Ecclesiastical Embroidery by Ruth Black

Today I had visitors to my studio... Mostly I am only meeting my clients through the medium of Zoom, but today one of my long-standing clients came all the way from Australia to meet me - and to collect an altar frontal he had commissioned.
It was a delight to meet Michael and his family.
His altar is large - 2.45m wide, so I don't have anywhere in my studio where I can properly display it, but I hope these photos give you an idea of how it will look. Michael will send me photos when the altar frontal is in place back home. In addition to the altar frontal I made a burse and veil and two stoles.
The first picture is me folding up the frontal so that it would fit into the hand luggage case. The work is too precious to trust to hold luggage for the flight home.
The design uses the west face of the Kilchoman Cross (Isle of Islay), the Crown of Thorns and jacaranda trees which are particularly abundant in his NSW neighbourhood.
The jacaranda trees are hand painted and embroidered silk. The tartan is my own Highland Celebration tartan.

Very often, the commissions I am given are to mark a special occasion - perhaps an ordination or anniversary. One very recently completed was for an altar frontal to mark the 200th anniversary of the Church of Our Lady and St Patrick at Ballymoney in Northern Ireland.
It was a real pleasure to make this altar frontal and I was really happy to be sent photographs of it in use for their bicentenary mass. This message from their priest - "Thank you so much for the magnificent work on the frontal! It's just beautiful and was much admired by everyone at the Mass yesterday evening."
The main fabric used is Passion Flower brocade and all the appliqué work is hand painted silk.
The figures of St Patrick and Our Lady are both from mosaics within this lovely church, as are the border along the bottom edge, the knotwork roundel and the ChiRho with fish.
The fringe along the bottom edge is hand-woven bullion made with silks and metallic threads to match the colours of the embroidery.
And since this is Trinity Sunday - if you look closely below St Patrick you will see a tiny shamrock - legend has it that St Patrick used the shamrock leaf to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity.