A Banner Year

Back in September 1983, my godson’s father designed a banner for  our parish, and the Squire and I made it up. I did the banner itself, and The Squire made the pole and the crosspiece from black walnut.

It has hung in the church, undisturbed, ever since.

The Diocese of Maryland has elected a new Bishop Suffragan, and each parish has been “invited” to bring their banner to carry in the consecration procession on the 6th. When we moved the banner, we discovered the back was badly faded. I took it up to Joann’s Fabric to see what I could find to recover it. I knew matching exactly was not going to be possible, but since nobody could see the back and front at the same time, close enough was good enough.

 While I had the thing down, I realized that a lot of the black and gold braid was coming loose, so I cranked up the sewing machine and ran along most of the braid, to tack it down. When I had a fair amount of it done, I flipped it over onto the ironing board (remember those?) and made the revolting discovery that some of the fabric had not been flat, and I had great tucks and puckers on the backside, and the banner didn’t hang straight. I pulled out some of the stitching, but my bum right hand made that more difficult than I was willing to tolerate, so I just snipped some of the tucks and ironed the thing flat. It was going to be covered anyway, so it was not a life or death situation.

I spread the banner on our bed and sat cross-legged to pin and sew the new backing . Of course, dear Sir Edmund decided I needed his “help”. I put him out once, but he sat outside of the door, clawing at the carpet and hollering his head off, until I let him back into the room.

Folded my tent – and the banner – and decamped to the church, where I was able to lay it on a Sunday School table, and got it finished and hung in less than an hour. Looks good, if I say so myself.

Tags: banner, consecration, godson's father, the cat