I was telling Johann about my MA research project, and my intention to create individual flags for the participants I am interviewing. Without hesitation he drew out the design for his personal flag, informing me that this was something he has thought about a lot... And obviously, I took this as a challenge to make his flag - but it was also a useful as a "practice run" for my research participants - as I learnt a few things from the process.
The flag has a yellow background with a white circle. Overlaid in black are his signature, a chameleon drawn in the style of his favourite children's picture book and an outline representing the mountain range from his home town in Bavaria.
I started by figuring out the dimensions of the flag and how big I wanted the circle to be in proportion to the rectangle. I decided to use some bright yellow show satin which I already had at home, but later regretted this choice because of how unforgiving it is. I cut the yellow fabric allowing plenty of excess on the left hand side where the hem for a flag pole would be located.
Next, I drew out the chameleon on the paper, copying the style of the illustration from the book. I also used felt for the black elements of the flag as its a very versatile and bold fabric that's easy to work with for fiddly details.
One of the hardest elements of the flag was the signature, because it was more or less impossible to copy Johann's signature as he had drawn it because the felt would have to be much thicker than the line of the pen. I spent a long time drawing out different versions trying to create one that was aesthetic as possible and would allow for the neccessary thickness of the felt.
I then sketched it out on paper and cut out the design with a craft knife.
I placed the cut out onto black felt as the reverse image and traced around it in silver marker. I then delicately cut the black linework out of the piece of felt - this was a very fiddly job.
Next, I stitched the elements together. I used a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine to attach the white circle to the centre of the yellow satin, but realised that the unforgiving satin rippled quite a lot. So, instead of stitching the chameleon in place, I tried using some fabric glue, unsuccessfully - which only served to stiften the felt not attach it to the flag. In the end, I sewed the remaining elements on by hand, as my stitches were much looser and didn't cause the satin to ripple in the same way - although, this was a very slow and tedious method, there wasn't a viable alternative. Next time I will avoid using satin, so that the whole flag can be sewn much quicker (and neater) by machine.
I then turned the flag inside out and sewed the hems, using a zigzag stitch again.
Finally, I sewed the hem so that a flag poled could be inserted on the left hand side of the flag.
The very last task was to iron the satin to make it as flat as possible.
I gave the flag to Johann when he came to visit me in Sheffield, and before he left he decided to "fix" Tom Grey's postcard on which I had written "ABUSE ME" and "BLAME MYSELF".
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