Applique

So... I've been thinking about making a set of fabric heraldic barding
 

BNF Français 2695, folio 45v; collection of the National Library of France; Provence, around 1460

using applique... I know very little about it & nothing about how it was done in period... I was wondering if the hive mind had any pointers for me!

Calling metal geeks...

So how do you go about inlaying copper into iron?


Stirrup, 975–1075
Anglo-Scandinavian, possibly from southern England
Iron inlaid with copper alloy

10 x 5 1/2 in. (25.4 x 14 cm)
Fletcher Fund, 1947 (47.100.23)

Though the Vikings are best known as seafaring warriors, through contact with Europe they grew ever more adept as cavalrymen. Changes in stirrup design gave a tactical advantage in that they permitted a warrior to shift his weight onto the stirrups and thereby wield his weapons with greater height and force. This stirrup, decorated with a distinctive technique of iron inlay, is of a type found in England and may have been introduced in the renewed Viking attacks at the end of the tenth century.

Info from the Metropolitan Museum of Art