12th century fillet - black with white silk embroidery,  12th century projects,  Chain Stitch,  Embroidery,  Kingdom of Meridies,  Medieval Embroidery,  Projects,  SCA,  Silk Thread,  Stem Stitch

My new black 12th century fillet with white silk embroidery! :D

2016-10 - Racaire and Gloria at Coronation - new black 12th century fillet - 12th century headwear - SCA - silk embroideryGloria, my dear mother-in-law, took a lovely selfie of us both at the most recent SCA event – Coronation. This cute selfie allows me to finally show you my most recent 12th century project “in use”:

My new black 12th century fillet
with white silk embroidery! 😀

How come? Well, after completing my new grey/black 12th century dress, I longed for a slightly different 12th century headgear than my ‘normal’ red silk fillet with pearl embroidery. And as the making of a new fillet does not take very long, I decided to simply make a fillet that matched at least one of the colors of my new dress…

The decision to go with the black color of the dress embellishments was quite obvious for me. The grey fabric which I used for the dress has just too much going on and I would have needed a quite dominant embellishment to counteract the fabric.

It also didn’t take long to find a suitable embroidery pattern for my new fillet. While searching through some period artwork on my computer, I found some lovely patterns which I really liked. Though I couldn’t find any evidence among my files that this kind of pattern was actually used for clothing, it can be found on several 12th century wallpaintings. Well, what shall I say – I liked the pattern so much that I decided to neglect this little detail and to use the pattern anyway. 🙂

And yeah, I am very happy that I went through with it as I simply love my new fillet:

2016-10 - Racaire and Gloria at Coronation - new black 12th century fillet - 12th century headwear - SCA - silk embroidery

It’s cute, isn’t it! I really love it! 😀

I took several pictures of how I made the fillet but didn’t have the time yet to go through them and process them for a detailed posting. However, I chose two of the progress pictures as a sneak peek for you until I find the time to post about the process – enjoy! 😀

2016-10_Racaire_black-filet-progress_2

At the picture above you can see a close up of the silk embroidery for my new fillet. I used two very simple stitches for the embroidery: Chain Stitch & Stem Stitch

The black fabric which I used for the outside and the lining of my new fillet is a very soft, tightly woven black linen of very good quality. And the white silk thread for the embroidery comes from the Handweaver Studio in London. As you can see on the picture above, the silk thread is nearly as thin as most sewing threads. However, the last time I shopped there, which was already some years ago, the Handweaver Studio had even thinner silk threads available for a very good and reasonable price. I normally use this much thinner threads for very delicate surface couching.

And here a picture of the fillet with the finished embroidery while I was attaching the lining:

2016-10_Racaire_black-filet-progress_1

I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek pictures of the making process of my new black 12th century fillet. And last but not least I would like to share with you a picture of the two other 12th century fillets I have done till now:

12th century embroidered Fillets - Medieval embroidery

I finished the two red silk fillets on the picture above already some years ago.
The 12th century fillet on the top turned out to be a little bit too small for my taste after I finished it, therefore I gave it away to a good friend of mine. But I have worn the 12th century fillet with the pearl embroidery a lot since I made it. Well, I used to wear it at nearly every event until I finished my new black 12th century fillet… Yeah, I know, girls and their new toys… *giggle*

Best regards Racaire