nuffsaid

Dear fellow quilters, I will be making a large banner for my church that will be approximately 5' x 8' in size. There will be a *lot* of appliqué on it: a combination of celtic knot work, Hungarian flowers, celtic lettering and cross, and church symbols. There is movement within the design, of an ovoid type of spiral--Bible verse to flowers to a ship to a paschal lamb to a church symbol to, finally, a large celtic cross; and all these motifs will be connected by images reflecting either Hungarian embroidery or a very simple knot work line that is a reflection of the knot work that will form the border of this banner. My church is an international church in Budapest, Hungary--a joint church of both the Church of Scotland and the Reformed Church of Hungary. Because of the quantity of appliqué, I am thinking of first quilting the sandwich with a simple diagonal cross hatch, and then putting the appliqué on top of that. I don't think I should have any additional patterning made by the quilting of the sandwich. Some of the appliqué will be put on by hand, and some of it will be by machine. My question is, is this ok to first quilt and *then* put on the appliqué? Will this banner be stable enough to hang for many years? The top and backing will be muslin, with cotton kona solids for the appliqué. All the knot work will be appliquéd by machine, plus some of the larger motifs. I would really appreciate your thoughts and comments. I can't see the icon to post a picture of what I am thinking about. Carolyn