In preparation for adding the lettering to the banner, I cut away all the background from behind the rays of light.
Bit of a wonky shot, but you can see how the rays look now they're stitched in place.
Next up is lettering. I had two problems to solve - how to add a nice even oval of lettering all around the candle, and how to get all the bondawebbed letters ironed in place without myriad trips back and forth to the ironing board. In the photograph above you can see my first attempt at answering problem two, which didn't work - the white oval is the words printed out and taped together but no way is the oval right, and I have no idea how I thought that would help me place the letters accurately! Problem one is solved though - 4' x 6' of plywood that I can iron on, so I can lay out all the words and iron them in one fell swoop right there on the dining room floor. Thank goodness for useful local DIY shops!
This was my eventual answer to problem two - chalk and a ruler. I knew how big I wanted the oval to be, so I measured in from each edge at its centre point, and made little chalk marks. Then I drew one quarter of the oval freehand, and did lots of measuring from that and marking on the other three quadrants to replicate the shape.
It worked out well, I'm relieved to say! Partway through ironing I did wonder whether heating chalk up makes it permanent, but I'm happy to report it doesn't. By that point, bondawebbing-letters-onto-a-banner madness had struck me, so I wouldn't have stopped anyway I don't think. This is a weird condition whereby I drive myself crazy making ridiculous efforts to get everything as pefect as I can, spending absolutely ages on it, until suddenly a compulsion to just get-it-done grips me and off I go with the iron.
All I have to do now is stitch around each letter close to the edges to secure them. All forty-plus of them. Hmm.
The candle was nicely behaved. I want it to be prominent, and to stand out nicely against the different colours of the banner, so I've made it in two layers which both have medium-weight vilene to pad it slightly. In the photograph above you can see the back of each layer, with the seam allowances tacked over....
....and here are all four pieces, with the ever-so-annoying-slippery-gold-stuff and lovely-well-behaved ivory silk layers on top of the black layers so you can see what they will look like when they are finally stitched in place. (You just have to try not to notice the tacking, which will of course all be gone eventually.) I'll only be adding the candle to the banner once the quilting is done. That's this week's progress!
