I will tell you about the process of church emroidery restoration for the Church gonfanon. The gonfanon was traditionally decorated with a central motif in the form of an oil painting on canvas sewn to the banner. Oil painting, though it is a piece of art itself, is not suitable for panels as it is often folded, which damages oil painting significantly.

Conservation of old banners is possible, but experts recommend doing it for subsequent storage in the archives in museums. Conservation stops further decomposition of the gonfanon and preserves cultural heritage that represents the panel with its original oil painting.
Experts, such as the academic restaurateur Maya Banovic (Republic of Slovenia), have their own opinion about the old panels with oil painting, "the main reason for the collapse of gonfanons — their improper storage: light, temperature changes, humidity... the damaged gonfanon is neither functional nor aesthetically usable, and the damage reduces its artistic and cultural value. Oil paintings should be replaced with embroidered replicas, which are much less sensitive to external factors."

The new technique of eStitch allows to transfer the motif from oil painting to embroidery, preserving all the color transitions, the smallest details and smooth shading. Embroidered painting is more reliable, as it can be folded and even washed in the washing machine or soak in the rain without damaging the motif.

The process of creating a fully embroidered copy of the Church gonfanon begins with scanning the original panel with a special contactless scanner used specifically to scan works of art such as oil paintings. High-resolution scanning allows to get even the smallest details.
The scanned images are then retouched digitally by experienced artists. For the panels in these photos, the digital restoration was made by Vladimir Leben, a famous Slovenian artist. Digital retouching is a difficult and time-consuming job, as the artist has to "fix" every crack he notices on a digital image, and often has to re-paint entire pieces of oil painting that could have been done decades ago. The most demanding work is done on details such as faces, as the artist must present what the original looked like.

Church gonfanons often have (in addition to central oil painting) other ornamental motifs — most often embroidered, which frame the picture or decorate the edges of the gonfanon. The work in creating the replica duplicates these motifs with exactly the same embroidery techniques and the same colors. Since old banners were usually executed in traditional ancient techniques, we must abandon new technologies and apply such primordial methods as traditional method of chain stitch. Restorers should also be very careful when choosing thread colors and only slightly refresh the colors to make a new panel look exactly like an old one at the beginning of the application.

When digital restoration is completed, eStitch technology is applied to transfer the original motif into embroidery. Production of a typical church motif for our panel can take from one to two weeks, depending on the size and number of details. The final result is an embroidered painting with almost the same level of detail as the original oil painting.

The final stage of production of a new gonfanon is tailoring. Embroidered painting sewn to the main cloth, which is already decorated with embroidered ornaments, and sew both sides of the banner. During this process, golden edges are attached, which further enrich the banner and give it the right frame. Wooden and metal parts are also made for the gonfanon.

The fully embroidered gonfanon is truly a work of art and pride of any church.