Mini Bunting

I wanted to make this mini bunting after I saw some similar on the front of a craft book - sew la tea do. The one on the book is only 20 flags and I think would look nice over a child's bed or door. I am going to make some a bit longer for indoor parties. Zac's birthday is in January and it's so dark and always indoors so it's nice to try and cheer up the house a bit for him.

To make one length of bunting:

• Three 9” squares of felt
• 2.5 metres of bias tape
• Scissors (or a rotary cutter and self healing mat)
• Tailors chalk
• Ruler or tape measure
• Thread – matching or contrasting

I wanted to make quite a lot of this bunting and for it to be really colourful so I got four lots of bias tape and 13 different coloured squares.

I took some paper and cut out a triangle to see what sort of size flag would look right. It turned out to fit nicely four times in the 9” square so I decided to make the flags 2.25” wide and 4.5” long.

I folded the square in half so that I only had to make half the number of cuts once I had marked out the triangles.

I marked with chalk every 2.25” along the top and then the midpoints along the bottom. I have chalked out the triangles on this example so you can see them clearly. 

I then cut out the flags, giving me 14 in total with just a tiny triangle of wasted felt from each side. You can use this method of making triangles for bunting of any size and it uses all the material leaving very little waste. It means you don’t need to buy very much fabric to make loads of flags.

Once I had made piles of all my felt triangles, I mixed them all up and lined them up for sewing together. I used 40 flags for 2.5metres of bunting.

I fed part of the bias tape through the sewing machine to give me a tying end and then just inserted one flag at a time.

I wanted one to give to a friend's two year old baby as part of her birthday present so I embroidered her name on the flags before inserting them. This one was only 20 flags so could go above her door or bed.

 

Bye for now, Nix