Transfiguration Kneelers 

When the Anglesea Anglican Church of the Transfiguration enlarged the Sanctuary,  the altar rails were adjusted and as the existing kneelers did not fit, the idea of new tapestry kneelers was born.  An Embroidery Group resulted: Anne Brayshaw, Mary Soames and Jean Wendt, with occasional assistance from Beryl Hodgson, Hilda Marriott and Nan Hook on background and borders.  The group were inexperienced but Kaffe Fassett, who had recently displayed his wonderful designs in Melbourne, inspired us to give it a go.

An unanimous decision was to use our local wildflowers in the designs, instead of ecclesiastical designs – that was the easy part.  The choosing of flowers, colours, designs and canvas, measuring and getting the selected designs onto canvas and finally worked – was the difficult part. 

With patience, discussion, debate, many cups of tea and coffee, and above all hope, we finally commenced work.  We were fortunate to have assistance in working two of the designs from two members of the Uniting Church, Shirley Forsythe and Mabel Barker,  for which we were most grateful.    Fourteen months later, the project was well on the way to completion. The total cost was $460 covered by $60 in donations, $200 from the Ladies Group and $200 from a theatre night.   The Bishop blessed them on the 29th September 1991”  (from original description of kneelers, unknown author and date). 

In 2020 two frames were hung behind the organ, one containing the text above, the other a diagram of the kneelers with the names of the wildflowers in each panel.

Bev Voisey and her husband made the long padded cushions for the pews in the church, and when the altar rail was removed from the sanctuary, and the embroidered kneelers no longer needed, she used two of them to make an organ cover. The remaining central kneeler was framed in 2020 and hangs on the wall of the sanctuary (Margaret Vise).