Success! My Sufi embroidered boxes sold well!

Last week I was in Germany, at the Sufi summer school that I go to each year. On the Wednesday afternoon, there’s always a market, where participants offer for sale things that they’ve made, and I took some of the embroidered boxes that I’ve been featuring on this blog.

I was really pleased to sell about three-quarters of the boxes that I took, and all three of the miniature framed pictures. People often sell jewellery, or ethnic-style clothes suitable for dancing, but no-one else was selling anything embroidered.

They have all gone to good homes – some of them, to the homes of senior Sufi teachers, as several people who bought a box told me that it would be a gift for their teacher.

The Dervish design box is one of these – it will be given to a woman in America who is well known for her beautifully graceful dervish dancing (‘turning’).

One of my firends, who is half Scottish and half Australian, bought the box with ‘Allaho Akbar’ in Arabic calligraphy on it – the first box in this series that I ever made.

And one couple bought a  Sufi heart and wings box to put their wedding rings in when they get married next month, which I think is really sweet.

So, I only have a few left, now, and they will probably be given as either birthday presents or initiation presents to people that I know. Well worth the time it took to make them all, I think  🙂

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Details of the Sufi embroidered boxes

Here are some close-ups of the Sufi embroidered boxes that I’ve been making during the past year (see my previous post for why I’ve been doing this!).

This is my favourite colourway of all the boxes I’ve made, so I’ve assumed other people would agree with me, and made several like this 🙂

The boxes are just right for storing prayer beads in – they measure about two inches by three and a half, by two inches high.

This is an Arabic calligraphy box, showing the phrase ‘Subhan Allah’, which means ‘All glory be to God’.

This one shows the phrase ‘Allaho Akbar’, which means ‘God is greater than all things’. This one was lovely to do, but took ages, as the stitches around the curves had to be placed very carefully, or the design lost the flowing lines. It was done in stem stitch rows, mostly, with one strand of a Stef Francis variegated silk thread. The box measures just over three inches in diameter.

And this one is stitched on duck egg blue Dupion silk, with a pale pink heart and feathers in silver thread, inspired by my friend Lindsay, who just loves all things pink!

This is the whole collection of boxes I’ve stitched:

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A selection of embroidered boxes with Sufi themes

During the past year, whenever I’ve had some spare time (ha! what’s that??!), I’ve been making these little embroidered boxes. Most of them have the same motif on the top – the ‘heart and wings’ emblem of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, which is the spiritual path that I follow. The boxes are just the right size to store prayer beads in. I am going to a Sufi summer school next week, where I hope to spend a lot of time doing Dances of Universal Peace, and these boxes, hopefully, will be sold at the market that is held on the Wednesday afternoon, when the participants, who come mainly from Germany (as that’s where the summer school takes place), share items that they’ve made.

The boxes are covered in satin. I’ve used various fabrics for the lids, depending what I had available in my stash – mostly Dupion silk – and the feathers of the wings are in either DMC silver thread, or Ophir gold thread. Each feather is a lazy daisy stitch, with the outer row having a straight stitch down the centre as well. The little hearts in the centre of the motif are padded with a felt patch first, just a bit smaller than the top shape, which is fine metallic kid leather (bought from the Golden Hinde website).

The tricky bit with each box was getting the design on the fabric in the first place, as any drawn outlines would show (especially on the design with wings) – so I thread traced the design through tissue paper, ripping the paper off to leave the design, and then unpicking the thread as I stitched the design.

Some of the boxes are of Arabic calligraphy, using Stef Francis variegated silks. These were lovely to do, but very time-consuming, so I didn’t get as many of these finished as I’d have liked.

The three framed pictures are done in one strand of Anchor on 32 count evenweave, showing the Sufi phrase ‘Toward the One’ (one of them says the phrase in German, for the benefit of the Germans at the summer school!).

I don’t often make completed stitching to sell – usually, I sell kits for miniature needlepoint, so it will be interesting to see how these go down with people.

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Arabic calligraphy on an embroidered box lid

During the winter, I’ve been gradually stitching designs onto a selection of box lids. They are all Sufi-themed designs (because I follow the Universal Sufi spiritual path, and I wanted to make a range of stitched items to sell at the Summer School that I go to in Germany each year, in the ‘market’ that is held on the Wednesday afternoon).

This design is based on the phrase ‘Allaho Akbar’ in Arabic calligraphy, which means ‘God / Unity is greater than all things’. I transferred the design onto the fabric using tissue paper with the design drawn on in pencil – then I tacked through the tracing onto the fabric, and ripped off the tissue to leave the sewing thread outline on the fabric. I unpicked these threads as I stitched the actual design. I only traced the main outlines, not the squiggles – I added those by eye, to complete the design.

‘Allaho Akbar’ text embroidered round linen-covered box with lid

Starting at the lower edge of each motif, I worked stem stitch in rows along the shape, adapting how many rows were necessary as I went. I used a space dyed thread from Oliver Twists – Fine Cotton, shade 004 – which was very smooth to stitch with, and the shading was lovely – very soft colour changes. The little squiggles between the main letters were worked using whatever embroidery stitch seemed right: twisted chain, fly stitch, stem stitch, and French knots.

Close-up of the stitching

The box is about three inches in diameter, and linen-covered on the outside, with a pale matching cotton fabric on the inside. I bought it from Viking Loom of York, who sell a wide range of these boxes, in several shapes and colours (satin as well as linen).

I don’t usually stitch with these earthy shades, but I’m very pleased with how this one came out.

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