A banner!

There is to be a recording by BBC tonight at All Saints Church for a "Songs of Praise" programme that will be broadcast on 21st February I think. A lot of people will be wearing their badges but yesterday when talking to Vicar Wendy somehow the idea of a banner popped up!

As the recording is tonight and I wasn't even sure I had enough time or the right fabrics in the stash I wasn't making any promises! Of course I can't resist a challenge and a deadline so this was delivered today. :o)
It is about a metre wide and I had to think of a quick method. I used the Bernina embroidery software again starting with the original embroidery design of the original cloth badges. I resized the designs to the size I wanted and then printed out all the lettering. That covered 10 x A4 sheets which I taped together and placed on top of the blue fabric. I had some red which I placed beneath.

It was then just a case of dropping the feed dogs and stitching through paper and two layers of fabric. The cutting away of the blue to reveal the red took a little time but it was easy then to remove the paper and zig zag round. The yellow balls were just appliqued on top and the bouncy line is just a couched string. It would perhaps have been quicker if I had had enough Bondaweb but this worked and was ready for this morning.

Smooth stitching!

I haven't a big table for this machine and am somewhere between selling a sewing cabinet, that gave me a large flat surface for quilting, and sorting out a replacement.

I know there is a product that does this job on the market--------but I needed one last night!



Solution? The Tefal nonstick baking tray sheet from the supermarket stuck onto my sewing table with painter's tape.!!!
They were both in use in my sewing room already. The sheet was one I had used for ironing Bondaweb, Angelina etc. etc. to save my ironing board. I had been a bit careless with it and cut into it along with the fabric so it was going to be replaced. The painter's tape is brilliant as it sticks to anything and doesn't mark. It gets used to stick onto rulers as a marker, on fabric as a straight line. to hold cables out of way.

Result! Smooth surface that fabric is just gliding over :o)

I decided that the dark floral made quite a good background and also found more vintage Laura Ashley fabric, down my very own fabric mine, to add some borders. :o)

I put tiny strips of Bondaweb all around the central medallion to centre it securely before stitching around it with a blanket stitch. The Bernina knee lift was an essential for pivoting around all the angles around the edge. I used Valdani variegated thread that worked in very well for that. Once the top is finished I will remove the dark floral from behind the medallion area.


It now measures about six feet square so is a useful size.
Of course I now realise that I pinned it onto that curtain pole to take a picture and have photographed it sideways! The left hand side in the picture is actually the bottom of the quilt!