Continuing with the goldwork, I’ve now added a ring in gold thread to the centre of the velvet cross. I first stitched over the relevant part of the transfer design on the back in small running stiches, to get the location for it onto the front of the fabric. I then cut out the ring…
I’ve outlined the appliqué cross with couched Japanese passing thread no. 8 in gold, or Jap gold for short. I used two threads at a time; I don’t cut the threads, but leave them on the reel, or reels, as I use two at once. This both cuts down on wastage (this stuff costs money!)…
With the background fabric ready, I can start on the appliqué cross. This is in red velvet, but to start with, I traced the outline of the cross, and stuck the tracing paper to some felt using 505 fabric spray glue. I don’t like doing this, but it does lead to a more accurate shape…
The linen’s arrived! I can finally make a proper start. With the (pre-shrunk) fabric ready, I tacked the cross transfer to the linen, and with a hot dry iron, ironed it on. The same transfer worked fine for both the front and back crosses – I didn’t need to make two. I left a gap…
Even though the banner is not meant to be washable, you can’t be too careful – it’s always possible that an accident might happen one day and it could get damp. So, it’s best that all the fabric is pre-shrunk. If it hadn’t been, and if did get damp, then the different fabrics could shrink…
I can’t do anything else on the banner until the linen arrives, so I can spend a bit of time catching up with other things. I need to put calico backs on each of the 4″ rainbow squares, I ought to put loops for the pole on the back of the banner toile, and I…
As I’ve been making transfers of the flowers on the banner design, I’ve needed to do a bit of simplification. The individual flowers and leaves that make up the foxgloves and ferns get smaller and smaller until they disappear; this works well on paper, but isn’t practical to embroider, especially as I’m planning on working…
It’s always interesting to see how others have done something, and when it comes to processional banners, they don’t come any better than this. I went for a visit to York Minster recently, to have a look at some of their ecclesiastical embroidery. I was fortunate to be able to speak to two very knowledgeable…
Continuing with the prep work, I’ve started making transfers for the flowers that’ll appear all the red panels on the front of the banner. I’m doing this with an iron-on transfer pencil – tracing the design with the transfer pencil, ready to iron onto linen for stitching. There is a complication, though: when you create…
The velvet’s arrived! It’s cotton velvet – we looked at 100% silk velvet (not silk/rayon mix, which I find awful to work with), but to get it in the right colour, and with a dense enough pile, was so appallingly expensive, that we opted for cotton instead. I’d have been terrified to cut the silk…