Muff - Complete

Completed Muff

This muff was made completely by hand with the exception of piecing some of the fur together by machine. This seam is virtually undetectable and is only there because of the nature of the fur I used, being re-purposed from an old coat and thus the shape was awkward to use.

Back side of Muff

Trims used were an elaborate goldwork vine on black velvet, layered with yellow braid, all used from my stash.

Close-Up of closures.  Black enamel and gold buttons from my stash

What the muff looks like when there's something in it

Close-Up of loops

Loops were made from cotton embroidery floss with a lucet. While lucet weaving is speculative during this period, it was almost certainly used in the Viking age based on archeological finds of bone and bronze lucet tools. No extant lucet cords exist. Other cording techniques were commonly used such as fingerloop braiding, plaiting, etc, with similar looking results, so I feel confident that the overall look and feel of my loops are accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucet
http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Lucet

Fully lined in faux fur

I used faux fur simply because of how cost prohibitive real fur can be, particularly since my modern beliefs lean toward only using vintage fur rather than something new. I would have had to use different needles should it have been real, but otherwise the sewing techniques remained accurate to sewing real fur.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this turned out, though if I were to do it again, I would have used an interlining out of canvas or trigger to give the tufted brocade a stiffer hand. This is purely because the goldwork trim makes the edges have a very stiff hand and so the non-trimmed areas contrast more than I'd prefer.