Replacing Ribbons in The Altar Book

OK, I admit it. It's the little things that drive me crazy. And one of those little things was having an Altar Book with nearly non-existent ribbons. You know what I mean... You've had your parish's Altar Book since 1979 when the "new" Prayer Book was introduced. And over the ensuing 30 years of Proper Prefaces and Prayers A, B, C, D, the ribbons used to mark the pages in the Altar Book have slowly worn away until they are but frayed stubs of their former glory... There had to be a way to replace them, right?

Well, here's what I've come up with...

If you're lucky enough to live in New York, you can go to the Fashion District where there are stores that sell nothing but ribbon (and buttons, and zippers... you get the picture). I went to Mokuba on West 39th Street. While I was there, two internish/entry-level fashion types came into pick up orders for Proenza Schouler and Isaac Mizrahi, so I knew I was where the elite meet to buy ribbon. Armed with my tax-exempt form (which qualifies you as 'wholesale'), I asked for some 1/4" dark red silk satin ribbon. (1/4" wide ribbons is what comes with the Altar Book.) The salesperson talked me into some double-faced, polyester satin ribbon. She said this would work better and last longer. We compared it to the silk ribbon and the weight and feel of it was the same, so I went for it. We have two Altar Books, so I got seven yards of the ribbon. It cost about $20.

Next up, I was going to need some plastic needle point canvas. I sent the long-suffering Denton to Michael's craft store in New Jersey. He came back with two sheets of #7 plastic needle point canvas. The "#7" means that the canvas has 7 holes per inch of canvas. The binding of the Altar Book is just over an inch wide or so. I needed to replace all 6 ribbons, so 7 holes per inch would give me as many holes as I needed -- and would be the easiest to thread the ribbon through. This stuff is sold in craft and needlework stores just about everywhere. I tried to get some of the ribbon there, but the quality wasn't up to snuff.

Next, I cut a strip of the plastic canvas to 10 holes wide with a pair of ordinary scissors. This width is slightly larger that the binding on the Altar Book. By making it larger, I'm hoping that it will remain fairly stationary when the book is in use. So far, this seems to be the case.

I cut the ribbon into 6 strips of roughly equal length. Then I threaded the ribbons through 6 holes in the top row of the cavas strip, and knotted them tightly.

Then, having all the ribbons in place, I could cut them down to the same approximate length. I used our paper cutter as a surface and a box cutter for a cutting edge. The ribbon is tough to cut, and the new box cutter blade proved to be the best option. I cut the ribbons to about 18" long which is, as you'll see, a bit too long. I'm going to trim them down to about 15" I think... Then I slid the beribboned strip of plastic canvas into the binding of our Altar Book. For neatness sake, I put the strip of plastic in with the knots toward the binding. That way when in use, the ribbons will fold over the top edge of the plastic canvas, helping to camoflogue it a bit (see above).

Next I used a little fabric glue to bind the ends so they wouldn't fray. I tried to find something called Fray-Check at the craft store, but couldn't find it. The ribbons salesperson said that fabric glue would work as well.

The box cutter proved to be useful in cutting away the old ribbons -- and...

Voila!, The old Altar Book is like new... And, as you can see, those ribbons need to be trimmed back a bit, by about 2 or 3", but for Sunday, Easter 5, it did the trick!

(Thanks to Altar Guilder and all around acolylte Faith Abrams for the photos!)