I was just so excited about this project, I couldn’t wait any longer.
Our cousin, an Episcopal priest, is getting married. He asked me to make a stole for the priest who will be performing the ceremony, another for the Deacon, and a third one for him to use in the future. He asked for white ones for himself and the Deacon, and a red one for the other priest, and sent a small scrap of Japanese silk kimono cloth, then gave me otherwise free rein to work the design as I saw fit. Here’s what I came up with:
This cross design is from one of my kaleidoscope images. I saved it in a high resolution version, then printed it onto printer fabric. Finally, I treated it following instructions to make it colorfast, then sewed it into the design to use at the point on the back of all three stoles (both the front and back sides of the stoles). Happily, the color worked well with the silk fabric insets I used on the fronts.
All three stoles are made with 100% cotton backing and satin front, with identical gold fringe trim. The insets are all from the same piece of Japanese kimono silk, which looks darker in these photos than it does in reality. The Deacon’s stole is a little narrower than the priests’ stoles due to the limitations of the amount of fabric I had to work with. The red priest’s stole is a bit shorter than the white one, because the priest performing the service is shorter than the one getting married.
I think they came out well. I’ve already sent photos to our cousin, who loves them. I’ll be mailing the stoles to Hawaii this weekend. I hope he likes them as much as he likes the photos!
