Vigil Book for Heather Rose

I was asked to create a girdle book cover for a vigil book. It was my first request for a vigil book, and I was very excited!
Christina Jenevra de Carvalhal created the book itself, and very kindly gave me very detailed directions on how to make a girdle book. Up to this point I had only made your more generic book cover.

The linen that Jenevra chose was very nice to embroider on, although the positioning required by a girdle book was a little bit of a pain. It needed to be right near the bottom to make use of the selvage edge.

I was in a rush for this one, so progress pictures didn't happen with any regularity.

The border is whipped chain stitch with satin stitch hearts. This was very difficult to keep straight in the hoop, but I mostly succeeded. The laurel wreath is also satin stitch. The device is done in split stitch with satin stitch rabbits. I then outlined the hearts and outside lines in gold passing thread. With that done it still looked like something was missing, so I added some very non period flourishes with gold purl. The pieces are a little long, so I'm not entirely sure how some of them will hold up to hard use.

I had measured the the front of the book before starting the embroidery, but it still ended up just a smidge taller than the book. Luckily, on a girdle book that's less of a problem. If this were a normal book cover with the top and bottom folded down, I would have had to do some reworking.

One thing that I didn't think about until it was almost too late was that the book needed a closure of some sort. Jenevra's directions were very clear about designing the embroidery to take a closure into account, but of course I didn't look at those until the embroidery was all done. I ended up braiding some matching floss and attaching it at the spine. It's not the fanciest closure, but it does do the job.
The actual covering of the book could certainly have gone smoother, despite the excellent directions. Part of my trouble was just time crunch, but the rest was a learning experience.

Congratulations, Heather!