Bunting, bunting, bunting we all love bunting. Thank you to the lovely Hannah from Three Little Pigs for your take on the fabric bunting. Absolutely gorgeous, I cannot wait to give it a try.
Everybody loves a bunting, or so it seems. They have been popping up everywhere from baby’s rooms to markets stalls. They come in paper, and more recently, fabric, and you could pay a pretty penny for one to be made for you!
I may be doing myself out of a little business here, but I can’t keep a good thing a secret, so today, I’m going to share with you a step by step tutorial to make your own fabric bunting! I must apologise for changing fabrics a few times throughout the pictures, but my baby brain lingers, and I never remember to photograph all the steps! (On the upside, maybe it will give you a few ideas on fabric combinations?)
This is instructions for a half oval/rounded flag bunting. It’s not really different for triangle flags….just use a triangle template!
MATERIALS
– Fabric/s ( A fat Quarter easily makes 6 flags, and i like to choose coordinating 3 or 4 fabrics)
– 2.5-3m Bias binding in coordinating colour (at least 2in wide)
– Matching thread
LETS GET STARTED!
1. I start by taking a bowl with a 5.5in diameter, and trace half of it onto a piece of cardboard.
I then extended the ends down about 1.5-2cm to make a half oval shape. Cut this out, and you have your template.
I traced this onto the material I’m using.
I find it easiest to double over the material (right sides together) and then trace, as you get both sides of the flag cut exactly the same!
2. Line the straight edge up with the edge of your material, trace around the template, then cut around this, about 1cm away from your line (for seam allowance)
If you have pinking shears, then you can cut using these to finish the edge of nicely. (as you can see, i didn’t!)
3. Next, I sew straight stitch around the line I’ve drawn, BUT, leave the bottom straight edge open for turning!
If you haven’t finished the edge with pinking shears, trim the excess material to about 0.5cm of your stitching, being careful not to cut the stitching.
(This is so it will turn out to a nice curve!)
4. Turn the flag right side out, and use a chop stick, or your finger to make sure the curve is pushing out well, and rounded.
Press the flag.
I don’t top stitch the flags, as i think it looks better, but you can if you want.
5. Using 2.5-3m of bias binding (atleast 2in wide). (Make sure you’ve got enough to leave a decent amount at each end for hanging up)
Press this in half width ways, to make a ‘pocket’ to slide the tops of the flags into.
You can see here the binding folded in half
6. Next, we need to place the flags into the binding. To do this, fold the tape in half length ways to find the middle, and mark with a pin or crease.
Sort your flags into order and then split in half.
Starting at the middle crease, slide a flag into the bias tape so that it envelopes the raw edge, and pin in place.
Do this for all of your flags, with half of the flags on one side of the crease and the other half on the other side.
I like to start in the middle to get the flags evenly spaced along the length of binding
7. Lastly, straight stitch right along the edge of the bias tape that is closest to the flags. Make sure you start right at the end of the tape so you sew the whole length including the ends for hanging.
Congratulations, YOU have made your bunting….
You can choose any combination of colours or patterns, or just use one! It will look great either way, and its only limited by your imagination!!
ENJOY!
Thanks so much Hannah, so quick, easy and so much fun.
You can find more of Hannah and Three Little Pigs here:
that bunting is a cute idea .. it gives more playful feeling when you see buntings around the room by putting it somewhere it that we can easily notice it..