Stitchin' Traditions Giveaway Winners!

On the 27th of last month, we started a giveaway competition to promote my dear friend Anna's little business Stitchin' Traditions.  If you have not seen Anna's etsy site before, click over and see her incredible work.  Anna and her daughter Emma have wonderful crafting talents and have put them to great use in crafting many lovely Catholic gifts, using the finest quality materials.

The draw took place as promised on Our Lady's Birthday.

 And the results are.......

Congratulations!!!

Melissa, I've been able to email you.  You have won a beautiful felt, religious doll of your choice!

Jodi Reel, you have won second prize, two priestly pencils, colours of your choice!  I have no way of contacting you, but if you could email me, I can pass you onto Anna to arrange your prize. (My email is in the right hand sidebar, look for an image of a typewriter.)

 Joseph J. Borowski, you have won third prize, a 100% wool felt rosary pouch.  I have no way of contacting you also Joseph, but if you could email me, I can pass you onto Anna to arrange your prize. (My email is in the right hand sidebar, look for an image of a typewriter.)

Thank you to all those who joined in this giveaway.  Thank you Anna and Emma for your wonderful work, I know many of your creations have been a blessing and inspiration to me, I hope you will continue to bless others with your work!

Religious Dolls Giveaway!

My very dear friends in Australia, Anna and her family have set up their own Catholic business on esty  in the past few months called Stitchin' Traditions to sell some of their beautiful handicraft, much that is religious.  I have been the very fortunate recipient of some of their lovely work as gifts over the past few years.

My children have found much enjoyment in Anna's Rosary Flowers and matching pouch, all in 100% wool felt.

They have also loved Anna's fantastic Priestly Pencils!

Most of all, they have loved Anna's Mother Teresa's play set, complete with Mother Teresa holding poor mother's baby, the Bishop and the Poor Indian Mother.

Then when Anna opened her etsy store I was very keen to buy a couple of her handsomely designed saint dolls. The dolls are all hand-sewn and each measure approx. 10 1/2cm (6 inches) and are made out of 100% wool felt, fleece, cotton fabrics, 100% wool yarn and other various objects e.g. beads, buttons, etc…the quality, the doll's details and the workmanship is second to none! Here are photos of some of her creations:

St Mary MacKillop ~ Australia's First Saint!

St Francisco Marto, one of the Fatima Children

St Jacinta Marto, one of the Fatima Children

St Bernadette of Lourdes

A Dominican Nun

St Rose of Lima

The Stitchin' Traditions Giveaway!

Anna has arranged with me, as part of promoting her lovely Catholic business a giveaway consisting of three prizes to be won and you can have up to ten entries in the draw.

The prizes are:

       

1st Prize: A Custom Made "Play-With-Me-Doll" ~ Choice of any Saint or Storybook Doll (this may take up to 1-2 weeks to make and ship.)  You can nominate the saint you would like Anna to make.

2nd Prize: Choose two Priestly Pencils from her liturgical set of colours.  The pencils are of very good quality.

3rd Prize: 100% wool felt rosary pouch

To Enter...

All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell us what item you would most likely buy from our shop or what you would like to see us offer.

For additional entries you may also…

1. Favourite Stitchin’ Traditions Esty shop ~ 1 entry
2. Purchase an item from Stitchin’ Traditions ~ 10 entries
3. Share this giveaway on Facebook and/or your blog ~ 1 entry each
4. Post the Stitchin’ Traditions button on your blog sidebar ~ 2 entries

(To share the Stitchin' Traditions butoon on your blog, just cut and paste the header image at the top and link to Anna's etsy shop which is in the first paragraph.)

Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each additional entry.

Giveaway is open internationally.

The giveaway will end on Our Lady's Birthday, the 8th of September 2012 and the winners will be drawn at random.

Thank you!

Stitchin’ Traditions ~ Annamaria, Emma and Co.

Feast of St Anne

Juan de Roelas, Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read (c. 1610)

Happy Feast Day to all lovers of St Anne!  I hope your day is filled with many graces and blessings.  I was very blessed to have received some lovely St Anne prayer cards touched to her relic from a dear Australian friend, who shares my name.

I made a yummy apple tart for the feast, which is a very tradition cuisine for St Anne, to try this lovely, gluten free recipe adapted originally by Tamara Duker Freuman, pop over to Catholic Cuisine, where I have shared it.

Last Supper and the Mass presented for children

The Mass setting for the felt dolls with altar.

Some may remember my posting last year, where I showed how I made a felt doll set of apostles, Our Lady and the Holy Spirit for children to interact with in a catechesis setting.  If you did not see it, here is the link to my tutorial.  You can see below a photo of what I made.

To see closer detail, click on images to enlarge.

Felt apostle dolls with Holy Spirit and tongues of fire

So what this posting is about is the 'home' and 'setting' made for these dolls. The dolls were to be presented in a Last Supper or Pentecost setting (both being in the Upper Room) and then also a Mass setting (I'm yet to make the priest doll).

The Last Supper setting with Last Supper Table.

The first photo above is the completed Mass setting, that features the back wall of a church, with stained glass windows, statues and in the centre is the altar.

The photo just above is of the Last Supper setting, with three open windows looking out onto the Garden of Olives and the Jerusalem wall and Temple.  In the centre is the Last Supper Table.  The Apostles and Our Lord can be placed around the table for a re-enactment of the Last Supper.  It also can be used for the Pentecost scene, which took place in the Upper Room as well.  

This was not hard to make, it was not expensive.  I used 3 MDF boards (very cheap) and 2 metres or so of wood and a little bit of square doweling, some nails, a saw.  Other essentials include pencil, rubber, ruler, tracing paper and school acrylic paints.

 The picture you see above is the back wall, on one side I painted the Church scene, then I flipped it over and painted the Last Supper scene.  The back wall panel buts in between two strips of square doweling wood, that were nailed side by side length-wise at the back of the floor area, the spacing between the two pieces of doweling is the exact thickness of the MDF board, so it fits in firmly and does not move.  When you are packing the display up, you can take the back wall out all together.  Have a look at the photo below, you will see the square doweling at the base of the wall, I have painted it with 'stone brickwork' to disguise it's functional purpose.

The photo above is also a good shot to see how I made the altar/Last Supper Table, as they are one and same thing.  On one side I have painted a 'IHS' motif that you would often find on a Church altar.  On the other side, it is plain, so that it just looks like a wooden table.  The altar was made from left over MDF board, it features as the top of the table and the base.  In between the two pieces of MDF board is three pieces of wood, two are the same size, the third is slightly smaller, no really reason for that, just it gives a nicer appearance. The three pieces of wood were placed together (smaller piece in the middle) and then I nailed the MDF board on top of the 3 pieces and then flipped up side down, and nailed the MDF board base.  I painted it mission brown and then painted the IHS motif on the Church altar side.  The photo below features the altar side, front on.

The next seven photos, feature the painting of the Church side, back wall. What I did, was do an internet search on stained glass windows and Church statues.  I found a lovely Holy Spirit window image, saved it to my computer.  Then I found a lovely image of a set of 3 stained glass windows which featured the Crucifixion.  Then I found an image of a St Therese statue and St Francis Xavier, two Australian patrons, which often see in many Churches throughout Australia.

Here is a nice close up of the Holy Spirit/Trinity stained glass window, this one I drew free hand and painted it with simple, school acrylic paints.

Here is a close of the St Francis Xavier statue, with the statues, I printed up the images to the size I wanted to draw and paint them, but I mirror flipped them before printing.  The reason for mirror flipping was because I wanted to trace the statues and put onto the board that way, less chance of mistakes.  Then I painted them both to look like they were stone statues.

Here is the close up of St Therese of Lisieux.

You can see how I've drawn and painted the stone brickwork around everything, I used three different shades of grey.

When it came to the three stained glass windows set, I free hand drew the windows, the only thing I traced was the Crucifixion scene.  I changed a few little things here and there, in fact, I printed up two different stained glass windows, using the motifs out of the one and using the colour scheme and glass patterning, from the other.

  

A photo of the all the stained glass windows.

All finished, and ready to start on the reverse side ~ the Last Supper scene is next.

  

Here is the three windows looking out onto the Garden of Olives, the Jerusalem wall and Solomon's Temple rising above the walls.  I just did an image search of the Mount of Olives and came up with a photo that looked like what you see here.  Of course, the modern photo featured the muslim Dome of the Rock where you see Solomon's Temple in this picture!  So I did a search on what Solomon's Temple was supposed to have looked like and drew the top of it, where would normally be today, the Dome of the Rock.  You can see pencil pines and the olive trees in the forefront, laden with olives. 

In this photo you can get an idea of how I built the base.  It featured two big pieces of MDF board.  So I took the MDF board base, and nailed timber around the two sides and the front, I set them back from the edge by about a couple of cms (inch or so).  Then I nailed the top MDF board on top, which was to be painted as the stone floor.  The back side did not have a strip of timber nailed along it, as I wanted to use it as an opening to place the felt dolls for storage.  I used some left over MDF board to make a sliding door.  In this photo you can also see the second strip of square doweling, that holds the back wall firmly in place on the base.

 So, here they are finished and ready for use!  It is solid and very eye catching for children, hopefully for many years of use ahead in a catechesis/atrium setting.

A new litany of St Anne

The novena to St Anne is about to begin, in order to finish in time for her feast day on the 26th of July.

In my left hand sidebar you will see many links to my previous posting about this wonderful saint.  I've linked three different novena prayers if anyone is looking for some suitable ones.

I wanted to share today, a beautiful litany to St Anne I had never seen before.  It comes from a really beautiful prayer book for mothers called, "Mother Love".  My copy was gifted to me by a very dear friend who has been such an example to me over the years.  It is one of the very best prayer books for mothers, which I highly recommend. It is published by the Capuchin Franciscans.  Here is a place that it can be purchased.

Artist Name: Jacques Stella
Painting Title: St. Anne Leading the Virgin to the Temple, c.1635-45
Museum: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, Normandy, France




Litany of St Anne

(For private recitation only)

Lord, have mercy on us

Christ, have mercy on us

Lord, have mercy on us

Christ here us, Christ graciously hear us

God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us

God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us

God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us

Holy Mary, spotless child of St Joachim and St Anne, Pray for us and for our children

St Joachim, father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pray for us and for our children

St Joachim, promised descendant of Abraham and David, Pray for us and for our children

St Joachim, venerable patriarch,  Pray for us and for our children

St Joachim, holy spouse of St. Anne,  Pray for us and for our children

St Joachim and St Anne, shining models of Christian spouses,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, royal lady,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, glory of the House of David,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, faithful and loving wife,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, venerable model of meekness and humility,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, brilliant example of holy obedience,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, sparkling mirror of patience and resignation,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, perfect type of devotion and piety,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, fruitful vine,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, giving wise instruction and careful training to your child,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, worthy mother of the Mother of God,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, tender mother of all virgins,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, mother lending aid to all Christian mothers,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, consoling mother of all widows,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, kind mother of us all,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, refuge of the suffering,  Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, guiding star of widows, Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, harbour of safety in the storms of this life, Pray for us and for our children

St Anne, bulwark of the Church, We implore you, St Anne

Through your virtues and merits, We implore you, St Anne

Through your goodness and compassion, We implore you, St Anne

Through all your gifts and prerogatives, We implore you, St Anne

Through your high vocation, We implore you, St Anne

Through your miraculous maternity, We implore you, St Anne

Through Mary, your child full of grace, We implore you, St Anne

Through the joys prepared for you on earth by Jesus and Mary, We implore you, St Anne

Through the honour they now render you in heaven, We implore you, St Anne

Through your exceedingly great rapture and bliss, We implore you, St Anne

Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord

Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord

Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, O Lord

Christ hear us,

Christ graciously hear us

Let us Pray,

St Anne, my dear mother and most compassionate protectress, receive graciously my poor efforts to do your honour. May I ever be devoted to you with a heart full of childlike humility and submission!  May your example encourage me, your intercession strengthen me, your goodness console me!  Permit me with all my heart to commend to you my children. As you consecrated Mary, your child of grace, entirely to God, I beg you to obtain for me the grace to train my children for Him, and with them to labour perseveringly for heaven. As you lived in holy harmony and peace with St Joachim, so may love, union, devotion, and zeal for virtue reign in my household, that we may belong to the host of blessed spouses who with you will love, praise, and glorify the Most High forever and ever. Amen.