Lenten Vestment Mending Challenge

The Guild of St Clare begins its annual Vestment Mending Challenge this week, when we add to our Lenten penances this very special alms to the Church, the repair of her many damaged vestments and altar furnishings. If you would like to join us, do get in touch; we can help you with repairs from your own parish, or supply you with one of our own.

I will be working on this beautiful violet stole, which has fraying edges. It belongs to a Low Mass set, but has often been borrowed for use in the confessional and so has decayed faster than the rest of the set. Luckily I have a lovely piece of shot silk that matches the colour well; the finished patches should look neat and pleasing to the eye.

I will be posting updates from those contributing to the Challenge as Lent progresses. Concede nobis, Domine, praesidia militae christianae sanctis inchoare ieiuniis, ut, contra spiritales nequitias pugnaturi, continentiae muniamur auxiliis!

February Sewing Retreat: report

 Lucy writes: Our February Sewing Retreat took place on the last weekend of the month, and the first signs of spring were visible in the gardens of St Joseph's Centre, despite the torrential rain that fell on Friday night. We were delighted to welcome Fr John Saward, the well-known theologian and translator of Pope Benedict, as our chaplain. 

He is the earliest patron of the Guild of St Clare, having given us our very first commissions, and entrusted us with valuable vestments from his sacristy in need of repair. He gave us a series of talks on the Mulier Fortis of Proverbs, dwelling especially on Our Lady's embodiment of this ideal during the Passion of Christ. 

We had an impressive stack of vestments to mend, and did our best to meet the challenge. We re-lined a chasuble and a matching chalice veil, repaired fraying embroidered orphreys, patched the edges of two chasubles where the silk was rotting away, and did the same for a dalmatic.

With sadness, we remembered dear Evelyn Watkin, who participated in last year's Retreat and who tragically died of bone cancer, aged 16, last November. Her memory will always be precious to the Guild of St Clare, and we will continue to be grateful for her participation in our work. Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.

Her mother, Olga, a long-standing friend of the Guild, who has often given us the benefit of her skills, courageously returned to the Retreat this year, to complete the repairs that she and Evelyn had begun together. This was the re-mounting of an exquisite eighteenth century embroidered orphrey belonging to the Dominicans of Oxford on to a new chasuble.

The Retreat was overshadowed by two grave pieces of news: first of all, the illness and hospitalisation of Pope Francis, who was reported to be in his last hours, and secondly, the dismissal of the Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate from Dunkeld diocese by Bishop Andrew McKenzie. The bishop, who has only just been appointed, replaces Bishop Robson who had invited the Franciscan Family in, and offered them the convent of St Joseph's at Lawside. We were glad to be able to offer our united prayers for both these intentions during the Retreat.

Our next Retreat takes place at the Carmelite Retreat Centre, Boars Hill, 8th-10th November 2025, and our chaplain will be Fr Rupert Allen Cong. Orat., of the Oxford Oratory. Online booking will open shortly.

The Guild of St Clare sponsors a stitch

Lucy writes: The Royal School of Needlework has a project to preserve knowledge of stitches with an online archive, called the Stitch Bank. Benefactors can sponsor an addition to this bank, in honour of a living person or in memory of someone who has died.

The Guild is pleased to have been able to sponsor a stitch, in memory of the youngest daughter of our much valued friend and supporter, Olga Watkin. Evelyn, who some will remember from last year's Sewing Retreat, died shortly before Christmas after a 22 month battle with bone cancer, aged 16. 

Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.



More about the Stitch Bank. The bank was launched by Royal School of Needlework in 2020. The website conserves and displays embroidery stitches, with information about the history of each one along with instructions on how to work them.

The RSN hopes that, eventually, they will be able to create an entry for every stitch in the world, including historic stitches. At the moment there are 475 entries, and the creators of the Stitch Bank are expecting to reach the 500 milestone in March this year.

This is a project very close to my heart, as in its spirit and aims it is aligned very closely with the work of the Guild of St Clare. It is an attempt to capture and preserve skills which may otherwise be lost, and to make them available freely, in order to nurture and spread them.

The Guild's sponsorship has been made possible by the generosity of our many benefactors. We have been assigned the Fence Stitch, and its entry on the Stitch Wall will carry an acknowledgement of our gift, and of Evelyn.

Ecclesiastical Embroidery by Heather Lewis: Review

Lucy writes: Participants in our Guild of St Clare classes at the Royal School of Needlework will be delighted to hear that our tutor, Heather Lewis, has put some of her wide knowledge of embroidering and making vestments into a book, recently published by The Crowood Press.

 Heather showed us some of the embroidery designs that she created for this book during our class in March 2023 - we've been looking forward to its appearance ever since. I was very pleased to find a copy of this beautiful publication under the Christmas tree, and as I hoped it certainly will be a very helpful resource for us in our work. 

The book proposes ten ecclesiastical embroidery designs, including a variety of crosses suitable for different liturgical seasons. The most ambitious of the designs is the Agnus Dei, but most could be tackled by a novice. 

Heather has a reputation at the Royal School of Needlework as a superb technician, and this is apparent in this book: very careful instructions are given for every stage, including suggestions on creating a suitable embroidery design and making practical decisions about working it. Heather knows her readers, and tailors her advice accordingly: for those needleworkers working on a design together, careful notes made in advance are essential, as well as ensuring adequate supplies of all materials before starting. Templates for her own embroidery designs are included at the back of the book. 

Some of her projects are decidedly contemporary in flavour; traditionalists will love her Floral Christogram, however, beautifully worked on Tudor Rose damask. 

Most useful to Guild of St Clare supporters will be the extremely detailed instructions on making up a stole and a burse at the back of the book, with copious photographs. 

There is a useful list of suppliers at the back of the book, although it's already out of date - FM Church Supplies went into administration two years ago. The weakness of the book is its treatment of the history of vestments, and its references to the liturgy. For an in-depth discussion of these, readers should look elsewhere. 

However, I was interested to learn that one author whom I'm already familiar with, Beryl Dean, was, with Jane Lemon, the founder and figurehead of the contemporary ecclesiastical school of embroidery of the second half of the twentieth century. The Modernist embroidery on contemporary vestments, such as the Cundy Cope and Mitre, worn by Justin Welby on many notable occasions (and familiar, I am sure, to many readers), is firmly in this new tradition.

I highly recommend Ecclesiastical Embroidery to anyone interested in learning to make vestments, and I'll be stocking it in the little Guild of St Clare shop too. Many congratulations and thanks to Heather for this magnificent effort.

The Guild of St Clare at Westminster Cathedral

The monthly Traditional Mass at the Cathedral, in the Lady Chapel (All Souls Day 2024)

Westminster Cathedral, completed in 1903, is one of the outstanding architectural monuments of the Catholic Revival, unrivalled for its choral tradition among Catholic cathedrals the world over, and whose history is inseparably intwined with the struggle for the Traditional Mass. It naturally has a special place in our hearts, and it is with great happiness that we can announce that the Guild has been invited to assist in the care of the vestments and altar furnishings there.

We are therefore hoping to establish a Chapter attached to the Cathedral, which will meet there monthly. There are a great many repairs to undertake, some straightforward and others very complex. The altar frontals in particular, some of them older than the Cathedral itself, need a lot of attention.

If you would like to attend these mending sessions, please email Lucy at guildofstclare@lms.org.uk.

The Cathedral's enormous Sacristy, at the conclusion of the Latin Mass Society's annual Mass in 2021

Learn the embroidery skills of medieval vestment makers

The Guild of St Clare is collaborating with the Royal School of Needlework to provide a special two day course, embroidering a sampler using the medieval techniques of Opus Anglicanum. 

Detail from the Jesse Cope, circa 1310-25

As many Guild of St Clare supporters will know, the High Middle Ages was a golden age for English embroidery, and English embroidery studios executed commissions for wealthy patrons all over Europe, in particular vestments for high-ranking prelates. During the Reformation a great number of these were destroyed here in England, but thanks to the enduring faith of neighbouring countries, many examples have survived, some of which formed a remarkable exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum in 2016-2017.  This two day course is a unique opportunity to learn the ancient and highly-prized skills of medieval English embroiderers, in the beautiful setting of the RSN's teaching apartments at Hampton Court Palace. 

The tuition will be provided by RSN tutor Jessica Ingram.

The Violet sampler we will be working, designed by our tutor Jessica Ingram

The dates are the 29th-30th March 2025, and the course will run between 10am and 4pm on both days. Tea and coffee are provided; you will need to bring a packed lunch, or you can visit one of Hampton Court Palace's cafes. 

The Guild of St Clare burse making course at the RSN, March 2020

The cost, including the materials, is £329. As this course runs over a weekend, Fr Richard Biggerstaff, parish priest of St Barnabas Church, Molesey, has very kindly agreed to offer a special traditional Mass at 8am on Sunday morning for participants in the course.

For more information please email Lucy on guildofstclare@lms.org.uk, or book through the registration link on the LMS website.

Hampton Court Palace

Autumn Sewing Retreat: report

 Lucy writes: This year's Autumn Sewing Retreat, held at St Joseph's Centre, Ashurst between 8th-10th November, was a huge success, one of the best we've had. The numbers were the highest ever, and I was quite apprehensive about how we would manage, especially as the rooms we use for sewing aren't all that large. However, by deploying the collapsible tables used by the Walsingham Pilgrimage Cooking Team, we managed to provide enough space for everyone. 

There were 25 participants (including our chaplain, Fr Stephen Morrison OPraem and our server). Four of the retreatants were children, and it was very edifying to see them joining in wholeheartedly with the vestment mending. Two babies also accompanied their mothers. 

We dealt with a wide variety of repairs including replacing braid on a beautiful goldwork chasuble belonging to Fr Gabriel Diaz, re-attaching the hood to a black Cope belonging to the LMS, fixing the clasps on the morse of a second black Cope, putting a new orphrey into a green chasuble of Fr Vipers' of St Mary Moorfields, re-lining some pieces from a really fabulous gold lamé High Mass set, and replacing the front panel on a white chasuble belonging to the Guild of St Clare. We also had a number of new things to make, such as kneeler covers for Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, a curtain and valance for the shrine of St Edmund at Withermarsh Green, and various small pieces for Low Mass sets.

Fr Stephen gave us three spiritual conferences concerning the Sequences, of which for the traditional Latin rite there are five left, the Dies Irae from the Requiem, and Lauda Sion from Corpus Christi, Veni Sancte Spiritus from Pentecost and the Victimae paschali laudes for Easter, as well as the Stabat Mater. In the Premonstratensian Rite, however, the Christmas one, Laetabundus, has also been retained, and Fr Stephen illustrated his reflections on it with a beautiful rendering of some of the chant. This was an unusual but very helpful way of exploring a part of the liturgy that we rarely see, and I was very struck by the remarkably devotional yet simultaneously catechetical nature of these beautiful prayers.

The liturgical highlight of the weekend was Compline in front of the Blessed Sacrament exposed, followed by Benediction. We were fortunate to have the use of a lovely red and gold Cope, property of the LMS, for the occasion; we repaired this Cope at our first ever Sewing Retreat in 2017 and it was wonderful to see it in use in this setting.

Our next Retreat is on 21-23 February at the same venue (St Joseph's Centre, Ashurst) and online registration is now open. Early booking is recommended to be sure of your place.