I’m back! I was sick for a while, not Covid thankfully but something which certainly sapped my energy. On the mend now though and back in my workroom. Yay!
I was chatting with a friend about making a burse. While they were entirely too polite too correct me, they thought I had made a mistake and had meant to say I was making a purse. This got me thinking about the plosive P and droplets and Covid… and I’m sure I read somewhere that in some middle Eastern languages there is actually no P sound so they say Bepsi instead of Pepsi. But I digress, and it is indeed burses that I have been making.

Let us take a look…

As you well know, there are many ways to do things. I like to make life difficult so I go with the old fashioned double board construction technique. I use museum quality acid free board, two for the bottom and two for the top. The other way I know is to make a sort of long fabric envelope or two short fabric envelopes but I like this method; I read about it in one of my old vestment making books.

Anyway the face and lining fabric are tightly stitched onto the board by lacing at the back with strong thread and then they are stitched together so as to make a top and a bottom.

Of course I showed you that the wrong way round, you got one of the inside bits first, which is to say the rose taffeta lining followed by the outsides, a silk damask with silver braid. A very simple design.

The chalice veil is approximately 21″ square and the burse is 8″ square. Some of my pictures make them look slightly rectangular but they are indeed square…!

Here’s the end result. I am quite pleased with them, I hope they find a good home.

Hope you are keeping well. Thanks for reading.