This one is for my petite deacon friend. Deacons in the Episcopal Church are directed by the Bishop who manages multiple churches or parishes. Deacons are sent to a church for a few years and then sent to another church. Their assignments are very unlike those of priests who are selected by the parishioners.
Often they are unpaid. Ours is unpaid. Another deacon friend is quick to remind that deacons are not required to work for free. But, in my experience, they do. So it is a real commitment, often accompanied by a paid *day job,* to keep the family afloat.
When a deacon arrives at a new church, she (or he) may have her own vestments, but given that abysmal pay situation, they typically rely on the vestments on hand at the assigned church. Those vestments have to serve a variety of shapes and sizes over the years. So a very petite deacon faces a challenge.
Our stoles dragged on the ground. Initially I tried to take them up for her. But I decided that this was more difficult than making her one to keep. It is not easy to make such a fine piece convertible from one size to another. And our next deacon may be 6 foot 6!
She already had her own stole for *ordinary* times, a green one worn for most of the liturgical year, as well as a white one for special holidays like Christmas, Easter and baptisms. I offered to make her one for advent, traditionally a beautiful clear blue worn during the month of December.
The easy part was the pattern. I just traced one of her existing stoles onto pattern tissue and added seam allowances. There were 3 challenges for me: finding the right fabric in the right color, creating the motif(s) on the stole, and matching fringe at the bottom.
Gail K in Atlanta is my go-to store for most planned projects. I imagined I could find some beautiful blue silk to use, maybe dupioni. Of course they had a zillion silks in shades of blue but nothing in a clear true blue.
I found a very expensive wool fabric in the perfect shade. I kept circling the store avoiding it until finally, I picked it up and took it to the cutting table. After all, I only needed a yard. The guy cutting it loudly called out the price TWICE before he cut into it. I know, I know. As I think about it though, the fine silk brocade and embroidered fabrics I've used in years past for church vestments were way more expensive.
With beautiful blue fabric in hand, I was ready to design, my favorite part. There was just one request. The dove is a very important symbol to her. There is one on her white stole and she wanted another on the blue one, if possible.
I fretted about the dove a bit. The one on her white stole looks like a professional embroidery system produced it. But I did not want to farm out this part of the project, and did not know where to do so anyway. I wanted a way to create an applique using off-white silk shantung.
First I spent some time sketching doves until I was satisfied with two simple shapes to reproduce in fabric. I am enamored of the kind of sketching that simplifies realistic sketches until they just barely communicate the item depicted. Picasso was a master at this kind of abstraction or simplification.
Sewing friends suggested a variety of techniques for the dove applique. I've done a fair amount of needle-turn applique in quilt cottons, but I was not up to needle-turn applique with my silk shantung. I knew it would never make me happy.
One possibility was to apply fusible web to the back of the white silk, cut out the dove, and use my machine to stitch around it with a satin stitch. But I've never enjoyed working with that fusible stuff. The result can be lovely but the process has no lure to me.
Another possible technique was to use a light weight fusible interfacing, sewing it right-sides-together on the dove shapes. Then a small hole is cut in the interfacing and it is turned right-side-out so that the glue ends up inside the dove pieces. Then it is pressed to hold the edges down. This was a failure for me. The interfacing fell apart as I struggled to neatly turn and press the edges.
Next I tried the same technique with cotton batiste backing. After a few tries, this worked! I used a smaller stitch-length (2.0), trimmed the seams allowances to 1/8 inch, and used lots of steam when turning it right-side-out.
Then I realized that my dove was facing backwards, or it seemed so to me. Flipping it proved to be more challenging that I imagined, so I have a couple of backwards doves now in stash!
My next challenge was fringe. Where, oh where, would I ever find matching fringe? And then I realized that I could make my own with the blue wool. Really, duh.
I did learn that fringing the wool produced very different looks depending on whether the weft or the warp was removed. I cannot say which one actually worked but I knew it when I saw it!
I constructed this stole quite differently from the previous one I made. The outer fabric is the blue wool and the lining is a lighter blue rayon lining. I sewed one long edge of the wool to the lining fabric. Then I used a stiff cotton canvas to interface it, sewing it inside the long seam allowance.
Next I pressed the other long seam allowance down and hand-stitched the canvas to it. Lastly, I hand-stitched the lining to the wool. I was once again amazed by how much control you have with hand-stitching. And it was a time to spend thinking about my deacon friend and her calling. A very sweet time, indeed.
I hand stitched the fringe to each end and pressed it carefully. Then I invisibly stitched the dove parts to the stole, as well as a small cross to the shoulder. Joy, for me. And isn't she lovely?
