The University Chapel Project - November 2015 update

On Friday the Chapel Stitchers got together for the latest meeting of the University Chapel Project, and had a chance to compare notes. Some people were well on their way to making all their hands. For those who were a little less confident, Christine had brought a sample of how to use the paper templates.

First, draw round the template onto a separate sheet of paper. Then lay this sheet onto the wrong side of your fabric, and machine round the hand outline.

Hand machine stitched onto wrong side of fabric

The outline on the right side

Tear the excess paper away (just visible at the top left of the next picture), and cut the fabric out slightly larger than the paper hand. Then turn under the raw edge and sew it down.

Tearing off the excess and folding down the raw edge

The paper is particularly useful if you are doing machine embroidery, as it stabilizes the fabric. Christine had been experimenting with painting and machine embroidering plain fabric.

Painted and machine embroidered hands

She had also made a start on the central cross, using some pre-pleated fabric as a base. We all agreed that this gives a very good impression of the separate sections of the Amber Peace Cross.

The cross, with fabric samples attached

The Amber Peace Cross

Close-up of machine embroidered samples

Most of us had used hand rather than machine embroidery to decorate our hands, and it was interesting to see the different approaches members of the group had taken. Some hands featured words, whereas others were more abstract. Here are some of the embroidered hands, both completed and in progress.

I had chosen some of the blue hand templates from the bottom of the layout to work with.

So far, I've only completed the embroidery on one.

The next meeting in on Friday 18 December. That is the date of the University carol concert, and the plan is that we attend the concert, and then meet afterwards. Bring any completed hands and Kath - who has been working tirelessly buying and cutting out backing fabric, and getting together details for the altar sets - will collect them in.

For anyone who can't make the December meeting, the next one is Friday 8 January, when we will start putting all the hands in position on the frontal!