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Designing vestments and paraments

 Last spring I had a visit to my studio by an Episcopalian priest from Minnesota in the USA.  We spent a lovely couple of hours looking at photographs of things I have made, fabrics that I use and discussing various making processes.  He was impressed with what he saw and left promising that he would be in touch when he had discussed possibilities with people back home.

I was surprised and delighted when he got in touch a couple of months later to ask if I would be willing to travel to Minnesota (at their expense) and visit their church - St Martin by the Lake, meet the congregation and come up with design proposals to make two sets of vestments and paraments.

In October I packed my suitcase with sketch pads, paints and pencils and got a flight to Minneapolis.   I was blessed with stunning autumn weather and the trees put on a magnificent display of reds and golds.


Whenever I am asked to make paraments and vestments for a particular location I always try to have conversations and look at photographs to get an idea of what would work in the space.  This usually happens with a combination of email correspondence and Zoom meetings.  What a joy it was to visit the church in person.   And the added bonus, I could be totally confident in the measurements as I was taking them myself.

The area the church serves has considerable Scandinavian influence and the building was designed in the 19th century with a nod to the traditional stave churches of Norway.

In December I concentrated on designing the purple set, including a zoom meeting with the team that had been put together to make decisions.  By Christmas they were happy with the design and in January I started work - painting silk, weaving fringes, doing the embroidery and then putting everything together.  Ash Wednesday was early this year, so it was a tight schedule, but everything was wrapped up and ready to send by the end of the month and arrived in the USA with a couple of days to spare.

Everyone seemed to be delighted with what I had done and I was invited to give a short presentation to the congregation covering both the design choices and the making process.  This was done via Zoom and it took the form of a 16 minute video, which I share with you here.



Such was their enthusiasm that I was encouraged to go ahead and make the requested red set.   The work for that was done in April and I just made it in time to reach them for Pentecost.   Here is the video presentation that I gave them to explain the symbolism on this set.


Of course, I don't need to visit a church to make things for them, but it certainly was a delight to visit Minnesota.  But don't worry if you can't afford my travel expenses - I am more than happy to work remotely - WhatsApp video calls, Zoom and email all make quite satisfactory means of communication, so do let me know if you are inteseted in commissioning. - email embroidery@angelforce.co.uk

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