Birthday Bunting

Her invitations had bunting, so I decided we needed some to hang up at Charlotte's party as well. While some of the ones I found on etsy were great, none looked especially Charlie & Lola to me, so I decided to make some of my own. I started by ordering these great fabrics from ThreeRiversFabric:


By my calculations, one fat quarter would make three double-sided flags. I wanted lots and lots of bunting and ended up ordering about 14 fat quarters (hey, when I do things, I like to do them in excess). Once received, I ironed out all the creases in the fabric.


I probably should have included myself in this picture so that there'd forever be proof that I do actually know how to iron, but pajamas and no makeup does not a cute Katie make, so this is what you get.

Next, I started measuring out my cuts. I found it easiest to fold the fabric in half (right sides in) and draw the cuts directly on the back side of the fabric.


You could then go to town with a rotary cutter, but I don't have one, so plain old scissors did the trick. After days and days of cutting, you'll end up with a nice, pretty stack of triangles. And because you folded the fabric in half, you'll already have a pair that are exactly the same shape, lined up and ready to be sewn.


Then you'll need to break out the sewing machine (and please make sure yours looks as dusty as mine when you do, thanks) and sew together the long sides of each pair of triangles. Make sure to leave the short side open so we can flip them right side out.


Now I suggest that you trim the very tip of the triangle, outside the seam of course, off. This will leave a little more space so that when you turn the triangle right side out you'll get a nice point at the end. You can even use a pencil or chopstick to really push the point out.

Once your triangles are right side out you'll want to iron them flat. Then you'll need to get out some bias tape. I used extra wide double fold tape, but single fold would work too. Just unfold the tape, slide the open end of the flag in and fold back down.


I spaced my flags about 3 inches apart from each other and left about 18 inches on either end so that I'd be able to tie the bunting up. Ideally, you'd pin each flag to the bias tape until it was sewn, but I'm fresh out of pins. A little improvisation (thanks Mom!) and a bunch of binder clips worked just fine.


Then you just get to sewing, undoing each binder clip as you go. I opted to fold the very end of the tape back on itself and stitch it down so that I'd have loops for hanging. You could certainly just leave the ends undone though.


Well, there you have it. Birthday bunting. It took me several hours over a couple days to get these done, but I was making six 12 foot lengths of bunting. A single 12 foot length would probably only take an hour or so.


Want to see the bunting all unfurled? Well, you'll have to wait until after the party. Check back for pics next week!

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