2nd Place, The Exemplary Challenge 2018

Many years ago, while I was working on my Level II teacher certification, I was asked to design a new altar frontal for our church. An angel theme was chosen, since they are appropriate for many church seasons. The design, with four angels, in crewel on linen, ended up very large to fit most of the nine-foot wide altar.

With the size and mostly complicated stitches, I was able to use it as my expertise work for Level II teacher certification before it was dedicated at church on July 4, 1976.

While thinking about this year’s Angel Challenge, I decided to recycle my previous design. I was lucky to find the original layout. I reduced it and have had fun using it as a basis for this version. Starting with the golden wings, I chose the triadic colors of yellow-orange, blue-green, and red-violet in different values. The threads are mostly DMC, with some metallics and some #8 perle cotton. The stitches are herringbone, double herringbone, back, stem, running, zigzag chain, detached chain, and surface buttonhole. Claire is still on linen, but her skirt is a collage of multi-colored papers, arranged around some negative spaces for contrast.

As usual, some parts fell together as planned, and some other required a lot of patience before the stitches behaved.