Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Whitework altar cloth for Balliol Chapel (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Finished! The embroidery on the altar cloth was to commemorate the college’s 750th anniversary – one end has 1263, while the other has 2013. I completed the embroidery on the 2013 end last weekend (although by Thursday I was unable to resist adding a few leaves for the dahlias on the 1263 end). A marathon ironing session ensued yesterday, so today, Saturday saw the delivery and installation of  the cloth on the altar (well, yesterday as it is now 10 minutes past midnight).

Whitework altar cloth for Balliol Chapel (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Determined to keep the cloth as crease free as possible, I folded and interleaved the cloth with clean white bath towels and laid this parcel flat in the empty boot of daughter No 1’s car (the vicar had a wedding) with a heavy sofa cushion placed on top (to prevent the cloth rumpling into a creased pile as the car went up the two hilly bits of road between here and Oxford). Bundled into the car along with 3 adults, a baby and baby paraphernalia were wedged my iron and a long extension cable in case extreme ironing was necessary. Relief was great when the cloth was unrolled from its towelling cocoon and found to be largely crease free.

Whitework altar cloth for Balliol Chapel: detail of daffodil & magnolia (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

The 1263 end is blogged here, where I show the wooden shield now hanging in the Old Library and on which I based the overall design  for the altar cloth. The carved flowers included tulips and flowers very like dahlias so I added those to my own design along with wisteria – all 3 flowers do well in Balliol soil.

Whitework altar cloth for Balliol Chapel: details of daffodils, magnolia and lily of the valley (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

The 2013 end has the curlicues of the shield but with different flowers.  Standing by the steps to the dining hall there is a magnificent magnolia tree which has enormous white flower heads. Beneath the Old Library windows in the first quad this year’s bed of mixed daffodils has just finished flowering. Lily of the valley can be found in little groups in the shadier parts of the college grounds. All these three flowers I included in this 2nd end, along with a scattering of forget-me-knot flowers, many of which come up beween the daffofils. Artistic licence has been taken with the flowers which are depicted with differences of scale – the magnolia can be as big as soup plates.

Whitework altar cloth for Balliol Chapel: details of lily of the vallley, daffodils & magnolia (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Entering into the chapel I was greeted with a Mozart horn concerto. While I laid the cloth in place on the altar Delius’s Lark Ascending descended from the gallery. My job done, I left the chapel just before a memorial service was due to begin ( so many people were expected that a few chairs were placed in full sight of the embroidery – this will not often happen.) Sunday’s college Holy Communion will see the cloth in use for the first time and the embroidery will revert to its quiet job of just being there.

Update 24 August 2014: Altar complete with altar cloth

Balliol College Chapel: the altar with just a glimpse of the altar cloth (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Ipsden Church, Oxon: patchwork altar frontal, detail of sunflower (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Hooray, the altar cloth is finished – though I am tempted to add the odd leaf or two to the 1263 that I finished before Christmas.  Isn’t that always the way? Meanwhile I managed to slip in a sunflower for the altar frontal. Once again I chose to use appliqué – the centre of the flower is piece of rich brown silk stitched down with buttonhole stitch within which there is a spiral of a simple running stitch, while the leaves are an emerald silk edged in satin stitch; the petals are satin stitch.

Ipsden Church, Oxon: patchwork altar frontal, detail of sunflower (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

My sunflower is rather sketchy – the head of spiralling florets being a perfect natural example of the Fibonacci Sequence. I would have liked to have shown this better on my sunflower but in a busy week, I decided I could only cope with just so many things and embroidering mathematical fascinations wasn’t one of them.

Briefly, however, (see here) the spiral seen on the sunflower’s head happens naturally as each new cell (destined to become a floret and then a seed) has evolved to form after a turn. This happy genetic accident hit upon the best way of tightly packing a round surface with an optimal number of cells/seeds. If there was no turn the seeds would lie in a straight line and if the turn were a simple fraction, seeds would line up on arms from the centre with lots of gaps between the arms on the flower head – a wasteful use of plant material. Through good fortune,  however, the plant has hit upon the Golden Ratio which slips between the distribution of cells/seeds seen with simple fractions and so neatly fills up the flower head with few gaps.

A brief explanation of terms:

2 quantities are defined as being related by the Golden Ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the 2 quantities.

The Fibonacci Sequence is: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55…(to infinity and beyond as Buzz Lightyear would say).

Now the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci sequence have a special relationship i.e.  any 2 successive Fibonacci numbers have a ratio very close to that of the Golden Ratio.

So, for eg, if a turn of .142857 – or 1/7th – was used you would get 7 arms of cells/seeds on the flower head with lots of space in between.

Diagrammatic distribution of cells/seeds on a sunflower head (from here http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/golden-ratio.html)

But if you use the Golden Ratio you get Fibonacci numbers with spiral arms as in the diagram above, where there are 13 arms spiralling one way and 21 the other – go on count them. Now space on the head of the flower is not only used optimally but forms a beautiful and endlessly fascinating pattern. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m glad I took the time to get this straight enough in my mind to write it down, even if embroidering it feels a step too far. With my battery showing red and at one minute past midnight, I should probably finish this post now.