swissmiss's Banner Project

Since the deadline for virtual signatures is this Sunday, October 31, here’s a repost of the instructions I provided last December, with some additions.

A “virtual signature” is a message to Stéphane that you write in your own handwriting and send to me electronically to print out and attach to the banner.  You can say whatever you want, and trust me, I’ve seen it all.  It can be anything from a short “Good luck in your professional career” to a long love letter with a marriage proposal!

There’s still plenty of room, so if you signed the banner in person and would like to add another message, please feel free to do so.  There wasn’t much room left on the signature panel (a separate piece attached with Velcro), so I didn’t send it to “All That Skate LA” with the banner.  So, I will be setting aside a special section for the virtual signatures of the people who attended the ATSLA fan meeting. 

Here’s how to write your special message:

1) Think up what you want to say to Stéphane – whatever you would have written on the banner in person.  Please keep in mind that his native language is French and he’s more fluent in German than in English, so if you speak either French or German, that would be preferable to English.  He also speaks Portuguese and Italian.

2) If you don’t write the message in one of these five languages, please consider writing a word or brief phrase such as “love” or “good luck” in your native language or another language of your country.  (According to Wikipedia, Americans have 337 languages to choose from! )  There were 15 languages on the “Poeta” banner (including Hawaiian ), but so far I have only 6 languages on “William Tell”.

3) Write your message in your own handwriting on plain white paper.  Use a gel pen or marker – ball-point pen is too fine and light to print out very well.  Drawing pictures and using different colors of ink are good!   Bigger lettering is better than too small – if it’s too big I can reduce the size before printing it, but if it’s too small it might not look good if I enlarge it.

4) Either scan the paper or take a picture of it, to get it into .gif, .jpg., or .bmp format.  The higher the resolution you use, the better your "signature" will come out.

5) Upload the gif/jpg/bmp file to Photobucket, ImageShack, or other online service capable of storing pictures.

6) Send me a PM or e-mail with a link to the gif/jpg/bmp file.  I can be contacted at the following sites:

MSN: send me a private message using the "Tools" button above, or leave a comment here.
Skating message boards (Absolute Skating, FSU, and Golden Skate): swissmiss
You Tube: swissmissvids
Live Journal: swissmiss76
e-mail: swissmissvids@frontier.com
If you encounter technical difficulties, please contact me for my snail-mail address.

As I receive the files, I’ll print them out on printable fabric sheets.  I’ll arrange them and glue them onto the shiny side of the signature panel – the side you can’t write on.  If you can’t send me your message by the deadline, it’s OK.  Please write and let me know it’s on the way, and I’ll set aside a space for you.

I included virtual signatures once before, on the “Poeta” banner.  I made a special panel that I attached to the back of the banner, in a place that was hard to sign because of all the sequins glued to the reverse side.  It’s the bright white section surrounded by red ribbon:

The title:

Until next time,
swissmiss 

I’m back after a short break from all things Stéphane.  Even though I was off doing other things, the banner has still been traveling around the world.  He must think I’m stalking him from afar.

Some cool things happened at the shows in the Czech Republic.  At the Prague show, the banner-bearers got a great idea – have Stéphane pretend to be William Tell and write a message to Stéphane!

Stéphane trying to think of something to say – I hear it took awhile.

Finally he starts…

Posing with the signature panel after signing it.  His was the first signature on the new panel.  Do you notice something that’s not quite right? 

See the white Velcro tabs under Stéphane’s right hand?  They attach to the top back of the banner, as shown here.  In other words, “William Tell” signed on the wrong (plastic) side of the signature panel, upside down!   Well, what can you expect from a 700-year-old archer?

Here’s a close-up of the signature.  It translates to "Freedom, this is what I fought for. Use it to GROW!"  He even drew a little Swiss flag.

The banner-bearers spent about 15 minutes with Stéphane, and also gave him some gifts and had their picture taken with him.

They also got on TV!

In Karlovy Vary, a group of skaters from the local rink posed with the banner.

One of the banner-bearers and her friend wrote an article about the show for a local newspaper, and included the picture of the skaters with the banner.  The only word I could understand was the very last word – “Ameriky”.   That sentence roughly translates to “The banner goes with fans of Stéphane to all competitions and shows and for this purpose had been sent from America.” 

I don’t have any pictures from the Ostrava show yet, and it never got to Nuremberg.   We also tried to get the banner to some shows in Ukraine after the Ostrava show, but couldn’t get it there in time.  Stéphane ended up going there with the “Kings On Ice” tour when the volcanic ash grounded most of the planes in Europe and prevented him from getting home.

It did get to Krefeld, however – it looks like these ladies had lots of fun there!

The banner was in Seoul, South Korea this past weekend for “Medalists On Ice”, but I don’t have any news or pictures yet.  The next stop is “Dreams On Ice” in Japan later this month.  I’m not sure how long this banner is going to follow Stéphane around the world, but since he’s retired from competition (again ) this will be my last banner.  As fun as this project has been, it’s a lot more difficult – and expensive – to keep it going now that Stéphane is skating in shows instead of competitions.  There are multiple performances, and sometimes Stéphane is asked to do a show only at the last minute, as happened this past week with MOI.  We had less than a week’s notice to get the banner from Germany to Korea! 

sm 

After a 3-week vacation in Pennsylvania the banner traveled back to Europe, this time to Prague.  It will be at the following galas:
Kings on Ice, Czech Republic – Prague (15/4), Karlovy Vary (16/4), and Ostrava (19/4)
World’s Best on Ice, Germany – Nuremberg (28/4) and Krefeld (29/4)

Some notes for the new banner-bearers:

The banner has a new signature panel, smaller and with a red border.  I made it for the Olympics, in case I ran out of room on the original panel.  Sadly, I didn’t get to use it there, as not too many of Stéphane’s fans came to see him in Vancouver.  

Since there are no more competitions, please don’t put headings on this new signature panel – anyone can sign anywhere.  (This is how we handled the "King Arthur" banner last year.)  This will make it easier for you if you have more than one person who wants to sign at the same time – you can spread it out so they can sign in different places.  The people that sign can add the date and location if they choose.

Also, "anyone" includes other skaters, if you’re not too shy to ask them.   Albena Denkova, Maxim Staviski, Moris Pfeifhofer, and Michal Brezina already signed this year, and Jamal Othman, Johnny Weir, Evan Lysacek, Sinead and John Kerr, Ben Agosto, and Tanith Belbin have signed my banners in the past. 

The signature panel with the zebra-striped border is now back at my
house.  Once I get finished with the gifts I’m making for the
banner-bearers (yes, I’m still working on them  ), I’ll start adding the virtual signatures.

I’m not sure where the banner will be going after Krefeld.  Canadian Stars On Ice will be in Victoria and Vancouver in mid-May – I hope Stéphane is invited to skate with them again this year.

Thin Ice

Here are some pics of the banner at the “Thin Ice” competition on March 19 & 21, where Stéphane and Shizuka Arakawa placed third.  The banner ended up with a medal of every color.

sm   

Here’s what the banner looks like now – different, huh?

When I got it back from my friend in Estonia before the Olympics, I noticed that some of the metallic leaves had fallen off "Stéphane’s" jacket.  Not a big deal, I thought, I’ll just glue them back on.  The Saturday before leaving for Vancouver, I took it out of the bag to work on it, and lots more leaves fell off. Because Stéphane wasn’t doing the tango program anymore, and had changed costumes months ago, I had thought about changing it into a "William Tell" banner.  However, I had decided against it because I thought those leaves were glued on for good! So, I decided to go ahead and take off all the leaves and the old silhouette and make it into a “William Tell” banner after all.  That goes much better with the “en visant l’or” ("aiming for the gold") theme, anyway. 

The next three days were hectic at “banner central” – my kitchen.  Besides getting packed for the Olympics and watching the pairs’ programs on TV, I had to search though dozens of pictures of Stéphane to find a good one to use as a silhouette , blow it up to just the right size to make the pattern, find material that looks either gray or green depending on the lighting , figure out what to put on the right side in place of the maple leaves , get everything cut out, and glue or iron it all on the banner without messing it up.   For three nights I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning working on the banner, looking , , , and finally .

Some details of the new design –

The silhouette was made from this picture of “William Tell” at Nebelhorn.  I had to raise “Stéphane’s” chin off his collar and angle his head up to make it look right, then amputate his left arm so he fit on the banner.

Figuring out what to put in place of the leaves was the easiest part, once I stopped thinking about skating and the Olympics and instead thought about William Tell.   The apples are made of the same “Swiss tricot” fabric I used for the lettering on the “Poeta” banner, and the arrows are made from the same fabric as the gold medals.

Close-up of the new portion of the banner.  The sleeves and bottom of the jacket are made of the new gray/green material.  The pattern on the bottom of the “jacket” and the border of the pewter medal is the same silver-blue metallic rope.

The hardest part of the banner transformation was getting all the glue off the gold fabric from the metallic leaves and old silhouette.  If you look closely at the above picture, about halfway between “Stéphane’s” head and hand, you can see the old hand from the tango silhouette.   That was after I cleaned all the glue off – here’s what it looked like before:

As I explained in my last entry, the pewter medal is for fourth place.  Unfortunately, Stéphane missed the Olympic podium by only half a point.  When I made the “Olympic” medals, I thought I should add a design to it.  I came up with a stylized version of one of Stéphane’s spin positions in “La Traviata”:

The shapes are cut out of gold and silver vellum paper.  When my husband saw these cut-outs, he said it reminded him of those “barrel of monkeys” toys!
Here’s the finished pewter medal, with the silver “monkey”.    The medal has a purple ribbon because purple is the color of royalty. 

There is now an American flag under the Olympic flag, because next weekend Stéphane will be performing in his first pro competition, “Thin Ice”, in Connecticut.  Finally, I get to put my own flag on one of Stéphane’s banners!    He hasn’t competed in the US since 2003 Worlds, and hasn’t performed here since August 2006.  Welcome back, Stéphane!!! 

Until next time,
Kat 

…and I’ll be there with the banner!  It’s back home from Estonia, where Stéphane won the silver medal at the European Championships.  I’m so sick of seeing him look up to Evgeny Plushenko on the podium – on the 18th, I hope Stéphane has to look down to see him.

Here are the Olympic medals I designed for the banner.  He’s already guaranteed one of these medals, so there’s no pressure.    Besides the usual gold, silver, and bronze, there is also a pewter medal for fourth place (awarded at US Figure Skating events) and a red heart for “other” – not that I think I’ll have to use it.

The idea for the red heart came at 2008 Worlds, when he came in fifth after suffering the injury that eventually led to his retirement.  Four guys may have skated better that week, but nobody at that competition was loved more than Stéphane.     The red ribbon on the heart reminds me of the lace top on his “La Traviata” costume.

The medals are all 5” in diameter – the size of a CD, which is what I used to trace the circles.   If the medals look rather plain, it’s because there’s another detail that will be added to whichever one ends up being attached to the banner.  It’s a secret for now. 

Watch for the banner in the upper tier of Pacific Coliseum next week!

Until next time,
sm 

As promised, here are the instructions for submitting a “virtual signature” for the banner.  A “virtual signature” is one that you write and send to me electronically to print out and attach to the banner.

Here’s how to do it –
1) Think up what you want to say to Stéphane – whatever you would have written on the banner in person.
2) Write it in your own handwriting on plain white paper. Use a gel pen or marker – ball-point pen is too fine and light to print out very well.  Drawing pictures and using different colors of ink are good! Bigger lettering is better than too small – if it’s too big I can reduce the size before printing it, but if it’s too small it might not look good if I enlarge it.
3) Either scan the paper or take a picture of it, to get it into .gif, .jpg., or .bmp format. The higher the resolution you use, the better your "signature" will come out.
4) Upload the gif/jpg/bmp file to Photobucket, ImageShack, or other online service capable of storing pictures.
5) Send me a PM or e-mail with a link to the gif/jpg/bmp file.  I go by swissmiss on Absolute Skating, FSU, and FSVids, and swissmissvids on YouTube.

As I receive the files, I’ll print them out on printable fabric sheets.  I’ll arrange them and glue them onto the shiny side of the signature panel – the side you can’t write on.

The “Poeta” banner also had virtual signatures.  I made a special panel that I attached to the back of the banner, in a place that was hard to sign because of all the sequins glued to the reverse side.  It’s the bright white section surrounded by red ribbon:

The title:

Swiss Nationals

After two months “off”, the banner made another appearance, this time at the Swiss National Championships in Lugano.  Stéphane won for the ninth time!  There was no TV coverage of the event except for a couple of segments on the local news.  Here are some screenshots:

A close-up of my friend’s banner – you can see a little piece of mine next to it.

Until next time –

sm 

Sadly, the banner didn’t get to the Golden Skate Awards on October 10th.  It took only 5 days for it to get from Tokyo to Milan, but then it got stuck in Customs.   The entry in the online tracking system read “Awaiting presentation to customs commissioner”, whatever that means. The recipient finally got to speak with someone in the Customs office and found out that the package had been held for some reason, and had to fill out some paperwork to get it off hold.  Apparently, there are a few new rules for mail and packages sent to and from Italy, and things are going much slower than usual – which is pretty slow.   Today the status finally changed to “Departure from inward office of exchange”.  The “banner-bearer” should receive it in time for Nationals – the second weekend of December.

This isn’t the first time one of my banners didn’t show up on time.  Back in April, it took almost 3 weeks for the “King Arthur” banner to get from Bern to Milan, a distance of 130 miles/210 km – a two-hour drive! Lesson learned – keep the banner as far away from Milan as possible! Either that, or mark in big letters on the box “Banner for Samuel Contesti”.

There were a couple of close calls with the “Poeta” banner.  When I sent it to Moscow for the 2007 Cup of Russia, it got there in 4 days, then spent another 4 days riding around the city on a FedEx truck! The “banner-bearer” got it just two hours before the competition started. Later that season, a delivery truck with the banner arrived at someone’s house just as she was leaving to catch the train to a competition!

We usually send the banners “Express Mail” or “Priority Mail”, with tracking, insurance, and a money-back guarantee if the package isn’t delivered on time.  It can get very expensive, but the odds are good that the sender will get her money back.

Here’s a screenshot from a video of the Japan Open.  I hope this isn’t the last time I see the banner.

Kat

I almost forgot…  When I give Stéphane the banner at the end of the season, I’ll also be giving him a scrapbook with pictures from each competition and gala.  I did this for the “Dralion” and “Poeta” banners, but since “King Arthur” didn’t travel as much my next scrapbook will have pictures of both “King Arthur” and "Otoño Porteño".

So, I would appreciate it very much if the banner-bearers (or your friends who go with you) take some pictures for the scrapbook.  Types of pictures I usually include are:

The banner-bearer(s) with the banner
Groups of fans posing with the banner
People signing the banner
The banner hanging in the arena
Other banners that people bring for Stéphane

If you would like to see what I’ve done in the past, I posted some pages from the “Poeta” scrapbook here.

Kat