Remy's Vigil Book - The Planning

Remy Delemontagne de Gascogne has a very late period, very French persona. When I was asked to embroider a vigil book for him I went on a quest for items that fit those two requirements.
I found that the Library of France had some gorgeous book covers in EXTREMELY high resolutions.
Seriously, go visit. I'll wait.
The three embroidered covers that they had were all appropriate to the Cavalier period that Remy prefers. They're a little late for more common SCA A&S, but the style and materials were not appreciably different.

http://reliures.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cdt9x1j51/?en

http://reliures.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cdt9xvg4/?en

http://reliures.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cdt9x1jmm/?er=2

The purple one to the left is from 1637 ended up being the main source of inspiration. The original design was something that I knew I could add personalization to without too much effort, and without losing the original feel of the piece.

I knew that I needed to add the Order of Defense symbol. I also knew that I wanted to replace the religious imagery in the center with Remy's device. Other ideas that I floated around included the Musketeer symbol, the Carolingian heraldry, and the Carolingian Caliver's eagle. In the end, only the eagle made it into the design.


Both Carolingia and Remy have blue as their primary heraldic color, so I went on a search for blue velvet. I managed to get my hands on some amazing velvet scraps from fabric that had been used to create coronation garb for Thyra II and Edward III.
Similarly to previous velvet based projects, I stretched linen onto my frame and then basted the velvet on top of that so it could be stretched without being crushed. Then I traced the design onto parchment paper and basted that onto the velvet. I knew this would eventually result in the painful process of removing the paper, but it is so much easier to get the initial design down this way.
I tried to place the design so that I could use the selvage edge to make the covering process easier. This mostly worked, but I ended up with a book slightly larger than expected, so the end cover is just a smidge too small, and has a tendency to fall off. This is, luckily, a thing that can be fixed.