Two types of Frontal

Why am I always completing tasks in a rush?

Two weeks ago I was asked, if it were at all possible, and if I didn't have too much on, if I could make some Baptismal Bibs for a set of quads who were to be Baptised today, Low Sunday. I had lots of other things to do, not to mention trying to prepare spiritually for Easter, but being a sucker for babies I couldn't help but push them to the top of the queue. I kept them simple with a Baptismal Shell and 3 drops of water plus the name of each child. Made from fine cotton lawn with a woven sateen stripe through it, interlined with towelling, and backed with soft cotton Tee shirting, they should hopefully provide the Godparents with plenty of stuff to mop up any tears/dribbles of joy on the big day!

Those were one type of frontal...
Having moved most of our house just before the Easter break, I am now stuck between two residences, one in Shropshire, the other in Oxfordshire, where my husband's job is. My main sewing equipment is in Shropshire, but we were going to be attending the Triduum at our parish in Reading, so when our Parish Priest came up to me with a hopeful look in his eye, at the beginning of Holy Week and said "The fabrics we ordered for the altar frontals have arrived" and plonked them in my arms .... since I knew that it wasn't his fault that the supplier had taken soooo long to send the silks from Spain, (he had hoped for a Lenten set) …. how could I refuse to at least attempt to make a new Tabernacle veil and Frontal by Easter? One main problem was that all my liturgical trims and backing linens were now in Shropshire. My poor long-suffering husband offered to drive me back up there so I could get the things made. (I was trying to get another Priest's lacey alb restored too, so I thought if I sat in the back of the car I'd be able to spend the journey time hand-stitching it...a most headache-inducing experience..)To my horror, once we had arrived, and I'd sorted out the trims, and backing cloth, I couldn't find the frontal fabric anywhere.  That was because it was sitting in the boot of my car on the drive in Oxfordshire. So, with no time to relax, and having reminded my dear husband that his suffering was no-where near what Our Lord had to suffer for us (even though my dearest was probably thinking, at least Jesus didn't have to put up with a dumbo wife...) we made sure I had everything I needed to complete the sewing, and set back down South. At least the Oxfordshire house is now almost empty, so plenty of floor-space to lay out altar frontals, although trying to sew large items at a very small kitchen table was a bit of a challenge.
It was worth it when I managed to get them to the Church on Holy Saturday afternoon to try them on, seeing the chuffed look on the PP's face when he noticed it after coming out of the Confessional!

I'll have to tweak the bottom right corner before I take some better photos, where the tabernacle veil can be seen too, but it certainly added to the beauty of the Liturgy at this most Holy time of the Year!

Resurrexit, Sicut Dixit! Alleluia!

Now the Purple one can wait for a bit, but I've got no excuse to not get the red set ready by Pentecost...apart from that Wedding dress I should be getting on with....

Out of the Fire, Into new Life!

One of our FSSP Priests had a habit of rescuing things that were to be burnt, because nobody wanted them. This deep purple velvet Chasuble was one of those things, which he saved the day before it was due to go on the bonfire!!! He asked if I could do anything with it, and the decision was made that the front and back central panels could be conserved, and mounted onto a new Chasuble, which is what I did.

(There's a burn hole in the velvet)

Our Parish said it would donate the cost of the work to him as a leaving present, so it has been a bit of a nagging thing with me, since he left several months ago. I had been rather snowed under with wedding dresses etc. in the summer, and as it was a time-consuming job to a) find a matching purple velvet,  which Father wanted to be a silk velvet, and b) sew said silk velvet which has a life of its own, and is not really suited to nice stiff roman vestments and  d) to locate a matching gold metallic trim, I eventually promised him I'd get it done by Advent.  It took a long time to find a silk velvet that matched well enough, (it's amazing how few silk velvets are available, and how many different purples are out there!) so I was pleased that the one I eventually plumped for was a really good match.

Phew, just managed to get it delivered this week...

The goldwork is beautiful, imagine burning that!

Father was very pleased with the result, little realising what a tricky job it was. Please don't anyone else order a silk velvet chasuble from me.....at least, not for a year or so 'till I recover.

Of Mice and Milk!

A wee while ago I was ̶r̶o̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶  politely requested to help out with a girls' Summer Camp being run by our FSSP seminarians.  I was merely asked to do one afternoon of sewing...with 21 girls! Not being a teacher, (I really don't think home-educating one boy counts!) and realising that there would not be any sewing machine facilities for all of them (even if I brought my collection of 6 machines along!) I was rather daunted by the prospect. After all, I can thread a needle, and do a bit of hand-stitching when   ̶a̶b̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶e̶l̶y̶  necessary, but to spend a whole afternoon teaching girls to hand sew was going to be well outside of my comfort zone. Nonetheless, after googling some simple hand sewing ideas, and madly trying them out myself, to make sure they were achievable in the time allotted to us, I ventured forth, and I have to say, an enjoyable time was had by all.

I chose three main projects, a zip and ribbon purse, which mainly involved a lot of straight stitching, to hold the ribbon to the zip, but with a bit of clever going round the corners, which made it into a purse once the zip was done up:-

Of course, nearly all the teenagers wanted to do this one, but they had to be competent stitchers if they were to get through the amount of sewing needed to finish the project, and fortunately most of them did manage to do so.

The simplest task was to make a ring pin-cushion as this only needed one line of gathering stitches to pull the circle of fabric up to make (once it was stuffed) a little ball that could be glued into the "ring" made from a bottle cap and elastic.

This shows one of the girls very seriously studying her pin-cushion ring! whilst the lassie behind

is furiously finishing off the nose on her mouse!

 And the third project was to make a mouse pin cushion. I had cut out all the pieces necessary so the girls just had to sew and stuff them, and finish off the eyes tails and nose. I was pleased that the girls all seemed quite keen to achieve something, even the ones who had obviously never done any sewing before, and I was glad that I stayed overnight, as many who hadn't quite managed to finish in the afternoon were still requesting my help the next day. For those who wanted simpler tasks there were bookmarks and little purses or stuffed shapes to make too.

When we came down to breakfast, Father was blaming the mice who had been sitting on the mantelpiece for the fact that the milk supplies were rather low! (But I'm sure they were innocent!)

All in all, it was quite a good learning experience for me, (hand sewing isn't so bad, after all!) and I do hope it inspired a few girls to take sewing further.

And especial thanks goes to the helpers who were with me that day, as I know I couldn't have managed such a big class all alone.