The Joy of Bunting

In the Summer this year I under took the task of making 25ft of bunting for an event at work. The task was daunting as I had no idea how to make bunting at the time of accepting the challenge. All I had was my faithful Huskavana sewing machine and a tenacious will to complete the task.

Armed with nothing but simple instructions from my mother "Pinking shears Ffi! -can't live without them." I headed to my nearest haberdashers - the wonderful Abakhan in Liverpool (a veritble Aladdins cave of haberdashery goodness) and I begged the wonderful ladies to instruct me on the best way to make yards and yards of bunting. So after much trial and error, here is my easy method to make quick, painless and gorgeous bunting...as easy as making toast!

1. Vital Equipment - The first vital bit of equipment, as my mother rightly stated is a good quality pair of pinking shears. Mine are excellent and only cost £14.00, which is a fab investment and I have paid them off already as I use them for dress making and many other fabric crafts. The reason pinking shears are so vital is that they reduce the time spent on the whole process significantly. Without pinking shears you would have to hem every single bunting triangle and although this is certainly an option if you have the time and the budget, for me this news was a blessing. The shears also give a crinkle cut look to the edge of the bunting which in my opinion adds a little something extra to the whole thing.

 

The next bit of equipment necessary to make my bunting is the cotton tape. I use white but it does come in a variety of colours and widths. Now, I have learnt the hard way when it comes to cotton tape and here are my top tips...

•  - Buy a whole roll: it is very cheap and the most useful stuff to have around the house. I have fixed shower curtains and door handles with the stuff. But for the purposes of bunting, you can never have enough because your first few attempts will always go wrong and you will require more tape. Having to trudge down to the shop to buy another 5 meters will get tedious and once you realise how fun the whole process is you'll want to make more and more.
• - Width no less than 2.5cm: this is again after much experimentation and advice from the Abakhan ladies. Any thinner in width and you'll struggle to fold the tape over the bunting triangle securely.

Your final bit of essential equipment will be dressmakers pins.  These are necessary to hold your template down prior to cutting but also to attach your bunting to the tape before you sew. Buy the longest you can find and make sure they are stainless steel too - you'll thank me one day!

2. The Fabric - In my first attempt I bought a total of 6 patterned fabrics to create my bunting. 5 of which were cotton but 1 was not. I have since learnt that to make bunting with a jersey material is a pig. Do not, under any circumstances try it. Stick to cotton or linen.

One other tip for fabric, is to try and get fabric which does not have a wrong side. By this I mean, ensure the pattern is the same on both sides of the fabric. More often than not patterned fabric has one side that is unprinted. This is known as the wrong side and is not meant to be seen. For bunting, this can be a pain as both sides are viewed, this I have also learnt from experience. Other than that, the glorious thing about Bunting is you can choose which ever fabric you like or that suits your theme or party

3. Use a Template - I downloaded mine from the internet and it looks like this...

You can increase or decrease it's size dependant on your liking but the squared off portion at the top is very handy when it comes to the sewing. I found it useful to tessellate my template when cutting out the fabric, that way I hardly wasted any and got the most out of my fabric.

4. The Preparation - Spend some time cutting out as many triangles of your fabrics as you think you will need for your first lot of bunting. Decide on the order your want your patterned fabrics to go.

Take the end of the cotton tape (snip the raw end with your shears to stop it fraying), leave the first 10cm free and do not cut the other end of the tape at this point, you will see why in a bit.

About 10cm into the length of tape place your first triangle of bunting almost to the top of the tape. Fold the tape in half, sandwiching the bunting triangle between the tape - this makes everything nice and neat. Use your dressmakers pins to hold the triangle in place and then move onto the next one. I tend to leave approx a two finger gap between the triangles but the look of the thing is really up to you. 

 

Continue to add your triangles until you have done one of each of your fabric designs. At this point cut the length of cotton tape from the main roll, leaving approx 5-10cm at this end too. Working with shorter lengths makes life much easier! I tried to make longer lengths at first but you just get tangled up and stuck with pins. The cats certainly enjoyed this craft activity though!

5. Start Sewing - Using a straight running stitch on your machine you should then sew all along the length of tape, removing pins as you go. Make sure you stay as close to the open ends of the tape as possible - if you sew too close to the folded edge you might not sew the triangle into the tape and they will fall out. This is very distressing and results in a waste of tape and time!

Repeat this process until you have as many lengths of bunting as you require. At this point I sew the ends of your bunting together with a simple straight stitch, trimming your raw ends with your shears until you have the same gap at the join as you do between the triangles - this way the join should be almost invisble when your bunting is hung.

The result - yards of gorgeous, professional looking bunting in no time at all on a tiny budget! Hurrah!

6. Final Tips:

1. Use no scissors other than your pinkers for the whole process and you won't get any frayed edges.
2. Use your pins! It might seem a hassle but it will make everything so much easier and save to many tears of frustration!
3. Add loops to each end of your length of bunting by folding over some more cotton tape, sewing it and then attaching it at a right angles to the end of the bunting tape. This makes hanging the bunting all the easier!
4. Have fun with it - you'll find this method makes bunting one of the quickest and easiest crafts and it makes a great gift or addition to a party!
    You can even go themed - Christmas, Halloween or that ever popular Rule Britannia!