The front, fringing - and finished!

This is a very exciting day - after months of work, the Banner is finally finished.  Yes, it is, at last, completed.  It's been a long haul, but I got there in the end.

There's still a bit of work to bring you up to date on first, though.  The front of the Banner needed to be attached, firstly by stitching the seams to the canvas interlining, same as for the back:

Here, the front is now stitched to the interlining, but as you can't see any of the stitches on the front (I was very careful about that!), you'll just have to take my word for it:

The edges were folded under and pinned, ready to be ladder stitched in place:

I was so excited at being almost finished that I forgot to take a photo of the front stitched into place, but went straight onto adding the fringe along the bottom.  This is a red and yellow bullion fringe, again woven specially to match the Banner's colours.

As this was the last thing to do, once this was on, the Banner was, incredibly, finished:

Wow.

Let's all savour the moment, and take another look, in better light and held up rather that lying flat.  First, the back:

And the front:

It looks better held up as its own weight pulls it straight; once it's suspended from the pole along the top rather than just held at the corners, that slight bagginess on the top section will disappear.

I've been rushing to get it finished as members of the Northumbrian Association - the client - are collecting it before Christmas, and taking it to the Cathedral for safe keeping.

You know, I have to admit, I'm really pretty pleased with how it's turned out!  What do you think?

To celebrate the Banner's completion, I'm going to make a Banner-related giveaway for a blog competition.  More details soon!