Is Hawaii East or West of here?

 I recently had the pleasure of working with an Orthodox Priest in Hawaii, who wanted a phelonion (Orthodox version of a chasuble to us Western Rite people) in Sarum, or Lenten Array. It's now officially time for him to put it away, as it is their Easter Sunday today, I think. So Happy Easter to (Orthodox) Hawaii, and here's some pics of the phelonion. 

(This one was pretty similar to a gothic style chasuble from the back, but cut shorter at the front, as is usual for a phelonion.) The stole and cincture are much wider, also. Made from pure linen, with red silk orphreys, and lining.

Here is Father using it during Lent.

I'm sure something much more splendid was worn for Easter!

Ordination Gifts delivered!

So the ordinations took place last Friday, in the Traditional Rite, with Bishop Egan doing the honours, and I feel very blessed to have attended such a momentous event. The stole, mentioned in the previous post, was gifted to one of the new Priests, Fr. Philomeno who, I am told, said "Mamma Mia!" on receipt of it, and was delighted to receive it. The other embroidery was of St Philomena, appropriately!

 I also made a similar one for one of the other Ordinands, now Father Rosario, who has a rosary incorporated into the Marian monogramme embroidery on one side of the stole,

and Royal St. Joseph on the other, to whom he, and all the Friars have a great devotion.

Again, it is reversible...I hope to get some better pictures of this one being worn, before too long!

Amazing What One can Do with a Few Scraps!

I have been working on a special ordination gift that some friends of a chap who is about to be ordained wanted made. They are not wealthy folk, and I offered to make something in a "budget" range, but when I looked through my scraps of liturgical leftovers, considering what a special occasion it's for, my artistic soul, which really only wants to use the best, plumped for some special scraps. It is to be a Preaching Stole, and I've used cloth of gold for the front, and a beautiful purple and gold silk for the back, in order to make it reversible.
I then had to decide on some appropriate embroideries, as the cloth of gold is a bit unexciting on its own, so I chose a Saint who is close to the ordinand's heart, and Our Lady of Guadalupe as he is also very actively Pro Life.
As the Ordination is not until next week, I shan't reveal all, until he receives his gift, but here's a sneak preview...

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....

Chalice Pall in need of Repair

This poor little Pall recently arrived looking in a bit of a sorry state, but so charming that it was well worth restoring. The lovely gold lace edging was falling off, and the silk was discoloured, and rather clumsily sewn down to the very grubby linen backing.

After taking it all apart, and removing the old linen and its tatty inner card, I managed to give the silk a gentle clean and re-mount it onto some white cotton. The gold trim was re stitched, using metallic thread, back onto the cotton to minimise the stress on the edges of the silk. I made a new linen pouch to hold some acid-free card. This was lightly stitched to the back of the cotton lining at the four corners, for ease of removal if it needs cleaning in the future.

It's now all ready for when it will next be used at Easter...just got to get through Lent first!

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.

Small things can make a Big difference.

I was recently requested by a Priest to make a new Monstrance cover for the Church he's just become Parish Priest for. He said the old one had a burn in it...(and it had been like that for years!!)

Not only that, but it might just have been one of the ugliest looking covers I've seen in my life - (even without the burn!) He wanted a more classic shape, and also requested a matching Pyx cover with a Eucharistic motif on it.

I digitised the motif, and it was machine-embroidered in gold thread.

 Both were lined in lovely deep red silk.

I think they turned out well, even if pretty much anything would have been better than the original!!

Father was very pleased with the result, and sent me a photo of it in action, as it were! I'm sure the Parish will be richly blessed with a Priest who cares about the small details.

Boy Bishop!

Here are some lovely photos of the dressing up clothes I recently sent off to the Pugin Centre & Shrine of St Augustine in Ramsgate..



First we have a Grey friar:-

Next we have the Gothic Chasuble I showed in an earlier post, with its accompanying maniple and stole:-

And finally, the Bishop's Mitre and Cope - good to see the Mitre stays on!!

I love the pious expression! Maybe he will be a Bishop one day!

Recent Shenanigans

Well, the busyness of the business has been taking over to the degree that I haven't managed to post anything much lately. So here's a random selection of what Zelie's Roses has been up to...

A winter wedding dress of pure silk

It started out as some very large circles - I am so grateful that I have my wonderful cutting room floor!

And became a very elegant flowing gown, with almost a 1940's feel...

Then to carry on the circles theme, I managed to make a couple of circle skirts for a little lady...

Who chose the teapot one for her first day back at school!

Whilst I'm also working on several altar frontals/tabernacle veils, I did manage to get this one made in time for Easter...

This was it being tried on for size, during Lent, hence the purple Tabernacle veil!

Oh yes, and somewhere in between all that I managed to pop in a set of vestments for the Shrine Church of St Augustine, and the National Pugin Centre. It included an Alb, Chasuble, Cope and Mitre.. as well as a Monk's habit. As it was to be a Pugin-esque Chasuble, I was very blessed to find just enough vintage orphrey banding to make it look sufficiently authentic....

You may well ask how I managed to do all that in such a short space of time, well, they are meant for children on their educational visits to the centre, so didn't have to be too perfectly finished, although I did spend time making sure they were robust! I hope to get some pictures of them all being modelled in the not too distant future.

And just as I thought I could settle down to some serious work on a real-life full-sized Chasuble that needs to be ready for an Ordination in June, a Bride to be in distress got in touch asking if I could make her a Wedding Mantilla Veil, as she hadn't been able to find anything big enough, and her Wedding was in two weeks' time! Happy to oblige, I fortunately had some lovely lace in stock so was able to come up with this...

Now, back to that Chasuble...(and the next Wedding dress I'm working on too...!)

Lenten Array

Haven't had much time for posting lately, as I've just finished a wedding dress, and then was asked to make a Lenten Chasuble and Dalmatic in time for Ash Wednesday. I didn't get a single photo of the wedding dress, so I'm hoping I'll get some from the Bride once she's settled in to married life!

I made sure I got some of the Lenten Array. It is quite unusual in Catholic Churches these days, but apparently it was an old English tradition to have very plain vestments from the beginning of Lent, then changing to violet for Passiontide.

I availed myself of my new "studio" cutting floor. It's great to have a large space to lay out swathes of pure Irish linen, and wonderful silk when making large items.

Although the linen is plain, with the red lining, and orphrey bands it does look quite striking.

Maniple burse and veil.

 Father asked for a Gothic style Chasuble, which is appropriate to the architectural style of his Church. This is the Church interior with its Lenten hangings for Altar and Tabernacle in place.

As Father offers Mass in both the Usus Antiquior, and the Novus Ordo, he needed a Dalmatic for the Deacon who assists on Sundays.

It was quite a tall order, since I only had about 3 weeks to get the fabric ordered, and make everything up - the hardest thing being that I needed to make up all the orphrey bands by cutting strips from the red silk lining fabric, and attaching the dice braid down each side - very time-consuming! Needless to say I was hand-finishing the items right up to Shrove Tuesday evening!

  Father Reads the Gospel on Ash Wednesday

Father descends the Altar at the end of Mass.

Now I've just got 2 chasubles to restore/make, three altar frontals, and two tabernacle veils, plus another wedding dress ... won't have much time to post for the near future!