Redwork coif project

[holyschist]

I've been working on a redwork Elizabethan coif project for a while now--my biggest embroidery project yet, and first real project that's not counted thread. I'm using Extreme Patterns' (attack_laurel) "Mary" pattern, available from Reconstructing History. To be honest, if I'd realized which piece it was based on, I probably would have bought a different pattern--maybe "Alice". It's a nice enough pattern, just not my favorite.

Anyway, I'm using linen fabric and Au Ver Au Soie's Soie Perlee (a twisted filament silk, which I ordered from Threadneedle Street). It's currently double-running/backstitch for the motifs and reverse chain for the scrolling vines (faster and easier for me to keep consistent than chain stitch, but basically indistinguishable). I may fill in some of the petals with detached buttonhole (or I may save that for a coif that's less of a Learning Experience than this one), and I'm definitely going to add gold spangles.

More photos (28 meters of thread so far) and musings on what I've learned at my journal.