The making of the Communion Table cloth: an August sewing project

COMMUNION TABLE CLOTH 10 - Embroidery.jpg

Well the day arrived - 5th September 2021! The day we rededicate ourselves and our new church building to the Lord.

Jesus is Lord - Lord of All.

It all started at the end of July when I sat in church and thought ‘that cloth is lovely but it doesn’t really fit in with our new colour scheme… wouldn’t it be lovely to make one in time for the rededication service?' Maybe I should have been concentrating more on the sermon!

So I chatted to a few people and came up with an idea/ design and put a notice in the round up to ask for volunteers to help make it. The design I came up with was to reflect the colours of the new refurbished church and picking up on the blue and grey rectangles in the carpet tiles. As it was directly underneath the words ‘Jesus is Lord’ we wanted to echo those with the words ‘Lord of All’ and use the same font. It was just like making a huge quilt… what could possibly go wrong? We had four weeks - we could do it!

COMMUNION TABLE CLOTH 11 - Embroidery.jpg — IHS is a symbol for the name Jesus: a contraction of the Greek word for Jesus and was regularly used by early Christians as a secret symbol.

After an initial meeting, we bought our linen material and called anyone who wanted to take part - whether they had previous sewing experience or not! We met on a Monday night and then in one or two daytime sessions and people came when they were available. In all 19 different people were involved and their ages ranged from 12 to 70+ years. For me the process of creativity and togetherness was just as important as the end product and we relaxed and chatted together as we worked. We chatted, ate biscuits and drank tea and coffee! Each session started with a short prayer that God would bless us in our work and help us to work as a team. We prayed that our work would be like a prayer and an offering to God and that we would create something that enhanced people’s’ worship and was all for God’s glory.

In all we cut out over 400 rectangles and with a flurry of activity at the end we met our deadline. So that the occasion can be remembered we embroidered the date on the inside of the cloth. As a beautiful finishing touch Jo English researched and embroidered this motif on each end of the white linen top cloth!

Thank you to all the team. It was so lovely to meet together in August when so many things pause for holidays. Here are some photos of us at work.