Banner Project I Redux: Well, That's Done (Mostly)

Outlining the petals does make a
huge difference, as you see

By dint of diligent (obsessive?) effort every night for the past oh god don't ask weeks, I managed to finish the last daisy petal about 11pm Friday night.  Whereupon I suddenly remembered I had some final clean-up on the documentation; so I packed my consort off to bed and finished that up too.  I figured that, since all I had to do was tidy up one small stretch of the cord along the bend and close up the sides of the banner, I could easily do that in the morning before we left for the event (particularly since it was only about 30-40min away, traffic depending).

ha ha ha where have we heard this kind of delusion before

In the cold hard light of retrospection, I know what I should have done: completely taken apart the lining from the banner (no matter how tidily I'd done the pole loop previously nor how proud of it I was) and just start from flat.  But!  That's so much more work, amirite?  Let's just sew back the seams I'd ripped, starting from right where they were.

Finished result, with bonus cat.  The
puckering is not due to him, though.

An hour and a half later, covered in thread bits after ripping them out twice more, we were already closing in on the You Absolutely Must Leave By Now Or Miss Everything hour and I still didn't have a lined banner.  I ripped the sides completely open, released the end parts of the pole loop, and worked from there; but I was still doing it on the fly, on the ironing board, and under stress (tears were happening by now). I got the sides closed, and then (after some clothing drama) got together and out the door, and I sewed the bottom closed and a few other cleaning-up bits in the car. As a result, when I hung it in the display*, the ground was puckered and not tidy, and the sides were even curling back slightly; didn't hang straight at all.  I'm not proud of that fact, but on the other hand, the work was good enough to tie me for first place in the Intermediate Division** of the competition.  So, there's that.

I'm going to step away from the project for a few days, but before I send it back to the owner, I'm going to take the lining off completely and Do It Right.  (Ideally I'll find some fringe trim so I can just sandwich-line it instead of bag-lining, which will make the job a little easier, too.)

NEVER. AGAIN.  until next time

* which I didn't get any pictures of, derp.  That said, groveling thanks to Beth and Briony for bringing poles & c. so I could hang it properly.
** disclaimer: there were only three entrants.