88/365 Banner thoughts

Sewing for church has made me a better seamstress in a similar way that deciding that church was important made me a more focused person. Working on the Easter banner set, I am reminded of my printmaking teacher, Rina, who was always urging us to "go large." Of course, she was also handing us power tools and acidic compounds: "If you a power tool junkie like me..." is her most famous quote in my head. But she didn't like work with frames. She didn't like work that ended before the edge of the paper. Wasn't a fan of borders or finished looking sides. She liked torn edges to the paper and the design too large for the canvas.

That's these banners in a nutshell. Coconut shell. The longest two are 11 x 144. The next two are 11 x 120, and the ones on the outside are 11 x 96. Not all of that is visible to those on the ground--the curtain rod hanging mechanisms are on the inside of the choir loft, so part of the banner has to stretch from there to where it will actually hang down. The visible part of the longest banner is probably a little less than 10 feet instead of the full 12. But these are still, all added up, the biggest project I've ever worked on.

I lucked out and found a canvas. The Easter banners from a couple of years ago were the right length. I cut off the bottoms (they came to a point) and lay everything out on my floor. The project is too big to fit in my living room, even extending into the dining room. The length isn't the problem, but there's no way they all can lie next to each other at the same time. I am working in sets of the 4 center banners, and then on each side, dividing the 6 into two groups of 3. Everything gets pinned down and evaluated and rejected and cut again and reassembled.

It's a far cry from the first Advent ambo frontal I made. My only worry is that the way I want to sew for church now, the way that feels right in a meditative way, isn't going to mesh with our architecture or tastes of those who make decisions about things like ambo frontals and banners. And while last year's Easter banner fits nicely in a corner of the guest room/sewing room, these? These don't have another place. Here's hoping they like it.