Viscounty Coronet for Tuathflaith
In May 2024, her Highness of Cynagua asked if I would make her viscounty coronet for her stepdown in July 2024. I wasn’t necessarily confident, but committed to do my best to make something that suited her. After discussing style and inspiration, it was clear that she wanted something with a romantic delicate vibe rather than a more traditional coronet. Game on. We settled on an etched band with ivy leaves and tendrils. I thought this was a great excuse to finally invest in a pitch pot and repousse tools. These ivy leaves were my very first venture into repousse (save a 30 minute lesson six months earlier). While they are on the impressionistic side rather than realistic, but I actually think that rather suites the design. I created the band using resists cut on my cricut and etching. The design featured elements for her arms as well as symbols of the principality and kingdom. The band was riveted into a circle, then lightly shaped. While playing around with the leaf design, I really liked the way it looked with the wire frame around the leaf and decided to add it to all the leaves, not just the center one as originally planned. To attach each leaf unit to the band, I soldered them to a screw on rivet and drilled holes in the band for attachment. I mocked it up and was in love. I tried and tried to add the additional vines and jewels that were planned, but it simply looked way too busy. As her Highness had requested not to see the final work until the viscounty ceremony, she delegated to a couple advisors to look at pictures and help decide if the adjusted design would suit her, the happy squeal produced by her mother was agreement enough. Her Excellency, Viscountess Tuathflaith is very pleased the result.
Baronial Coronet
In May 2023 I was awarded a court barony in the West Kingdom. Shortly after than I was selected to become the next baroness of the Barony of Rivenoak, so I was kinda pressed on time if I wanted to enjoy being unlanded before stepping up as a landed Baroness. I decided cut and etched brass was the way to go if I wanted to actually get to wear this thing before it had a two year hiatus. I opted for a hinged panel design and got to work. Using the extremely historical methods, I got to work. First the basic design was set on the computer, then I used my Cricut to cut both templates for the panels and resists for the etching. Second was many much hours with a jewelry saw, followed by applying then resists designs. The panels then went into the ferric chloride solution for etching (I put them all in together, lesson learned, I should etch in a single layer, or you get imprints of the stacked pieces). The panels were cleaned up via sanding and polishing, then fitted together and the end tabs bent into hinges. I used ceramic beads on the end of short lengths of wire as the hinge pins. Next I made padding using a rolled piece of quilt batting covered in linen and secured it by stitching around the hinge points.
tellina makes 