I decided to to one better, and crochet him a little gift as well! I've seen some freeform crochet pieces on Etsy.com which has gotten me interested in improving my talents in that form.
I thought I would make him a "badge of honor" to celebrate his 90 years, so I took the same red thread I've used for many previous projects to put this together.
Upon creating the base form, I wanted a bit of lacy embellishment. I decided that making loops around the entire number would make it too frilly and difficult to read, so I came up with a clever font that reminds me of a whimsical Microsoft typeface I remember from years ago (but cannot come up with an example to display).
I thought an exclamation point would create a good balance in the overall look, so I ended up with "90!" as the final result. I soaked them in a 1:4 mixture of stiffening solution: water and blocked them out.
I sewed the 9 and the 0 together before blocking them, but the exclamation point i left separated because I wanted the loops to be in their final shape beforehand, thus enabling the positioning to be just right. This turned out to be the right decision.
The 1:4 stiffener:water solution was also a good guess. It gave it enough stiffness to keep it flat, but enough flexibility so that it still felt like fabric. I then decorated a card to attach it to and used a large safety pin to affix it with.
I had briefly considered using an actual brooch backing, but I decided that a large safety pin would be easier for 90-year old fingers to work, since my intention for this piece is to be pinned to a shirt.
And here's an example of it pinned to my shirt!
It looks pretty snazzy if I do say so myself.
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