The Sewing Project

I took the ladies [in Santa Rita] a sewing machine and iron. Mary, Concepcion's wife, took to machine sewing like she had done it for years, even though she had never used a machine before. As I was leaving, she was teaching the others.

All of the vestments and appointments we are constructing are planned especially for Copan. For example, they are all washable using either the products and processes the ladies are accustomed to using, or with a little special instruction I have provided and the addition of a new (to them) product or two which I have furnished.

The ladies with whom I am working are from both Espiritu Santo and Quebracho. All the ladies in our little group did the hand work on their altar linens. We are not finished. I plan to have all four colors for the altars finished for Easter as well as some cassock-albs and surplices. That will be the altars for both Espirtu Santo and Quebracho, as I paid for the altar (or "mesa") for Quebracho to be built when I was there. The carpenter promised it's completion this week.

I would like for everyone to know that the vestment fabrics and the altar linen fabric and pieces were donated by Elizabeth Morgan of Queensbury, NY. My internet searching found her in November or December. I explained my little project and asked her to mentor me through it. Though I have extensive background in construction of the softer kind (fabrics), I had never done full sets of vestments from scratch. Well, she is the lady who wrote the book (literally, note: Sewing Church Linens by Elizabeth Morgan; Morehouse Publishing). She very graciously has helped me make all of this come true and if that is not enough, she has made very generous donations of fabric, instructions, advice and so much more of the things we need.

I have another angel of assistance in Carol Poplaski of Vernon, NJ. She is a customer of Elizabeth's who had the beautiful white embroidered liturgical fabric you saw over the green superfrontal and under the lectern hanging. She had rescued the fabric (over 20 yards of it) some 10 years ago and had been looking for the proper home for it ever since. Carol was thrilled to donate it to the project. Concepcion and the ladies LOVE it. I think it is perfect for our purposes.

This little project is not finished, but rather just beginning. I am very much aware of the other mission churches in the area. In fact, I had scheduled a "tour" of some of them with Concepcion for this week to get pictures and see how we could start to include them in the project. The tour company's rep would not agree to take Concepcion and I to all of them. I guess I'll need camping gear and a burro to get to some of them.

My first two weeks will be on Roatan working with Nurse Peggy and her Clinica Esperanza, coach Enrique Santo and his futbol boys, and hopefully, Iglesia Episcopal San Pedro del Mar. Then, I will be back in Copan working with our group of ladies on our soft construction. I think I may stay through the holiday.

Deborah Matherne