A Place of Grace: St. Patrick Episcopal church in Ferndale receives new needlework

Patti Blonda Saville didn’t have to pray about making kneelers for her church. Doreen Thigpen provided all the encouragement Saville needed.

Together with 18 others, the women recently completed 12 kneelers for St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Ferndale. It was a two-and-a-half year project, Saville said, but well worth the effort.

She explained that the church never had any kneelers at the communion rail, just carpet.

A visit to St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City provided the inspiration, she said.

Saville and her husband, Steve, had a weekend layover in Salt Lake City while flying from Montana to Massachusetts in 2010. The couple attended a Sunday morning worship service and afterward Saville went to the front of the church to look at the kneelers, which featured flowers.

She was impressed.

Upon their return, Steve encouraged her to tell their Ferndale church about the project. Then Thigpen “just kind of assumed we were going to do it after a Sunday announcement,” Saville said.

The project — which features over 30 different wildflowers that are native to Montana — took off.

St. Mark’s Cathedral donated some of the wool yarn needed for the project, but Saville had to contact a number of out-of-state yarn stores to find the rest. The three-ply Persian Paternayan yarn had been discontinued.

Winnie Greenshields served as the group’s botanical advisor. “She lived in East Glacier for many years and she knows the wildflowers,” Saville said.

Faye Lomax helped with graphic design and a friend of Saville’s in Delaware, Lynn Weymouth, painted the canvass pillow covers.

Then came the needlepointing.

Thigpen taught her granddaughter, Abigail Schidler, 8, the craft. “It was kind of hard,” Schidler said. “I just wanted to help. It just looked fun to me.”

Saville and Thigpen both learned needlepoint when they were young. Saville was taught by her grandmother in Massachusetts, while Thigpen learned from her mother in southern California.

Saville did plenty of the needlepoint work, drawing upon years of experience, including time spent with a business in the Grenadine Islands.

After receiving funding from the Reagan Administration’s Caribbean Initiative, Saville started a needlepoint business in St. Vincent in the 1980s. Savile owned the business — which made sweaters — for six years before giving it to the island’s Department of Women’s Affairs, she said.

Thigpen said it was wonderful to work on the project after having not done needlepointing for a number of years.

The women are now ready for a break, but that will have to wait until after St. Patrick’s July 21 open house. The kneelers will be dedicated in the 10 a.m. service and the open house will follow from noon to 3 p.m.

Food, music and a silent auction featuring needlepoint kits will be available, along with a needlepoint demonstration.

For more information, call Saville at 837-2684.