Each year our Lutheran church performs the Passion Play. Have you seen it? It’s a reenactment of the events leading up to the death of Christ in Jerusalem. Last year was the first time my daughter and I saw the show and I was impressed by the performance, the sets and the costuming. I guess I shouldn’t have been, there are some talented folks at the church and I know at least one owns a theater, and another produces plays. Our church offers a few showings over a week period so it gives the church members and guests several times to attend the play.

This year is a first for my daughter and myself. I believe she’ll have a part in the play (non-speaking part — I couldn’t convince her to try out for a speaking role) and I’ll be designing some of the costumes.

The clothing design has me excited, I’ve always enjoyed working behind the scenes; Sketching the design, cutting the material, and transferring my vision into an outfit.  During my twenties, I’ve participated in local fashion shows.  I even had some of my designs featured in boutiques. I stopped when I didn’t want to do it anymore… but recently (as in the past few years) I’ve been thinking about doing something…

Martha and Mary Magdalene (c.1598) painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

I’m designing a robe for Mary Magdalene. Her brother, Lazarus and her sister, Martha are also mentioned in the Holy Bible. As a child, I was always fascinated by Mary and read the the small tidbits of information about her at an early age. She obviously was a follower of Christ, and based on some things she did, it led you to believe she was wealthy.

He’s Risen!

I also have the honor of designing Jesus’ Resurrection robe. He was buried in the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea had set aside for himself.  Joseph was a wealthy man and was referred to by the Romans as “Nobilis Decurio” which means “Minister of Mines” there a few that speculate that Joseph was a merchant and that Jesus might have accompanied him on some of his journeys by ship.

And while we don’t know that for certain, I’m thinking it’s safe to assume that Jesus body was prepared with fine linens and spices. I’m designing two other robes also. The rest of the costumes are carried over from the past years and others are being rented.

Knowing that the Crucifixion was set during the first century A.D. is helpful. Men and women both wore robes (pants didn’t come until later) the types of robes they wore differed between the sexes. Having knowledge of the characters/time period is important in creating appropriate clothing.

Linen

I already have the designs in my head, the only thing left is to purchase the fabric and start sewing. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do too much until the second week in February and while I know the style of dress that Romans and Jews wore during that period. History along with designs throughout the ages has always fascinated me… I’ll be doing some more reading since I want to add little extras into what I create. I read more than the Holy Bible, there is lots of information available around that time period that can give you a better understanding of many things written  in the Bible. You just have to be willing to do some research.

Tomorrow I meet with the director (who also works in theater) and so I’ll be sure to bounce off some of the ideas I have (and show him a few of my sketches) and of course I’ll listen to his suggestions also. Lent is just around the corner, it is one of my favorite Christian celebrations. I’m thrilled that I’m at a church that actively participates in religious celebrations throughout the year. I was raised Baptist, and besides the obvious celebrations (birth and death/resurrection) that church didn’t recognize most of the Christian celebrations.

I’m going to document my progress with sewing machine embroidery so I’ll be posting many of my new mistakes. One annoyance I’ve always had that many online don’t post their learning mistakes. That can be discouraging for some (not me since I’m very stubborn and will persevere until I get it right.) I really have no issue just showing mine, since we all start at the beginning with something and the results might not always be awesome.

This morning after my daughter and I came inside from playing in the snow I played around with SewArt for a little while…

I converted this Monster High logo…

Monster High Skull

to a Monster High embroidery version, and I was able to save it in the *.pes format

Monster High logo being converted to a *.pes file via SewArt

And here’s a close up of the simulated embroidery via the SewArt program…

Monster High logo turned to an embroidery file

Switching this logo into a *.pes file was fairly easy and should give you an idea why some companies are able to pass off knock off items as the real thing. If a person/business has the right tools … they will fool some people. Last evening, I saw someone selling a Monster High *.pes file on Etsy, due to trademark issues they would be in trouble if Mattel decided to pursue them, since that person is trying to make a profit off of Mattel’s intellectual property. Mattel doesn’t seem to have an issue with ‘fan based art’ and occasionally I’ve seen them link to those artists, but the difference is they aren’t trying to make a profit and I’m guessing they might view that as free publicity.

Oh by the way, the World of Warcraft character, Agrra, successfully converted to an embroidery file. Blizzard is another company that’s fairly good at giving recognition to fan based art. According to the above simulation it should take about 30 minutes to complete the above Monster High logo and Aggra will take over seven hours to complete. If I hadn’t reduced the detail it would take even longer to embroider

If I have time, today, I might create my own designs and convert them to *.pes. My daughter is thrilled about this program since it means she can make her designs on a graphics tablet, convert to SewArt and transform those into a *.pes file to be sewn on an item.

The only thing left is to see how other images transfer onto fabric. Hopefully I’ll be able to post completed machine sewn embroidery sometime next week.

One of the free downloadable embroidery items available at the Brother.com website

Our Lutheran church has many outreach ministries. Some of those ministries regularly visit a local nursing home throughout the year.

Many of the visits involve our church’s youth… they visit, play games, and even have piano recitals hosted at the location.  It’s a nice change for the residents and a great way to get the youth involved with interacting with the elderly.

I’ve attended most of the events since my daughter is on one of the children’s choirs and she also takes private piano lessons from the directory of contemporary music.

This February, all our churches children’s choir will be Valentine caroling’  at a local nursing home.  I know the residents will love that, they certainly light up when they see the children. The following week the adult choirs will be Valentine caroling at the same nursing home.

In honor of these events, the church had a ‘Valentine tree’ set up in our Narthax, naturally I was thrilled when I heard about this since  my daughter and I had fun with gathering gifts for our angel from the angel tree at Christmas.

With the ‘Valentine tree’ church members can choose a Valentine off the tree and purchase something special for a nursing home resident. Our church makes it easy for those who want to participate since they give helpful suggestions of what you can purchase for the residents.

My daughter and I will definitely include some purchased items within ‘Connie’s'  valentine bag and I’ll be sure to create and personalize a few of the items also. We’ve never met Connie, but it won’t stop us from doing something nice for her. The kindness of strangers can mean a lot to some people. I’m hoping we add a bright spark to her day.

You know where I’m going with this right? I’ll be taking advantage of my Brother SE-400 embroidery sewing machine, it’ll arrive in plenty of time for me to get comfortable with embroidering on a machine and turning some of my newly learned skills into some personalized items for Connie. I should be prepared for the unexpected. I purchased stabilizer, embroidery thread, additional embroidery needles and I’ll be getting fabric this weekend.

I’m pleased that Connie will be the first recipient of  a personalized item made with my new embroidery machine… of course I’ll post pictures. What’s even better is that my daughter can give her the items herself after the ‘Valentine caroling’ is complete. Over the weekend, she’s making Mrs. Connie (as she calls her) a nice Valentine’s card.