Shortly after Pennsic I got a message from Queen Geneviere that Their Majesties wished to reward Aleksandr with a Court Baroncy for all his work with i Sebastiani. I agreed to provide the coronet (and make sure he was at an event we originally had no intention of attending). My secret project partner, Baroness Lakshmi Amman, and I sprung into action. We had 5 weeks.
We wanted the coronet to resemble the Cap of Monomakh, the ancient crown of Russian kings. The idea was to make a cloth cap, fur-trimmed and decorated with gems, that could have a metal coronet worn on top. That way he could wear the coronet alone, the cap alone, or both together. Both parts of the coronet were to have 6 garnet cabochons, surrounded by freshwater pearls, and a laurel wreath.
It is not easy to find a skilled coronet-maker who is willing to work under such a tight deadline. Fortunately, we in the East are blessed by the presence of Master Julien de la Pointe, an incredibly skilled artisan who, as far as I can tell, is successful at what ever craft he tries. Even though he had another commission for the same event, Julien said yes and the planning began.
I won't get into all the sneaky behavior and outright lies that Lakshmi and I found ourselves involved in. Sufice it to say, Yevsha was completely in the dark.
The cap Lakshmi and I made is red wool with a black linen lining. There's an interlining of black denim to keep it all stiff. That happened after the outer fabric and lining were already sewn. If we were doing it again, I'd do the construction slightly differently.
Lakshmi embroidered the Laurel wreath in zardozi work, couching gold wire to make the leaves. She also put a left hand, Yevsha's symbol, on the front (the fingers are defined with copper wire). Each panel of leaves took her about 2 hours. Then it was my turn.
I'd never worked with gemstones before. Lady Constance de St. Denis helped me pick out the settings for the cabochons, loaned me her burnisher to set them and generally provided all sorts of advice.
The stems for the laurel wreath are rice-shaped freshwater pearls left over from Yevsha's Laurel coat. Then I added the garnets and the round pearls.
The really fun part came next -- the fur. I had some black rabbit pelts, but I had never worked with fur before. This turned out to be the hardest part of the project, but eventually, that is, the night before the event, it was finished.
The finished coronet by Master Julien
