boot. I offered up my services to make her a coronet.
And if that meant getting it done in 6 days then so be it.

(Bianca and I at the Met after going south for Ducal Challenge.)

Deciding on the height and shape of the coronet was the hardest part. I messaged Fortune constantly for tips, since she knows Bianca best and has much better taste than I.

I cut it with an X-acto knife but anything would work. I needed to use more than one sheet of plastic grid.

The small sheets of plastics were sewn together, over lapping by one. It passed the tugging and toddler test. (Gideon had a lot of fun playing with this.)

Bianca's heraldry features swans! So I had to draw them out and try to make them not look like ducks. (hint, it didn't work. But as she likes to say, she is a Swan Among Ducks (and it's true!))

I traced the coronet onto the fabric and used the crosses to mark where the swans would go.

Fun fact, I was getting sick when this was going down so I made sure to do every step for each swan as I went, just in case I ran out of time. So all the outlining happened for all the them before I did the filling. Split stitch shown here in white silk (on black wool/silk)

I was making good time so I began to fill them in with klosterstitch because it is the fastest and most secure stitch for something like this. 

I ran out and bought larger pearls, put them onto headpins and then threaded the head pins through the grid, bending the wire to behave and keep the form straight. It was pretty snug so I didn't hot glue this in. That gave me the opportunity to change the pearls if Bianca didn't like the slightly golden shade of the pearl.

I decided to put the seam at the top and whipped that together, folding the edge down and in. It worked really well actually. I had a lot of control with where the fabric was and was able to fudge parts where maybe my embroidery wasn't -quite- even. I also edged all the swans in gold and trimmed the top in the same gold cord. I -think- it's Jap 7, whatever that means. The label is handwritten on the little cards on the cord, and hard to make out. But it's SO shiny and nice I had to use it.

Added a bee for our household and eyelets for threading through ribbon/elastic cord (because I was still super nervous about it fitting. Much rather have her add a ribbon later than have Royalty try to put it on her and have the ties be off. Elastic was the way to go here.

And here she is looking fabulous! Going with a fabric coronet has been a great choice because she apparently gets headaches with heavy hats. I know from experience that the wool/silk blend is warm, but also really great at soaking up water/sweat. I'm confident it'll be comfy in the summer for her. But she knows if it's not, I'll get back to work for her.

I couldn't find a sewing tutorial for anything like this in SCA circles, so I hope this helps someone in a pinch.