Deep Mud Banner!

Whew! I finally finished making my friend's farmers market banner.
It's about 22 inches by 9.5 feet and made of nylon flag cloth, which is uncoated and radiation-proof.
He'll eventually have it in front of his stall so people can tell where he's at. The Columbia Farmers Market is kinda screwy in that you can get a different spot each week.
All applique, all the time. This is the first project on my Singer 20u and it worked great.
And from behind.

Here's his original sign. I traced this and then standardized all widths and angles. Then made patterns for all the letters, and then cut 'em out and pinned them in place. Whole lotta work. I think there must be faster ways of making banners. I've seen pictures of people sewing first and then cutting out the letters. I didn't want to risk cutting the banner, though...
Here it is laid out sans thread.

Speaking of thread...
I bought a 65-piece set of Isacord polyester embroidery thread (by Amann) before I started the banner, assuming that there'd be a plain yellow in the lot, but no: apparently no one wants plain yellow. Just creamy golden yellows. Luckily there're people on eBay who have just about any color you'd want--and the shipping's cheaper. So now I have like nine different yellows. Yep.

Seems like I spent about a week researching thread before I bought this. I knew I wanted polyester thread (for strength), but there're a bunch of different brands out there, so it took me a while to sort 'em out. Isacord seemed like the best so I went with it. A&E and Coats make pretty good embroidery thread, too.

If you're looking for the stuff, I thought these two places had pretty good kit deals:
www.embsupplies.com & www.threadetc.com
And if you just need a 1000m tiny cone, eBay's the place to go.

And here's what 100 size L bobbins looks like.

Mmm, produce.