Sewing a Halloween Pennant Bunting

Want to know a secret?  When I found out I only had one day to pack and leave for this new ice show, I spent a little bit of time packing and a whole lot of time finishing up and photographing all the craft projects that I had been working on at home.  I guess it’s pretty obvious where my priorities lie.

This string of Halloween flags is the last of those projects from home, and looking through the pictures this afternoon, I really wished I were still there.

That’s my mom in the picture with me.  (Hi, Mom!)

I’ve been gone for two weeks, and I bet those leaves are all yellow now.

I used my mom’s sewing machine to make these flags, and I didn’t use a pattern; I just made one up as I went along.

For six double-sided flags, I used two quarters of fabric from Fancy Tiger Crafts.  I strung them together using double fold bias tape.

To begin, I drew a triangle on my fabric that was 8 inches wide and 10 inches long.  Then I cut it out and used it as a stencil to trace and cut out five more triangles on that fabric and six triangles on the other fabric.

Next, I made six triangle sandwiches, using a triangle from both fabric colors for each sandwich, with the front sides of the fabric facing in.  I pinned two of the sides together and left the 8-inch top unpinned.  

Then I sewed along all the pinned sides.  I left the unpinned side un-sewn on each triangle so that I could reach inside each triangle and turn it right-side-out.  

Once they were right-side-out, I ironed each of the triangles so they had nice crisp edges and then top stitched around all of their edges (including the edge that hadn’t been sewn shut before).

Now that I had six finished triangles, I drew myself a little diagram to decide exactly where to place the flags on the bias tape.  I settled on 2 inches between each flag.

I snuggled the 8-inch edge of each triangle inside the fold of the bias tape and pinned it together.

After the triangles were all pinned to the bias tape, I sewed along the bottom edge of the tape, took out the pins, and I was finished.

I’m super happy with the finished product!

The only detail that I didn’t love was the way the bias tape was folded.  When I took it out of the package, it wasn’t folded perfectly down the middle.  I left it the way it was, but if I were to make this project again, I think I would try to fix it with an iron.

Do you know if all bias tape is folded ever so slightly off center, or do you think I just got a funny one?  If you were making this project, would you bother to re-iron the fold to make it perfect?

Either way, I’m proud of this little project, and I’ve currently got it hanging in my cabin on the ship, spreading some fall cheer.

Happy sewing!

xoxo

Laura