About a month ago I had an idea to give our local priest a gift. He just celebrated his 25th year being a priest. As he was from India, he did not have his own church decorations. His chosen symbol is the Lamb of God. I thought a banner with this lamb would be a great project.
I had figured out the fabric and the time to complete the project. What I did not take into account was the flu, farm and floods. We had out of town visitors stranded, roads closed so no deliveries and I got sick, very sick. The deadline I created was 1 week away from the celebration. It was time to buckle down and create.
Bridal satin is not your friend. It has a mind of its own. Using the window to transfer the design.
Fleshing out the basic design on slippery satin. The secret to satin is using tissue paper under the seams as you sew. The fabric will not slip and you can wash or tear off the tissue paper after. I used holiday tissue paper I had around. The backing was navy blue batik with ivory stars. It was all I had on hand that was wide enough for the back.
Quilting down the parts of the applique and adding black rat tail for the flag. I decided this was too much work using the rat tail. I did a satin machine stitch in black instead.
Machine appliqued the banner 40 inches x 55 inches under my Janome.
I added batting under the lamb for more body and machine quilted the fleece.
When I finished I needed to frame the banner. I was out of blue satin fabric. And after a practice run of sating binding I tossed out that idea, too much work. So I found some gold crackle cotton and I sewed the binding by machine. It came out flawless. The only part I had to hand sew was the rod pocket on the back after binding. I even got the cloth label on by machine thanks to my husband printing it off ahead of time. I got the banner done the day before. My studio is still covered in paper, satin and fabric scraps. Clean up has to wait until I get all the veggies planted.
close up
Banner in place in natural light.
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