© Kristen Gilje 2015
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church by the Narrows (Tacoma, WA) has lots of beautiful art in its sanctuary, including some great stained glass windows. My friend Janet pointed out her favorite part of the glass, a symbol of a dove. She asked me if I could make her a Deacon’s stole with this design on it, transposing the blues to red instead.
To the left is a photo of the stained glass, which is about 12 feet high, and on the right is my watercolor rendition of the design in reds. I chose to add some purples and spring greens for spark.
The next step was to use my red interpretation on a deacon’s stole pattern that I designed several years ago. I found two  asymmetrical black buttons in a fancy knitting store to help strengthen the joint between the two sides.  Can you see them?
I like how the blues and greens and dark black-reds add just enough contrast to the overall red.
Janet’s stole modeled by a friend here in Bellingham, showing the side view. Thanks Sharry!
Kristen, I am absolutely amazed and thrilled by your work. I wish I had known about your clergy stoles before I retired and still wore them! Thank you for using your God given genius in such an amazing way.
My question relates to church banners. My small Southport, NC church ( built in the late 1700’s) I is forming a banner committee to make new banners for the sanctuary. Small ones by comparison to yours for sure.
The current ones are felt and gold lame and look awful with the beautiful stained glass and the dark wood. They are also 30 years old! I do a little work on silk and it hit me in church today that silk would be lovely as the new banners. A little web search and I found you.
What weight silk would you suggest for an 8’x3 ft banner for instance? No need to line is there? I notice you use wax and/or resist. Do you use the clear resist and wash it out? Have you used the metallic resists?
At this moment I’m just gathering info to build a case for non-felt banners. Any advice or direction would be appreciated.
Rev. Pat Lykins, Trinity United Methodist Church, Southport, NC
Hi Pat. I use crepe-backed silk charmeuse 19.5 mm from Dharma Trading in San Rafael, CA. http://www.dharmatrading.com/fabric/silk/charmeuse-195mm.html?lnav=fabric.html No, I don’t line my banners. I use a solvent-based gutta that is dry-cleaned out. A great instructional book is “Silk Painting: The Artist’s Guide to Gutta and Wax Resist Techniques” by Susan L. Moyer.