One Fish, Two Fish -And Finished!

Here’s a little Monday update on embroidery work!

The maniturgium is almost finished. It’ll be sewn into a tube today, pressed a final time, wrapped in tissue paper and packaged nicely in a box, and on Wednesday, it’ll be FedExed to the client.

Amen.

Let’s take a look at the finished embroidery.

First, there are the fish: Fish 1 and Fish 2. Can you tell the difference?

Of course, I named them in my head, because when you’re spending hours embroidering, your mind does funny things with your projects.

For example, when I had both fish finished together, I couldn’t help reciting One Fish, Two Fish…

And in my head, I named the fish Fin and Finnegan. (As in Fin-again.) If I had identical twin boys, I’d be sorely tempted to do that to them.

This is right off the hoop, so it hasn’t been blocked or pressed or anything. I was just messing around with it to get the effect of the whole piece.

The cross is behind the fold – you can see it above.

It’s difficult to photograph long, narrow pieces of embroidery and still be able to see the embroidery.

I tried it here.

Sorry for the messy table.

This was my attempt to block the linen strip, and it didn’t work very well because I only have three 12″ cork tiles. The piece is over 40″ long, so I had to space the tiles, putting some small boxes between them to keep tension.

Well, that didn’t work very well at all! Without being able to pin in the spaces between the tiles, I couldn’t get good tension on the whole piece.

It worked somewhat, but it’s ok – pressing works just as well on this piece.

One step you don’t see here is the personalization on the maniturgium. On what will be the back, I’ve embroidered the name of the ordinand and date of the ordination, using a small simple hand script, in pale blue silk.

Final Steps & Use

The final step, then, is to sew the thing up. It’s really just a simple tube. The make it, the two short ends will be hemmed, and then a seam will be sewn down the length, with the right sides together, to make a 3″ wide tube. Then, the tube is turned right-side out and pressed.

A maniturgium, technically, is just a strip of linen. It doesn’t have to be decorated. It doesn’t have to be finished in any way – it can just be a cut strip of linen. During the ordination ceremony, it binds the hands of the newly ordained priest after they’ve been anointed with chrism. It has become customary over the centuries to decorate the linen. The mode of decoration can be simple or ornate. Sometimes, they’re painted. Sometimes, they’re embroidered.

After the ordination, it has become custom over the centuries that the newly ordained priest passes the maniturgium on to his mother, and when she dies, it is wrapped around her hands before she is buried.

If I have the mental wherewithal to get good photos of the finished piece ready for packaging, I will share them with you. At this point, my goal is to meat the shipping deadline on Wednesday, and I may not have the opportunity for any decent photography. We’ll see!