Church continues its stitching tradition

Patty Sullivan likes to say if it doesn’t move in the Church of the Redeemer, it’s probably sporting a needlepoint design.

She leads the church’s needlepoint group. 

A walk through the sanctuary reveals the results of innumerable hours of tedious work needlepointing kneelers, offering basin liners and Bible markers. When one piece wears out, the group makes a new one.

“We always have something to work on,” Sullivan said.

But the group’s newest project is taking it back to its roots.

Former parishioner Nancy Boyle started the group in the late 1960s. She would send projects home with willing parishioners, but in 2005, Boyle had an idea that didn’t suit the traditional workflow.

The church’s high altar rug had been damaged.

Boyle wanted to replace the 10-by-12-foot rug, but she needed help from one of the group’s newer members — Sullivan.

Sullivan, who joined the group in 1999, told Boyle she didn’t think she could do it.

“Oh yeah, you can,” she remembers Boyle saying.

So she did.

The group started having regular meetings, but even with a more organized front, the project took four-and-a-half years. Seven years after its completion, it remains a point of pride for the group, a tangible expression of nearly five years of tireless and tedious work.

It was a gift to the church, but the rug gave the group something in return.

“It really bonded us,” Sullivan said.

Boyle has since moved to Virginia to be closer to her family, but Sullivan is looking to repeat the founding member’s feat on a slightly smaller scale.

After two years of designing and redesigning, she has finished the plans for a 5-by-8-foot rug for the church’s smaller chapel altar. It will take more than 959,940 stitches and at least two years to complete.

The work could be expedited with the help of a loom a fellow parishioner built. The loom allows four people to work on the rug simultaneously. But there are rarely four sets of idle hands because other projects are underway.

Chances are the rug, like the other, will come to life with one person doing one stitch at a time.

The end result of the weaving endeavor will be a two-toned red geometric design with a Jerusalem cross in the center surrounded by the other symbols for Christ, such as alpha and omega.

Despite being just over half the size of the group’s last major project, it’s still the biggest single project the group has undertaken since Boyle moved.

The members agree it’s not the same without their friend.

“We still (bond),” Schaeffer said. “We just miss Nancy.”

Many members have been a part of the group for decades, tirelessly pulling their needles in and out of pieces of translucent mesh to create their contributions to their church.

Their work is easy to overlook, blending into the ornate aesthetic of the church. Even Sullivan admits she gets frustrated when she sees children and adults standing on kneelers the group labored over for years. But she, like Nancy, doesn’t do it for recognition.

“As Nancy said, ‘It’s for the glory of God,’” Sullivan said.