Sacred Stitches

When you're a part of a small, mission congregation, everyone is called upon, at one time or another, to use their own abilities for the good of God's church. It truly does take a village! Only recently has our church decided that, in addition to Sunday morning worship, we'll be adding a Wednesday evening Vespers service, to include Holy Communion. This is a great thing! However, with limited resources the demand is still high to provide everything necessary for Holy Communion; this includes altar linens, which are laundered each week. Since we only have a very limited supply, naturally this will require increased inventory of needed items. I checked the church supply catalog and found the purificators (used as illustrated:)                                        

to be a bit cost prohibitive. I have white linen, and embroidery software, and the ability to stitch. I set to work. The best tutorial that I've found for mitering with inside, turned hems finished by hand was here.

The perfect, turned-under edges were easy and accurate with the use of Clover's Hot Ruler.

I can't rave enough over this tool (or any Clover notion, for that matter!); for me, this is a much used item in my ruler drawer, one that doesn't gather dust. 

Following the tutorial linked above will have you on your way to perfect, pointy, inside miters in no time! I sat and watched some Netflix while finishing the handwork on these. This is the backside ☝

And this is what shows on the front-side (before a trip to the ironing board and a thorough steaming). In some found snatches of time this week I was able to create two new complete sets of communion linens. There's no time like the present time 😌! Hopefully, these will fill a gap for a much-needed item at church. 

♰

You may not need to create purificators, but, this is a great skill to add to your repertoire! How about a hand-crafted set of napkins, tea towels or a tablecloth to give as a gift? You'll love the results if you follow along with the steps outlined here by Celebrate Creativity, it's easier than you may think; I promise! 

I entitled this post "Sacred Stitches", I suppose because of the creation of items used for a sacrament. But, if the truth were known, I almost feel like time spent sewing and creating, for whatever purpose, is sacred time to me; if not sacred, then it is certainly blessed! If I don't get it in some stitching time of some sort, every day, I can feel as though my soul isn't quite fed; do you feel the same way? 

Life is Good!

Genesis 1:20

"And God said, "let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures"..."

In preparation for a youth Sunday School lesson on Creation tomorrow I was reminded of this wallhanging done back in 2006. This was my assigned Bible verse on which to create a piece for a mixed media art show at church at that time. This piece was auctioned off, my sweet mother-in-law bought it, and it hung over her desk in the kitchen for many years. It came back to me after her death and it's been hanging in the closet here ever since. I'll take it to class tomorrow for a visual aid. I tried out all sorts of techniques in the creation of this one!

Sometimes it's fun to look back on our work. Using improvisational piecing for the background, I fused cut-out fish from different printed fabrics to that, tacked some free-form cut "seaweed" and covered it all over with tulle to secure the looser elements before quilting it with wavy swirls and, finally, added glass bead bubbles over the surface. If memory serves I had a rough plan but changed, modified and embellished this as I went along, flying by the seat of my pants. We're going to talk about that in Sunday School tomorrow- creating. Certainly God had a plan for His Creation; we might think that we do too, rough or otherwise in whatever we create. My name might be on the back of this wallhanging but who is the true Creator here? What this lesson points out to me is that as God's divine creation, I can only share and do what He's designed me for. I'm never in control of the plan. Someone once said that "man makes plans, God laughs". What peace there is in the faith to know who's really in charge of the grand plan! 

Life is Good!