Stewardship Banner

 A tradition is an accident that is allowed to happen more than once, and in the last 14 years it has just been assumed that I would produce a quilted banner to hang for the stewardship season. Being on the stewardship committee for many years, and even at one time the elder in charge, I have watched this effort shift from place to place ... the communications committee ... then taken over by finance. Each year the focus shifts and I am expected to come up with a hanging in support. Last year, after turning in the hanging in a timely fashion, it was never hung anywhere where I could see it. Looking around, I found one former banner hanging in the 4th floor bathroom

This year, a new church member took on the task, and his being a fellow choir member and long-time friend, I could not say no to the request to continue the tradition. He helped with the design and I have struggled to get it all together. Finally this week I could add the binding and the hanging sleeves.

The main part is from a sketch he passed to me. I later found out he did not intend the two upper strips but it would have been difficult to unsew them, so I quilted in gold around the main cross. I gave up the idea of appliquing all those little letters so just outlined them with a marker and filled in the centers with a purple marking pen. I goofed up on the word "integrated" leaving out the R so had to applique a strip over the area making the word go into the planned space. The quilting had to be done with stab stitching, which to me is very frustrating and hard on the fingers. Last Sunday we had a discussion on the background quilting and came up with a more simple plan than I had originally thought of..

Monday was a national holiday and no school for me, so I went out to buy some bias tape at a small local shop. Then Tuesday I added the hanging sleeves. I took a photo on the park fence. Then I worked on some scraps of wooden dowels. What I had were too short, so I cut several inches of the ends half-way and whittled  them flat so they could be glued together to make a sturdy bar. That wood was quite hard and not easy to whittle, even with the grain, but the results saved me a day into town looking for some to buy, and though it didn't save much time, it did save the cost of train fare and buying new rods.

You can imagine the relief to have this done! small scraps cut and divided into squares and wood chips picked off the carpet with larger pieces of fabric put away. This is banner number 15. I am tempted next year to tell whomever is in charge to get out the other 14 and fine one that fits the theme, I'm wondering id traditions have an "off button"!