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!

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...!)

Mystery Saint, Opus Anglicanum restoration Part 2

One of the most satisfying things about restoring something ancient, is when the original intention of the artist, which may have been made obscure through time due to disintegration of the original, or poor restoration, can be brought to the light again.

Here will be detailed the finding of the "Mystery" Saint between the two prophets on the front Orphrey of the Opus Anglicanum.
It was obvious that this figure was a Saint, since he had a halo. He held a tome in one hand, but the other raised arm had no visible hand, and seemed to be holding a large lozenge shaped object, which was impossible to identify as any saintly attribute.

Having studied many other images of Opus Anglicanum Saints juxtaposed with Prophets, it was concluded that it would be likely to be an Apostle, but which one?
Since the embroidery was heavily restored in these areas - as could be seen by the amount of newer threads coming through to the back of the later lining, as well as the poor quality of workmanship, especially in the face - the embroidered lines delineating the eyes nose and mouth were positioned very crudely - it was decided that the threads should be carefully removed, using tweezers, from the back.

The result was most surprising, and extremely gratifying to see..

Even though there was very little left of the original, the black outline threads were still in place, and the positioning of the features, beard and hair, could be easily worked out from them. What also could be seen was that he has a left hand holding the raised object, and from careful examination of where the original background threads had extended to, it could be seen that it was a short-handled curved blade of some sort.  This made the task of discovering who the saint was a lot easier.

Having researched typical attributes given to Apostles in the iconography of this period, it was deemed to be a flaying knife, and since St Bartholomew is frequently shown with this as his attribute,

St Bartholomew, from All Souls, Oxford.

the conclusion was that it is an embroidery of St Bartholomew.

With this in mind, the restoration was undertaken. The areas to be restored were quite extensive, so it was again deemed best to make a replica of the areas on hooped-up silk organza. Below, you can see the extent of the area which was to be covered, rather than sewing through the original canvas.

The restoration was completed in the same manner as described in the earlier blog posting Part One with the final result being like this.

Before

After

Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Opus Anglicanum Style.

This was a unique once in a lifetime project whereby I was asked to restore orphreys of Opus Anglicanum embroidery work, and re-mount them onto a newly made chasuble. The project is nearing completion, so I am showing a preview of the work on this fitting feast day!

Liturgical Vestments

I have been working on a set of vestments for a Priest lately.  He acquired it from seminary - I think it was in the "to be chucked unless anyone wants to save it" bin. It is a bit old and worn, but the silk is quite lovely, and certainly wasn't beyond repair. He likes it as a light travelling set, too. There were two stoles for some reason, but no maniple or burse; so the request was made to supply the missing items, and repair the chasuble from any fabric which could be gleaned from the spare stole.

This shows the spare stole (folded over on itself) and a spare burse

from which I took a pattern for the new one

The silk was shredding in places, mostly at the shoulders where the previous users had frequently handled it presumably whilst trying to position it correctly

It was also bad on the front where it got frequently rubbed, in the same sections on either side of the central panel. Below shows the left side, with the metallic trim unpicked and turned back. The colours of the silks had not faded much as can be seen from the fabric under the trim not being much different.

This was a blessing, because it meant that all the silk of the spare stole, even under the trim, could be used for the repairs and new items, since there wasn't a great deal of it to work with!

After spending some time working out how best to divide up the stole, I eventually managed to cut out the silk as in the above photo, which shows the pieces (including interlining and lining) for the small maniple, and the piece which will be used for the burse-cover (which is constructed from the two widest parts of the stole.) This also left two longish matching strips for the chasuble repair - not seen here.

By gently extracting threads from the fraying edges of the worn silk on the chasuble that were to be covered by the new panels from the stole, I then had matching silk thread that could be used for the repairs.

The threads had to be gently teased out until ones that were

long enough to sew with could be found.

Here are the two side panels with sections of new silk inserted, and the edging tape sewn back down.

Here are some photos of the finished chasuble and maniple, there's still work to be done on the burse and the Chalice veil which needed re-lining too.

It was pleasing to be able to get fabric patches that matched

the line of the patterning right across the Chasuble.

The metal edging tape was a bit too wide to make

a cross for this space, so a small cross was

machine-embroidered instead. 

A piece of the tape was cut into a cross-shape for the top

of the maniple, and satin-stitched into place.