How to sew your very own bunting

Last week, I shared our new headboard/wall hanging above the bed in our guest room. It was all actually a really simple process, and I loved the outcome. The most time-consuming part of the whole project was creating the bunting that draped across the burlap-backed window frame - and that only took a couple hours from start to finish. If you've got a sewing machine, creating a bunting is something even a novice seamstress (a category I definitely fall under) can knock out in an afternoon.

I started with a couple bundles of coordinating fat quarter fabric I found on clearance at Jo-Ann Fabric. I was so happy I stumbled across them, all packaged together, because they fit with the coloring of the room's comforter almost perfectly. All I had to do was buy a little fuchsia-colored fabric and some neutral linen to complete all the colors/patterns I wanted to use. When I got the fabric home, I picked out which ones I actually wanted to use, then made sure to iron them flat to get rid of the creases where the fabric had been folded.

Then, I grabbed a piece of cardboard and created a pattern so each triangle of the bunting would be uniform size. I believe I measured out the top side to be 4" while the other two sides each were about 5.5" each. Because I was such a fantastic Geometry student in high school, I know that the two equal sides of my each of my triangles would make them all isosceles. Creating and learning at the same time - that's what I'm Loving Today is all about, folks.

After making my pattern, I traced it onto all my fabrics and cut out my triangles. Then, I pinned the two matching triangles of each pattern together, right sides facing each other.

After all the triangles were pinned together, I laid them out in the order I wanted. Then, I stacked them in that same order next to the sewing machine. That way, I could just grab the next triangle straight off the top of the pile instead of figuring out which one was supposed to be next while sewing.

With my triangles all stacked up, I started sewing! I sewed a straight line down each long side of the triangles, leaving the top part open. To save time and thread, I simply let the machine keep stitching between pieces of fabric, so the triangles were all connected in the right order by about a half-inch of thread.

Then, I snipped the excess thread, leaving me with about 11 separate triangles. I turned each of the triangles inside out, making them look quite conical. 

To make sure the end-points were extra pointy, I poked them out nice and sharp with a pencil.

Perfect!

To make sure my triangles were more triangley than ice-cream coney, I ironed them all out flat. Then I took my measuring tape and draped it across the window frame to see just how long I would want the bunting to be. I was happy with about 56" long, so I cut out a length of natural linen to that size. I figured I wanted the bias fabric (the little ribbon of fabric the triangles would hang from) to be about 1/2" wide, so to make the bias ribbon, I multiplied that by four, and cut the width of the fabric to 2" (.5 x 4 = 2! More lessons!)

Use your imaginations here, because I stopped taking photos at this point, but I folded the bias fabric so that the top and bottom edges met in the middle, then folded that top half down. Basically, this is so no raw edges would show from the front or back or the bias ribbon. I ironed the bias so it would stay flat. Then, I measured out the spacing I wanted between each triangle, and pinned each triangle into place inside the fold of the bias ribbon.

Then, with all triangles pinned in place, I simply sewed a long line down the bias tape, stitching all the triangles together.

A bunting was made!

I decided to simply drape the bunting, rather than fasten it permanently to the window frame, because I could easily use it as decoration elsewhere, say, if we were having a party at the house. It would look really cute hung from a dessert table or even just hung above a doorway as a fun little banner. I can definitely see myself making plenty more of these in the future - they're so simple, there's no excuse not to!

How do you feel about bunting? I know they've been all over design blogs for a couple years now, but I still find them irresistible. What about you: Do you think bunting is well-played, or played out?