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.