banner

That duc collected so many titles that his darn banner has to be the most complicated ever to make... But when 'ya have to, 'ya have to !!! The banner will be about 3m X 3m in total. Note that the whole thing is made of 100% wool.

I decided to start with the "old Burgundy" partitions ; They are "Bandé d'or et d'azur, à la bordure de gueules". Thanks to Marymont, I can now translate this for you in english :-D ;
"Bendy or and azure, a bordure gules"...

The base is blue and the yellow stripes are sewn to it with hemstiches.

The red bands are joined with 45 degrees angles and are overstiched by hand. Beside is an outlook of my "slim" lion paper-pattern for upper-right and lower-left quarters (the head looks smaller than the legs but it's only due to the angle. I was standing on a chair to picture it since it takes most of my office's floor space ! ) The lion is made in 5 seperate pieces.

My friend Hugo brought to my attention the fact that the red lion is in fact different from the other lions ; It has a double tail and it's crowned. So, I fixed this issue right away. Up 'til here, I've worked about 20 hours on that lion. I'm only missing the head and a small paw so, I'm evaluating that each lion will take around 25 hours to hemstitch.

Beside is only a "disposition test" for the fleurs on the "Touraine" sections, none of them are sewn yet,
I need to make the red & white framing first

Boy, this one's been a pain in the neck * Literaly * I've been working on it 'til 4:00am last night and all afternoon & evening again today. But it was worth it because that part is finaly DONE ! Those claws have been real little buggers. The darn wool rips each time that I pass the needle through those pointy bits... I'm sorry that I can't get a clear shot, there's simply not enough light in my appartment at night for the camera to focus...

Could somebody PLEASE remind me *Why* I'm doing this ???
God, it took me half of the evening just setting the fleurs and pinning them in place can you imagine that now I need to hemstitch them all... Crap, I feel like crying just thinking about it. And the worst part is that after, I'll need to make another one exactly the same... So anyhow, I'm done over-stitching one of the red & white frames and I'm half done with the other one... Than I'll be killing my back on those fleurs de lys... Once again, sorry for the blur, I swear that I'll be taking a clear shot of it once the basic is done ! The very light square line that you see at the lower right is where a quarter of the "Flandre" crest will be set...

Well I'm finaly done with one of the two Touraine pannels but it didn't go well at all, I'm in an undiscribable bad mood. The darn little buggers kept wiggling, tossing, riping, bending, stretching and distorting in every ways possible as I was sewing them on. I tried everything from pins to glue and it didn't do me any good. On top of it, the glue was showing through the light yellow so, in the end, I couldn't use it. And there's no store around here that holds double-sided-sticky-interlining-thing-a-ma-gigger. Anyhow, I survived the first one so I guess that with a couple more days of whining, I can probably get through the second one alive !

In the end, it takes nearly an hour for each little fleur to sew... And they look awful...

Well, I'm finaly done with both Touraine sections and I'm curently working on the Flander crest. Here the lion is only laying on the fabric to give you an idea of the overlook. This is the smallest piece of the puzzle and still, I had to picture it from ceilling level. You can have an idea of it's size just by comparing it to my 'lil girl who's 2 year old. Lol ! She looks microscopic beside that huge thing... Can you imagine the whole banner ?!!!

Oh crap !!! I knew that it was big but this is crazy !!!

I was standing on the very last step of the ladder and I couldn't hang it any higher. My son had to stand on the ladder as well but in my neighbor's backyard to be able to get all of it in the picture ! The two white lines that you're seeing are unfortunatly the laundry rope... God, the darn thing is HUGE !!!

So anyhow, I had to hang it that way to be able to pin the Flander crest on properly because I can't work on it in any room of the house anymore... I think that I'll have to rent a church's basement to be able to work on the reverse side, hell !!!

Now there's still a bit of the gules lion missing. I wasn't sure how much space the Flander part would cover and I didn't wanna work double-time for nothing so, I waited a bit to figure it out. The claws are also missing on that one and on the sable lion as well. The whole crest also needs to be sewn on but, after that, I'll mostly be done with that side.

Gee, I'll have to lose a bit of weight, my arms and shoulders are so big, I look like a football player !!! :-D

Yeah right, as if ! ... Ding dong ; Hello ???
I had totally forgotten that I needed to open all those new seams flat and overstitch them before sewing the crest on. *sigh*

So I took out all the furniture from the living-room to try and get myself a bit of workspace and I've spent the whole night breaking my back by sewing on my knees on floor because I can't work on the table nor in my bed with that thing anymore. (can't work during the day, it's 35 degrees outside and even worse in the house)

So I managed to get half of that done last night by working 'til 4:00am this morning. It looks like I'll have to do the same tonight to get the rest done. Gee, I feel like I'll never get done with that thing. I've also been fighting with the cats all night because the darn wool attracks them like a magnet !

After nearly a year of deliberation, I've decided to go with a plain lining. The darn thing is *way* too heavy as it is and adding arms to the back would double that weight and make it nearly impossible to carry around. In order to work on the banner, I had to rent a big hall on a few occasions. I had the opportunity to lay the whole thing flat, take accurate measures and cut a lining for it. I'm now also done handsewing all 26 crennels and loop-suspenders. Now all it needs is a decent pole :)