Holy Sewing

Quite a while back my Dad gave me a box of religious vestments that were no longer being used thinking I could use them in my quilting.  I was very excited, looked them through all, photographed them, and then became humbled and intimidated so back in the box they went...until last week.

I selected one particular vestment and went about coming up with an idea of making a table runner to be used at Easter.  As you can see, both sides has gorgeous embroidered designs, and I wanted those to be the focal point.

Taking a pair of scissors and cutting around the embroidery would have been much simpler, but somehow disrespectful I believed, so I went about using a seam ripper instead and separating the two sides.  Even then my daughter was outraged that I was taking apart something sacred ;-)

I guess I didn't take as many pictures as I thought of the process.  I only used one embroidered section for this table runner.  The other sections will be used for a future project.  I added a thin purple border around the center and a wider border of white using solids I had in my stash.  The pieced purple and green border is silk fabric...the purple from the back side of the vestment and the green from my stash.  The backing and binding is a lavender linen.  

This wasn't the project to practice my FMQ so I kept the quilting simple with straight stitching using a lavender thread.  The border was stitched with the machine using a feather stitching design.

My Dad just received this table runner in the mail and thinks it is beautiful!  Of course, he would say that no matter what, but I'd like to believe it's true ;-)  I do know it will be surrounded by gorgeous, yummy food enjoyed by family and friends celebrating together!!!

Have an amazing weekend!  Hope you get to spend it among family and friends!!