Restoring the Art of Liturgical Needlecrafts
Apostolate of the Canons regular of St. John Cantius
Embroidery Guide
Antique Purificator
Embroidery Designs
Here are four designs, replicating a set of antique, hand-embroidered purificators, and a discussion about the extraordinary benefits of going old school to bring them to your parish.
The Reversible Cross Pattern
We’ve come up with a reversible cross for our purificators. We don’t like it when the back side looks icky, and this is our solution. You’ll want a magnifier to count threads for a true and straight little cross. Make sure it’s one of those that has the little inset bubble magnifier - and not just any bubble magnifier. We have two or three magnifiers that have the higher powered disk, but only one of them has a high enough power to comfortably count threads on fine linen. The one that works actually has a sharp edged lip around it on one side - think coke-bottle glasses. This thing has an extra thickness, maybe 1/16" of extra magnification. Get that one. If you wear glasses you can try a clip-on “Jeweler’s Eye Loupe.” They run about $10. Perhaps cheaters would help.
A Machine Embroidery file of the Traditional Budded Cross
This little guy sure gave us some headaches. It kept nesting on the back side of the embroidery, so I took the machine in for a tuneup. Still it was making a mess back there. Probably all of you machine embroidery people know exactly what I was doing wrong. Brenda explained to us that the very tiny stitches we were asking for was causing a little hissy fit with the bobbin tail. The trick is to insert the hoop, get your needle in the right place and then roll one stitch rotation to bring the bobbin thread up to the surface of the linen. Hold on to the bobbin and spool threads until the stitching gets started. Pause the stitch out and clip those threads before continuing.
I like this version with a double pass on the stitches. It looks a little tidier with two rounds and is probably more secure and durable. The file stitches the budded cross at a half inch square and starts in the center of the cross.
An IHS Machine Embroidery file to dress up your Purificator
We’ve (reluctantly—see article above) added this beautiful IHS to the ends of our Machine sewn purificators. It could also be nice on the center of an amice, althought is should be enlarged for that.
The center of the IHS—and the starting point—is located right at the upper tip of the open area in the center of the H. On our purificator with a cut size of 12.5" x 21", for hems 3/4" on the short sides and 1/4" on the long sides, the center should be about 4 5/8" up from the cut edge. Poke a large needle in at that point to open the weave enough to see where to plant the initial stitch. You’ll skip the extra cleaning to remove marks.. Rather than using wash out stabilizer, we apply a couple of light layers of spray starch to each side
We use a fine cotton polyester thread for a clean traditional look. We find that the shiny embroidery thread reminds us too much of the terrible linens that are being foisted off on today’s church. Adding some shine to your crazy big, and odd looking cross doesn’t make up for the crooked cutting, bad polyester fabric, and wonky sewing. (Oh dear, I do sound a little snarky...)
