Palm Sunday and the unveiling of The Banners!

We have been working on these banners for the last 18 months.

We presented them at church today for Palm Sunday.

My vicar asked my friend Abbie if she would like to make some and she said she would ask me. The vision she had was for lots of textures, colours, fabrics all meshed together and entwined.We got lots of bargain fabric from an outlet warehouse that sell end of rolls by weight. I used lots of my lifetime collection of buttons and Gran's lifetime collection of embroidery threads!

As a house group we have prayed and worked hard on this and had fun and laughter as well as tears and sadness along the way.We felt that it is a symbolic creative expression of what God does in our lives. He takes our mess, our fragmented and shattered lives. He loves us and lives in us. He puts us together with others and calls us His Church. His beautiful and spotless Bride. During the last 18 months there has been a lot that has happened to us as a group of girls. Engagements, a wedding, new birth, house hunting, job hunting, broken friendships, illness and challenges, conflicts to resolve, shattered dreams, broken promises, the wonder of bewilderment, questions of future and direction.

A rich tapestry of life.

Quite a journey.
Maybe you can relate to some of these things too?
For us, knowing that God is the One who holds things together has been amazing for us to persevere and keep going through the joys and laughter and the ups and downs.

When we started the banners, I led my first all age service at church. We looked at David and Goliath and the faithfulness of God. When David went into battle he took his staff. He had already fought the lion and the bear and knew that the God who had helped him would prove himself faithful again.
The significance of his staff was that he would already have 2 notches carved out of it. A notch carved for each battle won. 2 examples of the provenness of God as he went into battle. Faithful God. The God who is faithful who leads us through. We each had long strips of cloth and each tied knots into them to represent our own journey with God, recording the significant times we have known and seen the Faithfulness of God for ourselves.

We kept these as tassels and added them to the banners.

Today we read a beautiful poem called Tapestry that one of our talented girls from house group wrote. It seemed to fit with the service and our banners perfectly.
You can read it here.We also read from the Message: 1 Peter 2.
I hope you like the finished banners and that you can reflect on the times when God has proved Himself faithful to you, particularly in this Holy Week as we approach Easter. Have a blessed week.

Week 12 of 365 and the holidays are here!

Yippee for the holidays!
It has been a busy last week of term with several deadlines.
A few deadlines at work and some for me too before the Easter holidays.
Saturday day 79/365
Last weekend was busy getting last few bits ready for the completion of the banners.
We have been working on these banners for the last 18 months. A bit of a project for us girly chicks. we wanted them completed to present them in church for Palm Sunday.

Sunday 80/365 Guinness cupcakes.

Monday 81/365 Sewing on the tassels on to the banners. The end is in sight.

Tuesday 82/365 Easter Fayre at work. I didn't win the big egg so had this to eat at home instead. Yummy. Ahh Cadbury. Will you ever be the same?

Wednesday 83/365 An evening to catch up and share chocolate and a cuppa with a friend.

Thursday 84/365 A perfect Girly cheese and Encouragement Night!

Friday 85/365 End of term. Oven ready curry, crappy telly and this rather nice bottle of Belgian beer.

Saturday 86/365 Last few stitches and all done.

Sunday 87/365 Palm Sunday. Banners presented at Church.

Phew.
I did it.
Hooray for the holidays.
2 weeks of doing fun stuff!(and hopefully lots of chocolate too!)

Bitch and Stitch, Girly Chicks!

A rhyming phrase that seems to be the opposite to us girly cake chicks when we get together each week!
We love to chat, drink tea, eat cake, pray for each other and sometimes, yes, we do some stitching.
Other times we just end up in stitches!
Last year, our minister from the church we are part of asked my friend Abbie, if she could think of some wall hangings/banners to replace the existing artwork hanging at the front of our church. Abbie said she would ask me as I am creative. She is an artist and graphic designer so we had fun dreaming ideas and vision together for this exciting project.
The vision Abbie had was that Jesus takes and accepts us just as we are - a broken mess and puts us together with others, binds us together and creates something beautiful, reflecting His beauty.
He calls us His church, His pure and spotless Bride.
So, Abbie and I went shopping!
We got loads of fabric in all sorts of textures and colours and have had fun this last year working on them. We are making 2 banners, a few metres in length each.
Here are a few bits we have been working on so far:






We haven't done anything on it for a few months now because sometimes we are just too busy eating cake.

And now our minister has started asking, How are the banners coming along?
Oops!
Good job we have Tudur around, to help keep us on track.

We decided that as it is the start of a new year, we ought to start work on them again and actually finish them.
Soon.
We made these beautiful ribbon and material corsages on Thursday. Thanks to Jen who showed us! We made 8 and will add them to the top of the banners as part of the tabs to thread the banners through poles to hang them from.
aren't they great?


We had so much fun, that we did some more bitch n stitch n together on Sunday too.
(Whilst eating tea and crumpets and homemade chocolate bread too!)
Good times!