Lettering
Ok to be honest i do my lettering as Roper described at the start of the thread but i will describe it seperately here as ive had a few PM's about it.
Fabric
Before you start anything it is usualy a good idea to wash your fabrics seperately to get rid of any colour that might run. I'm always worried my banners might end up with pink letters!
Printing First of all work out what letters you require for your banner and print them out to the required size. If you are doing this at home you will want to save on ink by using a 'hollow' font like this one: http://www.fontdownloadsfree.com/fonts/1/4/arialichollow_arialic%20hollow.html Or you could use WordArt or something similar. If your using your companies printer you might like to think "fuck it, it's their ink"
If you want letters bigger than A4 your going to have to print them out on multiple sheets and stick all the bits of A4 together. Or use a photocopier to enlarge them, either way its a bit tricky.
Transfering to Fabric
For my banners i have used white cotton drill for my lettering, there are 2 ways to mark out the letters on the fabric depending on its thickness / colour.
1. When using white cotton you can sometimes just lay the fabric over the paper and trace through it marking your fabric with a soft pencil like a 4B.
2. Cut out the letters and draw round them onto your fabric.
Now cut out your letters with a sharp pair of scissors.
Sticking them to your banner
Once i have cut out the letters and positioned them correctly on my banner i use 'bondaweb' to stick them on. REMEMBER your going to have to iron this stuff so have an appropriate surface underneath. then cut the bodaweb for one or two words at a time and place it between the letters and the banner. Letters like 'T' are easy, letters like 'S' are a pain. Then Iron the letters and bingo they are stuck.
As we are going to make a boss banner and have it stitched you dont need 100% coverage witht the bondaweb and the odd flappy bit wont matter.
Stitching
Right you need to find your local Dressmaker / Seemstress / Curtain maker or similar. Usually they are nice old ladies working at home. Once you have located someone, get them to stitch round you lettering with a really tight zig zag stitch, they will know what to do. Then hem all round the banner BUT explain to them that you want about 1" wide hem so you can thread cotton tape through the top and thread wooden dowling up the sides for 'wafting' - thats a technical term.
If you find a nice old dear to stitch it she will probably only charge you £40 or so. Stitching round all those letters is a Bastard so give her an extra £10 or a nice box of chocolates or some flowers. It will also help if you need another one doing in the future.
Hope that helps.
Scope.
My technique is similar to Scope's EXCEPT:
1. I use felt for lettering. It is easier to cut, stands prouder from the fabric, and doesn't fray, so you don't need to use zigzag stitching - regular straight-line stitching will do.
2. I used bondaweb for my last banner, this time I used PVA glue. Effect just as good, a fraction of the price, and took about 1/2 the time.
3. If you decide to use bondaweb anyway, there is a much easier way (sorry scope, but you might enjoy this for next time) - before you even start marking out your letters etc on your lettering fabric, iron bondaweb onto the whole of your piece of fabric. Then, when you mark and cut out your fabric, they will all effectively be iron-on letters with no farting about. (Sadly, I didn't previously know this, and for my old banner, I spent ages cutting everything out of fabric once and out of bandaweb once. Huge waste of time.)
NB: Great tip by Scope about washing the red fabric first - I wish I'd read that before I made this banner. My last one did run a bit, but not noticeably. I had to whiten the letters a little with chalk to get rid of the slight pinky tinge when my banner got wet in Anglesey
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