Top TWO Questions - For clergy stoles

As an artist, creating clergy stoles is a bit of a niche market. Therefore it’s always interesting to converse with people regarding my work of creating unique, artistic stoles. Most often I am queried with one of these two questions:

1. How long does it take to make a stole? AND …

2. Why does it cost so much?

How long does it take? It’s hard to answer! Sometimes I work in limited editions and this type of batch work saves a bit of time. Here are things that go into the making of the time for each stole—

• idea generation - sometimes this is instant but other times it takes hours of research and sketching

• a rough sketch

• patterns for the symbols - sometimes I reach into my library of original created templates and other times I need to sketch, draw, and correctly size a symbol

• sourcing fabrics - sometimes I purchase from big box fabric stores and that is fairly simple. Other projects require searching for just the right thing via an internet search. Alternatively I pick up specialty fabrics while traveling and visiting new to me fabric stores that specialize in quilting fabrics.

• cutting the base layer, interfacing and backing and assembling these pieces at what will be the neck of the stole.

• cutting out symbols and ‘auditioning them on the front of the stole to make sure the fabric choice is correct. When it is just right these symbols are adhered to the stole via iron on fusible webbing

• all symbols are machine appliqued

• details are added. These might include hand painting, hand embroidery, machine embroidery.

• the three layers of the stole are sewn together

• the stole is ironed and then pressed

• the stole is photographed and photographs are edited

• the website is updated with photos and a description

• social media marketing is planned and scheduled. This may or may not include a blog post or newsletter highlight too!

And that leads us to the question of why stoles cost what they do! If you didn’t read the proceeding paragraph do so now. Then add the cost of overhead and business expenses (like website hosting, etc.) and non-consumable equipment. And I hope you will understand. (grin)