2018 Wk 35 - Dalwyn don't look

I don't think my friend Dalwyn stalks these pages, but so, now is the time to go away!

I have completely finished the stole - and checked the length against my vicar (seen modelling it here) and it looks about spot on - thank goodness!  Thank you Colin for being a guinea pig!

I had done some test stitchouts (the triangle cross and the celtic cross) on some spare green linen, so I have added a few other logos (North Bedfordshire circuit, where he will be working, St Anne's broken cross for the university where he studied, and logos for the two Windsor schools that he taught at).  Placement isn't brilliant, but it makes a fun cushion!

I've also been making pencil / make up cases for colleagues at work - a few belated birthdays, one early birthday and two leaving pressies (plus an excuse to play with Lizzie's font library!)

 Hope you are all having fun!

2018 Wk 22 Old Men and New Babies

I'm taking part in the Untangled Thread art project commemorating the end of WW1.  The pin cushions are based on an original design which was used at occupational therapy for wounded solders and they made something they could send to their mum or their sweetheart. 

We don't know much about Brian's granddad, but we know a Henry Channer was enlisted in 1916, and we know Granddad was known as Harry.  He married Rose in 1923, so it may have been him, so I (with help from Lisa and Niki) stuck a couple of hundred pins through the same number of beads to make this

We have had a spate of babies amongst neighbours and friends: A neighbour who used to babysit our girls when they were little has moved back in a few doors away from her mum and dad, and had baby William

Another neighbour has become a Grandmother to baby Amelia Rose.  I just need to finish the binding on these and I can deliver them

And Jackie has become a Granny again with baby Leah (but her quilt is being delivered in ten days so I'm not showing it here yet!)

My old boss and friend Dalwyn starts his new career as a Methodist minister in the autumn and I was delighted to be asked to make a stole for him.  Just in the draft stage at the moment but the stained glass rainbows have been posted to him to look at - does he want near solid or solid colours

And does he prefer hand stitched binding or twin needle stitched on the sewing machine?

My step mum sent me a memory box from my father's belongings:

I remember the hat - or one like it - he always wore one when he was sailing

Brian was really happy with the plane (bottom right)

A whole set of nautical flags will look great as bunting in the garden - really cheerful!

 Some photos of him, and of me from childhood

And my favourite of all - lots of photos of the girls that I have sent him over the years - all had been propped up on book shelves or stuck on walls!

Crafty Saturday (part two: The Church)

 The Craft Session in church was only decided on Wednesday, so I knew that this month I would be on my own.  I started on the restoring of some old stoles, and did a little bit of hand sewing.  The vicar mentioned it in church today, and I think there will be a number of us next month (19th Feb if you are around!)

(St Michael's Church, Horton, between Heathrow airport and Windsor castle)

 The first stole, pale green) has a perished lining.  The original was probably silk (it feels like lining material, burns rather than melts, and tears very easily along the weft or warp) and has now been removed

 The second stole is cream and again the (probably) silk lining has perished so I have removed it.

• I need to re-line these two, but don't have the knowledge or skills to know whether I should use silk again, or lining material, or cotton or linen, or something else.  
• Also should I cut it straight or on the bias?  
• I presume I do a sort of needle turn applique (but I'll be turning a good inch or so under so I have some expectation that it will stay until it's stitched down.)

 This third, claret, stole is in great condition, but someone had added this rather naff piece of lace at the neck ... so I removed it

 

 (that makes one restored stole right?)

 

 This purple stole (below) is the biggest worry.  I have removed the lining although it wasn't too bad, but the purple fabric has worn in places;  

If I put the stole on me, the worn areas are at the same height, about lower chest height.  I am guessing a previous vicar habitually grasped the stole while he was preaching?  I guess I could make that part of the front narrower, but the embroidered section isn't that far away from the worn section, and is quite wide.  I could border it with bias binding, but I think that will look naff, and could result in someone taking it off in 50 years wondering what idiot added it in the first place (see the claret stole, above LOL)

I am very open to suggestions, as I know I am working well above my ability here!

 Other naff  'improvements' I thought I'd share with you ... there are a number of square things (sorry don't know the right word) which hang on the front of the pulpit, and each one matches the alter cloth, and generally matches the stole that the vicar is wearing for that particular season.  These square thingies have Velcro on the back and get attached to a grubby piece of linen on the pulpit's lectern and hang down.

...WHO thought red Velcro was a good idea, and then made the middle section too short so the Velcro didn't even reach the square thingy???

Don't worry - I'm working on it.  Brian and I have a cunning plan!