Embroidered Prayer Book Cover

A couple of years ago I decided my prayer book hymnal really needed a cover.  It's my every Sunday prayer book with all our services and hymns so it gets quite a bit of use.  And it's always been a bit fragile ever since Bullett ate it when he was a puppy.  A bookbinder friend repaired it for me but there was nothing to be done about the missing pieces of binding.  Anyway, I decided to do an embroidered cover for it.  The background fabric is a navy blue satin weave fabric that has a nice subtly turquoise iridescence in person. 

I was inspired by the voided monograms over on Needle n Thread (my favorite embroidery blog).  I marked out some faint outlines and started stitching!   It's all worked in standard cotton embroidery floss, mostly with two strands at a time.  

I hadn't really been working on it for several months, but during the stay-at-home orders this spring, I worked on it through many many zoom meetings, so I was able to make lots of progress.

The embroidery wraps around the back, mostly flowers and vines and leaves, but a there are a few small butterflies and dragon flies, as well as a slightly larger bird and mouse.

This is the completed embroidery.  The words around the edge come from one of our Eucharistic prayers and are meaningful to me.

Here's a close up of the bird.  He's pretty small, about 2.25" long.  My shading could use some improvement, but I think he came out cute!

The mouse is about the same size.  I was using all stash thread, so didn't have quite as many colors for the shading as I'd have liked but cute all the same!

And here it is turned into the book cover.  The Chi Rho isn't quite centered on the front, I actually think that element was a bit too big overall, but otherwise I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  Of course, now I have an embroidered prayer book cover with many many many hours of embroidery-  in retrospect probably not the best choice for such an oft used book that goes in and out of my choir bag with such regularity, but it makes me happy to have something so pretty to cover such an important book.

I Like #172

Welcome to another week of things to like.  This week for me was mostly a getting-back-to-the-routine week, going to work and going back home.  Our COVID cases are spiking here (as in many places), but I don't mind staying home so its ok with me.  I continue to be flabbergasted by resistance to common protective measures like masking and social distancing, around here, but I think people are slowly (too slowly) getting better about it.


I really liked these balls on the trees outside my lab building.  I have no idea what they are, but they have really cool shape and texture.

I haven't felt particularly motivated or inspired to work on any big art quilt projects (I need to start something new and am struggling) but I've been working away on smaller projects, including these embroideries for the summer reading and stitching club being organized by Mollie Johanson of Wild Olive.  

Each week the embroidery is inspired by a classic children's book.  This week I stitched this one (inspired by the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) which prompted me last night to get out and re-read the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia.

And I stitched this one, inspired by the book "All of a Kind Family".  This was the only book so far I hadn't read as a kid, so I checked out the audiobook from the library.  It turned out to be super charming!  It's about a Jewish family with five daughters living in New York City in the early 1900s.  There are five I think, and thus far I have listened to two of them.  They have something of the same style as Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables, except for the city setting.  They're pretty short, but I've been enjoying them.

My mom brought me these vinyl decals when she was out a couple of weeks ago; they were quite old, I think they were from my uncle who probably got them to put on his nursery or something.  But apart from a few discolored areas, they were still fine! I stuck them on the outside of my studio building and they add some more color.  They're right next to all my flower beds, it's my favorite part of the yard.

We had terrible terrible thunderstorms this week and several of my dahlias got completely broken, but there are quire a few that made it through, so I gathered up another bunch of dahlia blossoms and took them to one of our admins at work.

This week I blogged about the current state of my liturgical quilt series,  it was really cool to see the progress all in one place.  You can check it out here.  This quilt is an older one from that series.

The pups are doing fine, just no new pictures of them this week.  I did find out what those weird black cup things were in my flower bed, apparently they're birds nest fungus, and grow on decomposing organic matter.  Mystery solved!

I hope everyone is staying safe this week, click on over to Lee Anna's for more things to like!

Liturgical Series

I've been working on a series of quilts inspired by the style of illuminated manuscripts featuring the parts of the Episcopal liturgy, and in particular the service of Holy Eucharist since about 2012.  I'm a cradle Episcopalian, and the rites of the church are a source of great strength and meaning for me.  I'm nowhere near finished with the series, but I think I'm about halfway through so it seemed like a good time for a formal post and stock taking.The service of Holy Eucharist has lots of parts, and of course you can always keep adding, but this is my current vision.

The order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist has the following main parts with lots of subparts in the traditional rites we commonly use.

Gather in the Lord's Name
There is an opening acclamation and then a song of praise or Gloria.  My piece for this section features the text of the Gloria Patri (Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever).  That text isn't actual in the typical Sunday Eucharist celebration, but is in all of the daily offices (e.g. morning prayer, evening prayer, compline) and fits the theme.

Gloria Patri, 2015, 31" x 35"

Proclaim and Respond to the Word of God
This usually involves an Old Testament reading, a reading from the Psalms, a New Testament reading and a Gospel reading.

So far I have a piece depicting one of my favorite passages from Psalms (Psalm 121) as well as a common acclamation that often preceded prayers or Bible passages in illuminated manuscripts.

in Nomine Patris, 2013, 29" x 24"

This next piece isn't technically part of the series, it's just a Christmas quilt I made.  I included it since it is in fact from the Gospel.  However, I'll likely do at least one more here for the Gospel,  probably based on the first part of the Gospel of John (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.)

Rejoice, Rejoice, 2012, 39" x 39"

Following the sermon, the congregation recites the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith highlighting the holy trinity.  I just finished this quilt most recently.

I Believe, 2020, 61" x 40"

Pray for the World and the Church
The Universal Church, its members, and its mission, the Nation and all in authority, the welfare of the world, the concerns of the local community, those who suffer and those in any trouble, and the departed.  I still need to do a piece for this section.

This section is followed by the confession of sin.  The piece I made for this section was a little different than the others, I wanted to incorporate my own handwriting as it was such a personal prayer.  Unfortunately, I later sold this piece.  It sold to an Episcopal Cathedral in California so I know it has a good home, but I regret not having kept it so the series could live together.  I may make another one for the confession and I may not.

Confession, 2017, 38" x 38"

Exchange the Peace
This is such an important part of the service.  In practice it feels just like a time to greet everyone, shake hands or hug (or not anymore), but I think it's an overall representation of the breadth of our community throughout the world.  I made this piece which says "Peace be with you (the greeting) And also with you (the response)".  This design was inspired by some beautiful Arabic calligraphy.

Peace Be With You, 2015, 50" x 48"

Offertory
This is the time when the collection basket is passed, but also a time to meditate on other ways to serve the community.  It's also the time in the service when the choir sings a choral anthem, and music is such an important part of worship for me that I'll definitely make a piece here.

Prepare the Table and Make the Eucharist
The Eucharistic prayers and the Great Thanksgiving are the prayers that are involved in preparing for Holy Communion.  There are several different versions, and my favorite is the "sci-fi" version,  "At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home."  My piece for this section was inspired by evolution, beginning with the galaxies and suns and planets and working around the borders through the evolution of life on earth, and ending with Darwin's finches in my own garden of Eden with favorite scientists in the initials.

Eucharistic Prayer C: Convergence, 2016, 45" x 60"

The Great Thanksgiving is followed by the Lord's Prayer, and my piece for this section features a musical setting composed by my beloved friend Linda Kelly.

Our Father, 2019, 73" x 53"

Break Bread
I still need to make a piece for this section of Communion.


The service ends with a post-communion prayer, blessing, and dismissal.  I'm in the process of designing a quilt based on the prayer of St. Chrysostom which will probably be the closing piece here.

I Like #171

I turned 40 last week and my parents, sister, and the kids came to spend the long weekend with me.  It was really the very very best adult birthday I've ever had.  It was so wonderful to have my family here with me, such a blessing.  We didn't go anywhere or do anything exciting, but just being all together was great.  We stayed at home and ate/cooked delicious food, baked tasty treats, played lawn games (when it wasn't a million degrees), did craft projects, did a few home improvement projects, played board games, did sparklers, and had squirt gun fights. 

It started on Thursday when Becky and my folks arrived with a balloon and honking and sign bearing parade.  The kids made this fantastic sparkly pink sign they put on the camper, and now I have it in my garage.  Becky put up all kinds of fun decorations in my house too. I think they ran out of space for "is"  So sweet.

Becky brought me a tasty homemade birthday cake, and when we'd finished that, I made a cake and the kids decorated it for Fourth of July.

Mom helped everyone to make pom pom animals.  This is Alex's mouse.

The pups got lots of extra snuggles and were sad the last couple of days to be back in a one-person household.

Mom brought a game called ladder ball, you toss these things that are two balls connected by a short rope at a ladder thing.  You get points for looping it around the ladder. I am completely terrible at this game.  Mom is great.  Becky is great. The kids are pretty good.  But I'm terrible.  Dad was also pretty terrible but I was just really glad that we got him to play at all. 

One of my birthday presents was this teddy bear from my sister.  She's been making them for all our family members using shirts from my two grandfathers who have passed away.  Each bear also gets a unique "accessory",  my bear got a kite.  That's particularly special because flying kites was something we used to do with my Grandpa Wilbur.  The kite is even more fun because on the back of it is a grandmother's flower garden block stitched by my great-great-grandmother.

My great-great grandmother (my grandpa Kit's grandmother) was named Mollie Mae McBride Kittrell and my sister is named after her.  She was born in 1856 and although I never knew her (obviously) I do have a couple of pictures.  In the second one, my grandfather is the youngest little baby there.  She left a partially pieced grandmother's flower garden quilt that my mother finished several years ago, and some of the fabrics from it were from clothes my grandpa wore (and remembered) from when he was a little boy.  Really special. 

There was a box of her extra fabrics and extra flowers that didn't go into the final quilt, and my mom brought those to us this past weekend.  My sister kept one to include on my bear, but most of the loose flower blocks are now in my studio.  Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate them into an art quilt sometime in future.  One of the other things that was in the box of her piecing was this partially stitched sunbonnet sue.  I was so excited to see it,  it's just so hard to imagine having something an ancestor was working on around sometime around the turn of the last century.  Fantastic.  I'm not sure what I'll do with Sue yet,  but I'll finish her somehow and incorporate her into a project.  It's such a privilege to have so much family history, and so many well-labeled photographs.  

It's been a really great week here, of course everything is getting nutty with the virus again so I'm definitely staying at home and it's sort of empty now that people have left, but it was great to have such a bright week amid what's been a pretty crazy few months.  I hope you are all hanging in there; click on over to LeeAnna's for more things to like this week!

I Like #170

I was camping last week, and of course this week I'm way behind posting,  but better late than never!

Lots to like this week.  We were able to stay away from people on our camping trip and enjoyed being outside together.  My folks are here now to celebrate my birthday with me, and I'm excited by that too.

The badlands were beautiful.  All the visitors centers were closed, but we stopped and got a picture in front of the sign anyway.  It reminded me of Bryce Canyon NP, only more washed out in color. 

These two were taken right before sunrise.

The caves at Wind Cave NP and Jewel Cave NM were both closed (As well as visitors centers), but that meant we got great hiking at those places too and no people.  The best thing about Wind Cave was the prairie dogs.  Hundreds and hundreds all over the place.   And there were so many beautiful wildflowers blooming, tons of which were completely new to me.  Really unexpectedly gorgeous.  Unfortunately we got a few ticks, but mostly on my dad who wandered off the trail to take some pictures.  We got them all off, but you always worry that there's one still hitching a ride somewhere....

We hiked a couple of days in Custer State Park and that was lovely too.  All in all a wonderful trip.  This cool giant bug landed on my dad!  Of course he was trying to get us to brush it off, but we all had to take a picture first.

And I came home to snuggly pups super excited to see me and fantastic flowers.  I was weeding the flower bed when I got back and found these funny black sphere-filled bowl things.   They were in the flower beds down in the dirt and were pretty small but all over.  Does anyone know what they are?

  I've also been happy to see more people around here wearing masks, I hope that trend will continue.  I hope everyone is hanging in there and finding things to like!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more goodness!