Epiphany

Similar to the Easter installation our church did in 2011, we were invited to participate in another one for Epiphany this year.

On the Sunday before Christmas we were invited to take home a "square" and have it done and turned in two weeks later. Today was the first day we got to enjoy it in our sanctuary.

And what was the "painting" we were putting up? This icon:

which depicts the angels who visited Abraham, but in church tradition also represent the Trinity. (I don't have the details right now...I forgot to pick up the handout! I trust you'll excuse me as this is a crafting blog, not a theology blog.)

In any case, the painting was divided into 30 squares and we could pick up a copy of the square we wanted to do:

I picked a simpler one to make sure I would be able to get it done. You can see the copy has a grid printed on it to help us duplicate the design. We were also given a 24" square of tar paper:

I had decided to do a hooked rug of my square and since I didn't think the tar paper would hold up to all the holes that would take, I copied the shape onto a netting that I've had forever. I have no idea where I got it, but it was obviously a "hand me down" because there was a few inches of rug hooking done on the one end. I ruthlessly cut it off and had just the right size left for this project.

Once I had an outline, I added grid lines:

and then copied the outlines of the design with the help of the grid lines:

Then I started outlining the shapes with yarn. Rug hooking is traditionally done with narrow strips of wool fabric, but since I don't have any and didn't have an easy place to find some I went with yarn. With the picture in hand, Troy and I went to JoAnn's and shopped for appropriate colour approximations in the bulky weights. Some were wool, some acrylic. When I got home I found some stash yarn that would work for the blue colours so I ended up returning the blues I bought.

My first line in dark brown actually followed the wrong line, but I noticed it before going any further. The nice (and scary) thing about rug hooking is that pulling on the end quickly pulls out all your loops. There are worse things to undo.

When I had that fixed, I added more lines in the dark green:

With the outlines done, I started to fill in the rest:

Since this is netting, I just followed the holes and the yarn ends up in a grid pattern. I think rug hooking is usually done on a type of burlap and then you can give the solid areas texture by filling in the area with curved lines. But I was on a deadline, so I didn't mind not having to make those decisions. I just had to fill all the holes.

I was a little worried about something catching a loop or loose end and ripping everything out, so I covered the back with masking tape as I went:

It's not fool-proof, but I thought it would help enough.

I continued to fill in areas:

I was pleased I was able to work on this in the car as we drove to Missouri and back. By the end of the trip, all the hooking was done:

My original thought was to stick it to the tar paper with spray adhesive, but when I couldn't find the spray adhesive I decided that was probably overkill anyway. I put the tar paper on the back of the "rug", folded over the excess netting and taped it down with my fancy duct tape. (We somehow were out of regular duct tape.)

The masking tape was my "basting."

Here it is finished and "bound":

And this morning when I got to church, I got to see it on the wall:

Here is the whole thing:

A little closer:

Closer still:

I was distracted today and didn't get a chance to get a close look at the other squares. I will admit that I spent a lot of time studying them during the service and may have missed parts of the sermon...

The glitter one was very popular. I always like the ones done with ripped paper. The top right square of the right figure's halo was done with some very effective 3D effects. The halo looks like corrugated metal (but maybe it's stiff paper?), I think the hair is string and the top of the staff looked like a stick. And I think one of the squares in the very top row is done with tinted photographs. That idea occurred to me but I didn't know if I could do it. I hope to get a closer look next week.

I just love these projects. I also was reminded how much I enjoy rug hooking. I have had that scrap of netting to do a rug for years and now I wonder why I hadn't done it yet??? And the grid method of copying a picture is just so easy, it makes me think I could take a photograph and make a hooked rug hanging from it. I would love to take an "iconic" family picture (doesn't every family have those pictures we all know and have seen a hundred times?), simplify it, and hook a rug. And you know if I do, I'll tell you all about it!

Happy Advent

Today is the first day of advent. I'm starting to get into it. (It's not quite the Christmas spirit, but it leads into it.)

What helped this year is that I was asked (just last Sunday, I will add) to make an advent cloth for our church. The communion table is generally "dressed" with a liturgical cloth suitable for the current season and we didn't really have an advent cloth.

Although purple has been traditional for advent, blue is becoming more accepted as purple is used for lent. It is also widely accepted to use pink for "Mary's Sunday." I think we found a lovely sort of compromise in this batik fabric which contains lavenders and blues. (The lighter lines of flowers are more blue in person.)

I was also pleased to note that some of the flowers are calla lilies since white lilies are a symbol of Mary. No, I don't go to a Catholic church and I don't venerate Mary, but you can hardly celebrate Christmas (you know, Christmas that still has Christ in it) without realizing that she played a pretty big role in the whole saga.

Anyway, I think the fabric is pretty ideal for the table covering. Plus the batik is so pretty and complex, I didn't need to do anything more than hem the ends and throw it over the table.

But since I can't seem to keep things simple, I decided to make several strips to hang down the front:

There was only one up today because it's only the first Sunday of advent. I'll add one more each week until it will be completed on Christmas. I'm working on a "surprise" to be revealed on Christmas day, but it's not ready yet so I'm not going to tell you about it. (Plus, advent being a time of waiting, it seems appropriate to make you wait to see the whole picture. Sorry if that drives you nuts. ;)

What I can give you today is a little tutorial on the blind hem I used. It's very simple, but it can be tricky to get your head around how it works. But it's well worth the "mind bending" even if it's a little painful because the result is so professional and effective.

First, you fold over the hem to the wrong side at the final depth that you want and press:

Then you fold under the raw edge, trying to make the exposed part of the hem even:

and press it down again: (I love to iron.)

Now you need to do a little flip to get it ready for sewing. It would be hard to describe so I made this short video:

See how simple that is? You don't turn the fabric over (the wrong side still faces you), but just give the hem a little flip, making sure to keep a little bit exposed as shown.

Pin as you go:

Now you'll need to head to the sewing machine. Most machines will have a blind hem option. It's a straight stitch on one side with an occasional zig zag. It looks like this on my machine:

You can see that my machine has the option to do a blind hem to the right or the left. Your machine may only have one option.

You may also have a special foot for your machine, but you don't need to have it. If you do, it will have an uneven bottom--one side will be higher than the other. You put the fabric under the foot so that the ridge of the foot lines up with the fold, as seen here:

As you sew, the seam will be straight along the right side (the upper fold of the hem) and then take an occasional "bite" of the left fold, which is the body of the garment (or tablecloth). You can see in this picture that the machine has just finished taking a bite.

Once it's sewn, you can unfold them hem (and press again). Watching this may help you know what to expect:

Here's the seam as it comes off the machine:

And after unfolding and turning to the right side:

From a little further away, you hardly notice the stitches on the right side.

This is one of the flattest, well hanging hems I know. Try it out!

Joyful Eastertide

Easter came and went without my getting up a post, but Eastertide has six more weeks. Plenty of time to enjoy our Easter installation at church.

You may recall that a painting was divided into 42 panels and each panel was taken by volunteers to be made to look like its part of the painting. We all knew it was up on the wall by the Wednesday before Easter, but it was covered by a veil.

No peeking during choir practice on Wednesday night.

No peeking during the Seder dinner on Thursday night.

No peeking during the Good Friday service...or the Easter vigil service on Saturday night...

And no peeking even on Sunday morning when we arrived. You could just feel the excitement in the pews as we all sat and waited.

We started the service in a dim room with the lights off and the windows shrouded. We heard the story that "while it was still dark," Mary went to the tomb and found it empty. How she ran to get the others. How Peter and "the other disciple" ran to the tomb and also found it empty, and then went back to their lodgings.

But Mary stayed and encounters Jesus, the risen Jesus, but does not recognize him, until he simply says her name, "Mary."

At that point, the lights came on and all the curtains and veils were pulled away. The sun cooperated nicely and shone so brightly it felt blinding after the dimness we had gotten used to. There was an audible reaction from the congregation as the "painting" was revealed:

Yes, a little hard to see, isn't it?

I'll give you a closer look:

That's ok, take your time. I'll wait for you to finish looking.
Takes a while to take it in, doesn't it? Believe me, no one was paying
attention to the service for a while either!!

Fabulous, isn't it?

And it really didn't matter who did what. There was a "map" available after the service, but that's just curiosity. The main thing is how all those very different parts come together. Some matching, some not, but in the whole just fantastic.

There were mini marshmallows (I kid you not):

There was glitter and pompoms (but who wouldn't want a glittery halo?) and pencil crayon:

There was pasta:

and lots of painted squares and fabric collages and paper collages and felt. I don't mean to single out the ones above as anything better or weirder than any others, but I had to pick a few to highlight as examples.

One thing I couldn't get over was how well all the lines in Jesus' robes lined up:

Ten different squares had to come together and they pretty much all line up. (A relief for me since mine is right in the middle!)

After the service, there was a crowd of people milling around on the platform trying to get a closer look. It was a really neat thing to be a part of. And after the service the party went on all day as people found time to Facebook about the event before, after and in between Easter get-togethers.

The whole piece is 11' x 14' and here's a pic to give you a sense of scale:

It is quite dominating. (In all the right ways.)

If you're curious about the image we started with, check out Tamara Rigishvili's work at her website.