Pending Antependia

I am down to the last two commissioned liturgical paraments, and the next up is Father's Day.  I find the hangings which are not for actual "church days" to be more of a challenge to get my head around but I like the design I've come up with for this one.  As with most of the others, I chose to use silk. After much thought, I started stitching to see if the idea looked as good in fabric as it did on paper. 

 I really like how this blue goes with the rich green dupioni.  Father's Day falls in the season of Ordinary Time, which is green.  Before it's done, there will also be bits of white and red in there as well.    It looks a little lumpy in this photo but it will flatten with a good press.  Working with silk is very different than cotton and I try to press as little as possible, and always with a press cloth. Direct heat is not a good thing.

My method is to sew a bit and then walk around it for a few days to see what changes are needed.  In the meantime, I need something mindless to keep my hands busy while my brain is still engaged with the antependium.    My bag of selvedges has grown quite full so I decided to sew some blocks.

 They go together really quickly...

...so quickly in fact that I have finished enough for a new tote.  My original one has been kicking around since 2009 and has quite a few miles on it now.  It can use replacing.

It's tempting to finish up the tote instead of going back to the antependium;  I love the satisfaction of finishing a project and this one is so close I am dreaming of my reward already. :)