Can you believe that I had never made bunting until now? It is such a simple thing to make, and such a good way to use scraps of fabrics. Now I can see why so many people are making their own bunting! I guess I never was enough into the shabby chic kind of things, where bunting seems to thrive.
But a bunting virgin, I am no more. And it looks so (dare I say?) cute on its final destination.
This is my mother-in-law’s cottage, where she spends most of her time when she’s not working her garden. Isn’t it lovely?
I never planned to make bunting for the cottage, as their was already some. But one Saturday morning, I was handed a pile of thrifted fabrics (NZ$1!!) and the word bunting was mentioned. So I set up on a bunting making mission.
I had a look around the interwebs and it looked easy enough that I could wing it. Here is what I did.
I cut 6.5 inches strips from big scraps and pieces of fabrics that I thought would work well. If I had enough fabric, I would cut 2 strips and lay them right sides together. If not, I would cut just one strip and fold it with right sides together.
Then, using my ruler, I would mark equilateral triangles (all sides are 6.5 inches) using this tutorial over at Fresh Lemons Quilts. Handily, my ruler is 6.5 inches wide, so I just needed to mark the first triangle side, and then I just traced parallel lines. I chose to trace and not cut, because I wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any shifting of fabrics: I’m using a dinky cutting mat, which is A4 sized. TINY! Once I had traced my triangles, I then pinned the 2 layers of fabric and went on cutting.
Once I had all my triangles cut, I just chain stitched them at the sewing machine. I used a 1/4 inch seam allowance. When I reached the bottom of the triangle, I left the needle down, lifted the foot, then turned the triangle to sew the other side. I left the top of the triangles un-stitched.
Using scraps of binding and the fabrics from the charity shop that were just wide enough to cut some 2.5 inches strips from, I made a long piece of binding. Just simple quilt binding: cut 2.5 inches wide strips, with wrong sides facing you, sew 2 strips together on the 2.5 inches side. Press seams open, then fold the binding in half.
I then attached the piece of binding by lining up the raw edge of my triangle with the raw edge of my binding. Once one triangle was attached, I immediately fed another one until all my triangles were sewn, making sure that I left enough length on both ends to tie the bunting.
I pressed this seam, then fold the binding over and stitched it again: no raw edges.
I’m really pleased with the final result. And most importantly, the person for whom it was made is also very pleased with it. WIN!
Gorgeous!
Thanks! :)