Sacred textiles 1

Just before Christmas, I was thrilled and honored when a couple of people on the Memorial committee at church asked me a question.

‘Would you like to replace the worn out altar cloth, banner and side table runners in memory of Jim’s Mum?’

My first response was to burst into tears, while of course, saying yes! (I absolutely adored Mum, and it would be just wonderful to make something beautiful in her memory.)

There have been all kinds of conversations and emails and contemplations and musings about how to do this. It’s been such a neat process!

By the way: My sister in law told me that the ‘real name’ for sacred textiles is ‘antependia’ . Isn’t that neat?

Makes sense: ‘ante’ is Latin for ‘in front’ or ‘before’ and ‘pendia’ means ‘hanging’.)

I got all excited and proposed all kinds of neat ideas to the committee. The preliminary proposals were too exuberant and so I’ve toned it down and it feels mighty good now!

We’re still in the ‘thinking it through’ stages, but we’re almost there with it….. we think……

Here’s where it stands at this point…. my daughter, Chloe, a fiber artist extraordinaire, is going to sew the new velvet pieces…….

• I have sworn off sewing velvet for life –
• In my youth, I foolishly agreed to sew the bridesmaids dresses for someone that I didn’t know very well.
  
• The bridesmaid dresses were to be made in rayon velvet.
• Well, the dresses turned into a nightmare – the rayon velvet behaved VERY VERY B A D L Y

………….shudder………

• It was enough to make me swear off ever sewing for weddings, EVER eVeR EvEr again!!!!!!!
  
• and I also swore off sewing velvet.
  
• For life.
  
• That’s this lifetime
  
• and at least several more lifetimes.
  
• My life is a VELVET FREE zone.
• So, that means, I am not going to sew the velvet.

My brave and wonderful daughter is just fine with sewing velvet, bless her heart!

And I will weave bands that will -hopefully- match the vintage embroidered sections of the old pieces. The embroidery is going to be stitched onto the new panels.

Today, I was calculating lengths and warp and all that…. and am just about to start warping up my inkle loom.

I’ve been working on the draft for the pattern for the weaving, and will start working on a sample to see if it meets with the committee’s approval.

Hmmmmmmm…. I might warp up one of my other looms…

I only need to weave a short sample for the committee at this point…… hmmmmmmmm