To complete my Order Of The Garter set I needed to have the arm band.Women have been members of The Garter since early days, as have foreign leaders. The Garters worn by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are owned by The Royal Collection and are described as densely studded with diamonds. Members traditionally wear a garter over the left knee where it would be visible while riding on horseback.
Victoria could not imagine anyone even thinking about her legs, so she wore the garter on her arm on the same shoulder as the sash.
Alice Chaucer was granted the honour of being made a Lady of the Garter, and her tomb was used centuries later by Queen Victoria to learn how a lady should wear the Garter insignia including the arm garter when Victoria was to wear the Garter herself at her coronation.
Her effigy was examined by Queen Victoria's commissioners in order to discover how a lady should wear the Order of the Garter, which she wears on her left wrist.
Me wearing the garter…
Supposedly Queen Victoria’s Order Of The Garter arm band I found on Pinterest and based it closely on it.
I used rhinestones for jewellery making, a soldering iron, solder and metal filigree to make the elaborate lettering and other additional details. To make the velvet base I used a belt cut down and dark blue velvet material.
To not make this post so long I’ve started taking pictures once I made the base which was pretty simple to make. I then started crafting the boarder gems which were two stones soldered together and I added a little point at the top.
I then covered almost the whole band with gemstones:
I then used filigree to cut out a flower shape. I used individual gemstones and soldered them onto the filigree.
Once all gems were stuck down I used a dogs nail grinder to smooth it out and get the shape I wanted. Of course I wore a mask as breathing in little bits of metal and solder isn’t good !
The original garter ( Both Victoria and Alberts garters have a 6 rhinestone flower which goes around the bar of the buckle )
I then created 3 of these and stuck them down.
( I made an additional flower at the top )
I had to attempt to make the tongue of the garters ornate design which became a real challenge and halted the process for a while.
After a while I was able to come up with an idea ( suggestions from friends on Facebook really helped )
I stuck it down and started making smaller outer gems with three tiny ones.
I moved onto lettering and started making additional flowers but a bit more pointy compared to the other four so I could place them in the middle of each word.
I then stuck everything down and had a long hard look to make sure I did not forget anything.
May I present you the finished product ! This project took 8 months on and off between college work and daily life.
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