Blue Velvet - Part Deux !!

The Coronation Outfit

I kind of knew what to expect for the coronation shirt, but I was amazed when I finally got it in hand. Again, we used the same materials as the HOH shirt, but Andrea had couched gold cord around the collar and sleeve openings (the jury is out on whether or not Faramir's movie costume had silver or gold couching. We decided to go with the gold couching on the tunic) and had hand-sewed a gold sequin and a ruby glass bead at every intersection. Wow! The tunic itself was made of silk velvet (as opposed to the cotton velvet of the HOH outfit) and had the most incredible 3D embroidery and beadwork. I know she was looking high and low to get trim as close to the original as possible, and looking at the results, I think she did a stupendous job!

AMAZING, ISN'T IT????

But what about the mantle???

This was a tricky bit of work (and this was done before the Phantom cloak, mind you) since the lining of the mantle was silk and it would literally slide off the armor. After considering sewing in pockets to place magnets in, we came up with sewing in a couple of d-rings and then attaching them via the leather laces on the pauldron connectors. This would require some very accurate placement of the mantle over the armor and marking the spots for the d-rings. I couldn't send the armor down to Virginia, but Andrea could send the unfinished mantle to me! There was quite a bit of gyration and double-stick tape involved, but I eventually marked off the appropriate spots and sent the cloak back to be completed. As with the couching on the sleeves, there was no consensus as to what the embroidery on the mantle was - gold and silver, or just silver. We decided for a "mithril looking" silver floral trim to complete the look. (For the curious, that's a wetsuit hanger...)