Another Real Bishop - and a lot of fabric ones!

My first order of merchandise from the original embroidered Bishop’s bag was intended as a trial run . It enabled me to reject the calico bags as a way forward, and to adjust (or try to adjust!) the position of a couple of images that had been cut off in the printing process on the purple tote bag and the cushion.

What I hadn’t foreseen was the appointment of a new bishop. Tiffany Sparks was appointed Assistant Bishop in Grafton on 5 December! The bag said Bishops 2025 AU so I really did need to add her name - on the original and the spin-offs.

The original was now lined, but I managed to find a space at the top, near the handle and embroider Tiffany Grafton 2025 without going into the lining. 

I also eventually managed to source a purple archival pen with a tip that allowed me to add Tiffany's name to the existing printed bags so it is both visible and waterproof. The much greater challenge was to re-photograph and amend the templates on the VistaPrint and Snapfish websites to reorder.

It took me around 20 hours to manage it. Combining up to 15 photos into a single jpeg (the format the template requires) is a challenge. In the end I imported photos into a Word file and saved it as a pdf. There is no provision on a MacAir to convert a pdf into a jpeg.  A screenshot of a pdf will produce a jpeg, but too small for the printing process. So I sent the pdf to OfficeWorks to print a colour photograph, then placed the photo on a piece of purple card, scanned it with a purple border and saved it as a jpeg. Whew!

I now understand from a friend that a PC will convert a pdf to a jpeg. She has offered to do it for me if there is a next time!

Eventually I had a cushion ready to order for printing in Australia, and a revised two-sided tote bag ready to order from an Australian company that will print it in China. With some trepidation I ordered 3 cushions and 6 tote bags. It's a risk, but ordering one of each to check the print ends up prolonging the process, expense and inconvenience. I took the risk. I think I might need more than I've ordered. Hopefully if so  this might be a straight repeat without messing around manipulating images. 

Both orders arrived by courier - presenting me with challenges. I managed to divert the cushions to my local Pack and Send. I wasn’t expecting each one in a large box taped up into one metre-high parcel! Fortunately they were light, as I had to park a block away.

The print is clear and the names can be read. The copyright message is missing, replaced by a repeat of the title in small print - but I’m not redoing because of that.

The bag courier sent me a message at 8.00am to say they would deliver that day between 9.50am and 1.50pm. I cancelled Pilates. At 4pm they sent a message to say they'd tried to deliver but I wasn't home! Lie! At 6pm they informed me they had taken it to Pack and Send.

I picked it up this morning.  This is one side. When I ordered, I had ticked a box saying "remove background". While I like the purple , the letters do not come out clearly on it. 

This called for more archival pens than I had, so I took myself off to Art to Art, discussed the problem, and bought a range of permanent, archival and water-resistant pens.

I have now repaired three of the six bags (example below). The other three will be done tomorrow. I think they pass muster - just. I do hope a few bishops agree with me.

While I am satisfied with the four cushions and 9 bags I now have, if I need to order more I will:

• not choose the 'remove background' option
• have them delivered somewhere that a courier can leave them.

It's been a really interesting, mad project. I've learned quite a lot and I very much hope they bring a smile and sense of pride to a few people. 

Christmas headway

I've been adhering to a strict 'buy no more knitting yarn' vow for a couple of months, making small inroads into the 3 drawer knitting yarn stash I have accumulated. At the recent Guild stash sale I caved and bought these three balls of acrylic with sparkle. I immediately saw beanies to wear at Christmas lunch. In the past I have made the Christmas bonbons from reusable cloth, cardboard cylinders, a snap and ribbon, knitted beanies and a non-plastic novelty. Last year I trialed eco-friendly bonbons from the Leprosy Mission Shop. They were well received, so I've gone for them again this year. The only thing in them whose eco credentials I doubt are the paper hats. I still have 4 of the Christmassy beanies I made in 2023,  These balls of Christmas bling struck a chord. 

Buying them was the easy bit.

I began with a ball of the red and k2 p2 band. While knitting I began to wonder if I could make crowns, or coronets instead of beanies. Beanies are not especially appropriate on an Australian Christmas Day. I went on a hunt for a pattern, and found one. It had a k2 p2 band and garter stitch peaks. I didn't much like the garter stitch peaks, so thought I'd just substitue stocking stitch. I  had already knitted the band, so began on a peak, using stocking stitch. To my surprise the peak kept falling over at the stocking stitch row. When I switched to garter stitch it staightened up, although it flopped at the stocking stitch rows. I had no similar problem when I used garter stitch all the way on the next peak.

I finished the coronet sticking with the pattern, then found some wire to insert in the weak peak and moved on. 

I wasn’t fond of the garter stitch peaks, so my second try  kept the rib going on the peaks. I liked the result.

Next I tried the band in plain stocking stitch. I should not have been surprised when it curled over as I knitted it, but I was. I stopped and did a bit of reading. 

Yes, stocking stitch always curls because the knit side pulls tighter than the reverse. This can only be countered by edging with  either rib or garter stitch. In 70 years of knitting I’ve never thought about this - although I’ve experienced it. When you mostly follow patterns, you rarely ask why. It also explains, of course, why my stocking stitch substitution above did not work!  I’m very pleased to have (belatedly) learned this.

To confirm, I switched to rib and, lo, the curl was contained. 

I decided to make use of it on a headband, hoping the curl would work neatly on the cast-off as well, which i did.  

The band sits nicely with a bit of hair adjustment.

I continued with the ribbed coronets, shortening the peaks, one with a k1, p1 rib, one with k2,p2. 

I wasn’t confident the 10gm of wool left would make another, so switched to the ball of multicoloured chenille.

It has a chunkier, firmer, knit. Although the finished coronet looks smaller, it has more elasticity and fits as well as the other.

I used the remaining red to work, first the centre of a headband edged with a multi-colour roll, and then the reverse, red edge with coloured fill. I think this is my favourite.

It was hard to judge how far the remaining yarn would go, so I used a k1p1 rib to knit a band, then judged I had enough for peaks. This resulted in the one at the top of the right hand column. You can see the left-over. It might stretch to 4 rows. Not sure I will try. I'm pleased with the results and will put them away for Christmas Day. 

Bishops Bag spinoffs

As I indicated, I have been working on creating printed merchandise from the original bag I embroidered with the names of the 13 female Anglican bishops in Australia, along with the newly appointed Sarah, Archbishop of Canterbury.

My first effort involved photographing each side, then using the template for the fully customisable tote bag on the VistaPrint website, to create an order for a printed version of the bag. I ordered three. Most VistaPrint products are printed in Melbourne, but, from past experience, two-sided bags are printed in China. 

 Meanwhile, I had an unexpected email from Snapfish, a service I haven’t used for anything other than cards since 2017, largely because I couldn’t retrieve and edit earlier books I had made with them. Other services have more flexible formats and archiving options. Their email suggested unless I placed an order with them, the records of my projects on their website would be deleted. I thought it might be worth ordering something to see if my earlier projects could be retrieved. Like most other Australian print sites, they don’t have pages that can be printed on both sides.

I spent the best part of a day, rephotographing the bag, focusing on individual faces, arranging them in a Word document, converting that to a jpeg file and trying to fit the result on a Snapfish bag template. It was tedious and difficult. The resulting portrait file (left) was the wrong shape, so I redid it in landscape. Then the resolution was not high enough. 

I eventually got there. Without confidence, I ordered a library bag and a tote bag - both only available in calico.  I also created a cushion, which can be printed on coloured fabric.

The plus side of  the Snapfish orders was speed and delivery through Australia Post. The library bag was delivered from Glenn Innes in NSW within 5 days. The other bag and cushion, from Victoria,  in seven. The Vistaprint one took 13 days to come from China and was delivered by courier with less than perfect communication and unfathomable redirect options, causing me to cancel a lunch commitment I was looking forward to. Then it was not delivered in the notification window - and I could have gone to lunch. 😞

 Predictably, the two one-sided bags are disappointing. The small size of the available print area means names are hard to read and, in some cases, cut-off. I’ve filled in a few letters with fabric pencils, but it’s useable only as a replacement for plastic supermarket carrybags. The calico colour does nothing for the image.

The cushion, however works well. I need to adjust one face, but otherwise it’s good. The difference is both in the fabric and the size. The fabric is heavier, and the larger size means the print is larger and clearer. 

The name on the second face from the left on the bottom row is unclear. I’ve re-edited it and will amend the template copy. I think there may be people who like the cushion.

The prize, however, goes to the bags printed on both sides in Guangzhou. The print is strong, the words clear and the bags hardy. The purple background works for me. I'm tempted to order more, on spec, in case there are women, or men, who have been involved in the long fight for women’s ordination, who would like one.

It's good to have lived to see this.

Deo Gratias. 🙏

Mathematically Themed Cushion covers

I recently had a request (well, really, a casual suggestion) for cushion covers with a mathematical theme. I liked the challenge. It took less than 2 minutes to decide this was not an embroidery challenge. My friend Margaret embroidered a fabulous Fibonacci spiral that hangs on her wall - which is where it belongs. A cushion is another matter.   

Suitable fabric was not easy to come by. Only 2 places in Adelaide were likely to have any, so I headed to the most likely one, Tricia's Discount Fabric. Sure enough, she came up with the last metre on a roll printed with mathematical formula

and, after a bit of a hunt,  this one printed with geometric shapes overlaid on one another. I confess to really liking this one.  I also visited DK Fabrics, the only other likely source, but they had nothing.

My Internet searches revealed one source of fabric likely to fit the criteria, Spoonflower, in the USA.  I was reluctant, but I wanted the fabric, so I ordered. It took about 2 weeks to arrive, but arrive it did - and even fitted into my letterbox!

I wasted little time. Fortunately I was just finishing the Bishops Bag, so was able to buy matching zips and to make the cushion covers within a couple of days.

Again, 1 metre of each made 4 cushion covers.  

I hope they prove interesting, easy to take care of and comfortable to rest on. I had no idea such fabric existed! It proved a fun challenge..

Female Bishops Tote Bag

Last month (3 October 2025) Sarah Mullaly was named Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to hold the office. The Anglican community has approximately 85 million members. About two thirds of the member churches recognise female priests. Australia has ordained 13 female bishops.

I still had 2 metres of the limited run Faces fabric produced by Tessuti Fabrics in Sydney.  This seemed the appropriate time to use some of that to mark the achievement of these women and all those who have worked so hard over decades to arrive at this point.

I cut out a bag and stitched it together, making it larger than usual to get 14 full faces, before mounting it in a hoop and digging out most of the purple cotton thread I had. I then used Quaker stitch to embroider the first name of each bishop, the year she was appointed, and the diocese in which that occurred.

To the 13 Australian names  I added that of the new Archbishop of Canterbury- a milestone for the Anglican communion.

Embroidering names is relatively slow work. The text can't be very large and it is hard to keep some letters clear, particularly e, the most frequently used in English! 

When I finished the names, it looked unremarkable. I discussed ideas with family and some of the World Embroidery Study Group, which I convene for the Embroiderers' Guild. They agreed I should add mitres and croziers. 

I had found some purple batik in my stash that I was tempted to use as lining. The World Embroidery Study Group made me promise to use plain purple. Spotlight had a choice of several and I settled for a dark purple quilting cotton. I also bought wadding. I was concerned that the Face fabric would not stand up to the wear and tear a bag gets. I should, in fact, have added wadding or interfacing before embroidering. 

I added the wadding to the lining before constructing the inner bag. This made for tricky corners and a bit of ironing. I had thought I might quilt around the faces, but, after one section, gave it up. Instead I decided to hand stitch the mitres and croziers into the wadding.

The design did not allow me to add mitres directly to each head, so I created a row running horizontally across the top, using a variety of gold threads. I fitted 4 mitres on one side of the bag, two on the other side. The shapes are far from precise, being fitted in between black lines, using thread that is stiff and prone to shredding.

I began the croziers using gimp, but quickly decided these were too thin, so worked herringbone stitch over them in a variety of metallic threads. I kept adding them in spaces between the faces until each side looked balanced and a bit eye catching.

In case there was any remaining ambiguity, I added a caption on one side.

As with many of my projects, I think it's a bit crazy. Who knows who, if anyone, will want this bag. Perhaps one of the bishops might use it to carry their vestments: it's just about big enough! Or one of the women who fought for years for the ordination of women might find a use. 

While this is definitely a one-off embroidery, I have once again experimented with using photographs of the embroidery to create printed bags. I photographed both sides several times until I had a clear photo and uploaded photos of both the front and back to the VistaPrint website. It took me longer to add a small print caption to each side, one acknowledging Tessuti, the creator of the Faces fabric, and the other claiming ownership. 

This is what it looks like in pre-print template. I have ordered 3 to be printed as a test. If it works, this will be a sturdy, normal size, useful, affordable tote that a few people might want. I'll see when they arrive in a few weeks time.

It's been another experiment, learning as I go, winging it. I've come to think the original faces might be too dominant. Maybe the names alone would have been enough. The advantage is the image of women, en masse, facing the same way, in your face.

A male friend from my Sydney University Evangelical Union days in the late 1960s recently reminded me of a meeting of EU women I convened, at the request of women members, in, I think, 1967, to discuss  the ordination of women. Our guest was Deaconess Mary Andrews, the head of the Church of England's Deaconess House. Her message was basically: don't waste your time, it will never happen. It wasn't, we felt, a position of belief, but of pragmatism, and pretty depressing.

Fortunately, some of those present ignored the advice. For my part, the battle was channelled into education rather than the church. More than half a century on, we have made some progress, in both education and the church. A very ordinary tote bag is my way of marking it.