First pics

I've begun stitching. Before this could happen, I needed to create some exemplars, which involved much stitching, and trying several different color combinations in one flower. This also involved looking at extant items again and again, matching colors and looking at shading. I'm pretty happy with the results so far; the pansy could be bolder, and that may get reworked. I'm trying out gilt silk twist on the strawberry leaves; I'm currently undecided about it. I like working with metal threads in general, but this is very thin, and it's subtle, so I'm not sure if it will be enough. I may complete all four leaves, and judge from there. I also still need to make some exemplars for the insects. I love the ceylon stitch from the Plimoth jacket, but I'm just not seeing it often on the extant piece. My inspiration piece from the Met(64.101.1258)has the caterpillars and worms done in the detached buttonhole, so I'll probably stick with that. I'm also still unsure about the detached buttonlace for wings and pea pods; my husband loves the idea, and we do find it on some jackets, but I'm just not noticing it on the coifs. (Perhaps I'm not looking closely enough.) The coif is outlined in a spring green stem stitch. Many of the coifs I've looked at have green for the outline, like 34.226 from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which has become another "go-to" piece for me.

Preliminary design

After much poring over pics and notes of extant pieces, I went ahead and created my design. The finished coif size will be approximately 9" by 17", which is similar in size to coif 64.101.1258 at the Met, which is my inspiration piece. For flower motifs, I have chosen borage, cornflower, honeysuckle, rose, violet, strawberries and peapods. I also have a few birds, butterflies, caterpillars and spiders (of course). The Plimoth jacket has some detached buttonhole lace on the pea pod coverings, and the butterfly wings. Although I love that idea, I haven't yet decided if I will do it for certain, since I'm unable to see specific examples on extant pieces, although I do respect the work of Dr. Tricia Wilson-Nguyen, who headed up the jacket project. I'm using soie perlee, and I may incorporate some gilt silk twist, but that is also up in the air. I found a medium weight linen in my fabric collection that is approximately 80 threads per inch (after taking 3 square-inch samples) which is higher than some extant pieces, but seems safely in the real of 'not too fine, but fine enough'. I also have a ton of size 14 oes, which I should check the diameter of versus the Met piece, which uses 2.5 mm spangles. I'm thinking the majority of the stitching will be detached buttonhole with return for object bodies, and maybe some trellis and ceylon for the accent animals, since I love the way the Plimouth jacket caterpillars look with the ceylon! The gold rinceaux vines will be with my beloved plaited braid, of course, with some reverse chain on the little squiggles, but I may experiment with some other types when this project is complete.

Here's the preliminary design: