The long Thanksgiving Holiday is at an end, and there is much to be thankful for. Blessings abound if we would take but a moment to be still and look at the gifts we have been given. I have much to be Thankful for: our church is blessed with a good and faithful Pastor. I am daily surrounded by family and friends that are dear to me. We have all of our daily needs met for food clothing and shelter. Yes, we have much to be thankful for. There is another part of life for which to be thankful, and that is my vocation.

Ecclesiastical Sewing has become a vocation and a calling, and I am thankful for the many people who faithfully follow our blog, as well as for those who pop in on occasion when something strikes their fancy. It is because of our readers, and those who are interested in pursuing the making of church vestments for their own places of worship that Ecclesiastical Sewing exists. We are also thankful when we get feed back, comments and suggestions regarding your needs and concerns, and we do our best to try to fill those needs where possible.

This weekend, as a way of saying thank you to a faithful reader who provides lots of great suggestions and encouragement, we are pleased to announce that digital downloadable machine embroidery designs have arrived about 8 to 12  months earlier than we had planned.  Yes, the plan has been for us to offer machine embroidery designs for you our readers to purchase for use with your own home embroidery machines, but we were not planning on that until sometime in mid to late 2017.  We knew it would take a great deal of work to prepare machine embroidery files, explore the options for downloading files, have files digitized in the various formats, and the list goes on.

Yet when that kind suggestion or request was made, we took a side step and looked over our plans. We decided to give things a bit of a test, make a few adjustments to the development schedule, put in a few really long weeks, and in less than a month, here we are. Digital machine embroidery files are available for download so that you may purchase a stole kit, or fabric of your choice and enjoy using the same great designs that we use on our vestments to create your own church vestments at home.

Our collection of digital machine embroidery designs is small at the moment, but rest assured, more designs are on the way. We offer most liturgical machine embroidery designs in a wide range of digital files.  File formats are DST, EMB, EXP, HUS, JEF, PCS, PES, and XXX. Some formats may not be available for certain designs based on size. Some machine formats may have a split design (a part A and B) for large size designs.

The above design is the VDMA Symbol which was used during the Reformation. The design is appropriate with the upcoming celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation in October of 2017. And if you will indulge me for a moment, I will tell you a little story about this design. I had wanted to create a VDMA cross design for machine embroidery since the fall of 2015. Life got a bit crazy last fall with a house remodel and a wedding. Finally, when I was traveling last spring, I pulled out my computer and started working on the VDMA design, and it would not go anywhere. Everything I tried looked terrible. I could not find a font I liked, every cross looked wrong, and I just about gave up on the project. The, on a whim, when I was having another design digitized, there was that letter “A” and nothing else. That letter A served as the inspiration for this project. I wanted to create the other letters to go with that A. Well, it was much more difficult (at least for me) that it would seem to create 4 letters that worked together. The project became a family affair, with everyone offering advice and suggestions. With the help of my very talented son, we finally got the design the way we wanted. We knew the design was great, but that is only a small part. The challenge was still to come: would i the digitizer do justice to the design?!

A photo may be the best way of showing the finished results. This design was stitched on a commercial machine.  And I have many people to thank for helping bring this VDMA Symbol for machine embroidery to life. What do you think?

This design, as well as most designs are available in a number of sizes. The VDMA symbol machine embroidery design is available in a 3.5″, 5.5″ and 7″ size. The size range is based on using the design for a stole, a chasuble, altar superfrontal or pulpit fall. Should the need arise for additional sizes, please contact us by email, and we will check availability of having additional sizes digitized.

The embroidery designs found here at Ecclesiastical Sewing come from a variety of sources. Many designs are from our private collection of vintage books and patterns. Some designs, such as the VDMA Cross Symbol above are original designs that I have created.  But what ever the original source of the design may have been, these designs represent hours of work  in the creating, cleaning up, refining, digitizing, and test stitching process. The designs are made available for the private use of our readers and guests at our online storefront. Each design download includes as copy of our digital design use policy, and we request your understanding and appreciate your following of those guidelines so that we may continue to create many more new designs for your use here at Ecclesiastical Sewing.

The digital liturgical machine embroidery designs are available as an instant download through our website. There is no shipping, no waiting. Simple complete the check out process, and you will receive notification about the design.

So, again, thanks to your suggestions and recommendations, we are pleased to be offering Religious machine embroidery designs to you this Thanksgiving weekend.

Soli Deo Gloria

Be sure to visit our online store front Ecclesiastical Sewing where you may shop for Liturgical Fabrics, altar linen fabrics, church vestment making patterns, liturgical machine embroidery designs,  church vestment trims and notions and so much more. You may also find us on  Ecclesiastical Sewing  on Facebook , Twitter, and Pinterest. Sing up for our mailing list  at the bottom of the page on our online store front and receive a free copy of our Small Linens Booklet as our way of saying thank you for following along.

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Filed under: Christian Symbols, Church Symbolism, Ecclesiastical Embroidery Design, Ecclesiastical Sewing, Pulpit Fall, Reformation, Reformation Sunday Tagged: Christian Symbols, Church Symbolism, Ecclesiastical Embroidery Design, Ecclesiastical Sewing, Pulpit Fall, Reformation, Reformation Sunday, VDMA