I am a Catholic sister who makes vestments for my order and I acquired
my first embroidery machine this July so I could embroider little
crosses on our habits and such. I immediately began scouring the
internet for patterns and lucked onto the BFC site. So many beautiful
designs; just add thread and time and wait for the beauty to emerge! As
I collected the freebies on the site, I began thinking how Fred’s
designs represented all God’s creation so well. And, as you know, God is
everything to us sisters. I immediately made a list of the religious
designs I would like to acquire someday, and when I saw the freebie
contest, I knew I had to enter because it represented my chance to
obtain those designs. I went through my downloaded files to find the
“Give Thanks” freebie that started it all and thought of building a set
of placemats around that idea. Then, as I looked at the animals again, I
decided to embroider part of the Book of Genesis as a wall hanging for
one of our prayer areas.
In keeping with our vow of poverty, I cut up one of our winter habits
to obtain the fabric so it was a nearly bulletproof heavy black fabric.
In hindsight, black was not the best choice because the outlines had to
be changed from black to other colors so they could be seen and
photographing the final product was nearly impossible, especially given
the poor lighting in our sisters’ residence. Also due to that vow of
poverty, I had to alter many of the designs because I have fewer than 10
colors of thread. I obtained the vast majority of those during that
fabulous BFC sale a couple weeks ago. So, this really is a BFC design in
many ways.
In the end, I used eight picture graphics (to represent sea creatures,
winged birds, wild animals, livestock, man, woman, edible plants and
tree-born fruit), a frame, a scroll, and three elements combined and
moved around to make custom frames. A freebie Byzantine quilting block
was transformed into a frame around two of the graphics because it
resembled a cross and I wanted that imagery present in the panel even
though it is based on the Old Testament. A freebie crewel element was
shrunk and mirrored to become a frame for the cardinal and radishes. A
freebie Art Nouveau element became a frame for the tiger and Eve. Two
angels became Adam and Eve. There was plenty of graphics to choose from
to represent the text I included from five Genesis scriptures (1:21,
1:25, 1:27, 1:29, and 1:31). My superior is rather bemused with the
final product and happy this contest motivated me to create it. Now, I
submit it for consideration.
I LOVE BOTH YOUR ENTRIES AND YOUR NARRATIVE!!! People will love reading about you and your projects 🙂 Suz
