"Roses," said St. Elizabeth

St. Elizabeth's Apron, which is the title of this hanging, was the 2005 Patchworks McMillan Challenge. The challenge title was "Roses" and the fabric was a rose print.

I dithered over a number of ideas, then, while reading a Hornblower novel I came across a reference to St Elizabeth's roses. That was the trigger. I knew the story (vaguely), but I went to the inter-web to check it out.

One story about her relates that St. Elizabeth (1207-1231), Queen of Hungary, was a Christian given to good works. She would take food to the hungry, clothes to the poor and medicines to the sick. The King, not necessarily having the same values, and watching her drain his coffers, put his foot down. He threatened that if he ever caught her doing so again he would have her beheaded.
The story goes on to say that she continued to do so and one day, when her apron was filled with bread for the starving, they met in the street. "What's in your apron?" he demanded. "Roses," she lied. "Let me see!" Feeling the cold edge of the axe on her neck, Elizabeth opened her apron and the bread had changed to roses.

I based the colour scheme on a depiction of St. Elizabeth. It shows her in a red dress, with a blue over-mantle and a white apron. I chose a red 'mille-fleure' cotton for the dress to extend the rose theme and to indicate that as a lady of high rank she would have had access to exotic fabrics. I retained a solid blue for her mantle, blue being the colour that indicated purity and is associated with pious Christian maidens. The apron is formed from a large piece of white fabric. This was draped as though round the waist and being used to carry bread, then pinned and tucked into shape.
The rose fabric was ironed onto a backing to stop the roses fraying when they were cut out. Each rose or small bunch of roses was cut from the fabric and appliqued to the apron in a cascade, as though the apron had been opened and the roses were falling out.

The roses probably took about one third of the 97 hours I spent on this piece, which measures 24" on each side. I finished it off by hand embroidering the title, which I don't normally do, and making a bias binding from the remainder of the rose material.

There is a post-script to this story. A lady who worked for me was retiring to spend more time in her garden. She, like Elizabeth, was having a second chance. (Nothing to do with an irate axe wielding husband, she was in recovery from cancer.) I knew she had seen and liked the hanging, and as she grew roses it seemed an appropriate leaving present.