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| Photo courtesy of Anushe Low Photography |
You will soon see that our wedding day was Bunting Central. (Big un-subtle plug for the next instalment of the wedding photos, coming very soon. And a very sneaky peak of the decked out venue up above!!)
In the months leading up to the wedding, the bunting was the one (and only!) thing we did start early. As a result, we simply kept on going, literally churning out miles of the stuff!!!! By the wedding day itself we (another team effort between Chief Goffer, Mama, Leila and I!) had sewn reams and reams of bright and colourful bunting, enough to decorate the venue 3 times over!!!
This is testament to how straight forwards it is to make yourself. So I'll keep the steps simple, it's more about the theme you fancy, be it country florals, pretty pastels, circus brights or moody black and whites! We chose a series of bright pinks, oranges and corals as the base colours with a few yellows and blues thrown in for good measure.
First up, the ingredients:
- Fabric, we used a range of cottons and ploy cottons, cotton generally needs more care (eg ironing to look smart) but I find it easier to work with. Trade-off, you pick.
- Template - this is a straightforward triangle. Be it fat, thin, skinny, pointy, the choice is yours! Just remember your final flags will end up almost a cm smaller all round, so add on a small seam allowance of 1cm all the way round.
- Cotton tape or bias tape - plenty of cheap options on Amazon or your local haberdashers, we went for simple white to offset the brights.
- The usual suspects - scissors, pins, sewing machine that does a simple straight stitch
So let's jump to it. Number one, iron you fabric so it's easier to use (we're going for precision here folks!) and use your template to start cutting triangles with your template. Keep going till you run your scrap fabric supplies down to the ground!
Step 2 - pair off your triangles...you can do matching, contrasting, go crazy kids it's up to you - I hinted this would be tough! ;) Place your paired triangles correct sides facing in towards each other and pin together.
Step 3 - next sew around the two long edges of your triangle to create the sharp point between them. Trim the excess around the inside of the point of your sewn area so that you can get a better point when you flip it inside out and then...yep you guessed it - flip it inside out!
So there you have your first bunting triangle and the next objective is to repeat ad nausium until you have enough to make your desire length of bunting or until you start seeing triangles floating in your sleep.
The final job is to sew them altogether. Iron the cotton tape so that it is folded in half. Trim the tops of all the triangles so you're working with clean edges and slot the unwed side into the folded tape and pin securely - step 4.
You can experiment with the distance between triangles, anything from 2 - 4 inches works well. Sew along the tape, ensuring you capture both sides of the tape and triangle within your sewing line.
Finally when you've attached all your triangles in this way sit back and admire your handy work...until you have to get the ladder out to put it up!!
Exhibit A - Mummy Jones sewing the final lengths of bunting at our Wedding HQ barn merely days before the big event itself! Super-Mom. And below, the never-ending bunting creating magic and making all the effort worthwhile!
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| Photo courtesy of Anushe Low Photography |
We found thumb tack pins or some short bits of string the best way to fix it up. So far we've decorated an outdoor barn, the kitchen for a dinner party and the tipis for our wedding day so I'd say they've already earned their keep and I'm sure they'll get plenty more use to come...
The barn by day, and by night - magic! :) Yep, that is a hot tub. And it was epic.
grt
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