Bunting has had a serious revival in recent years. For me it evokes birthday parties, village fêtes, country weddings and general wholesomeness… and is so easy to make yourself!
To celebrate Babyccino’s 1st birthday my friend, Purvika Patel, who runs her own bunting making business, put me through a bunting master class. We spent a great evening putting together a simple bunting-making guide!
You will need:
-a piece of cardboard
-a pen
-scissors (pinking shears if you have them)
-scraps of fabric
-bias or ribbon
And here’s how to do it:
1. Choose your fabrics. Its fun, but also actually surprisingly difficult to find scraps and bits that will look good together.
Scraps that you think will look good together, clash completely and vice versa. A good way of making printed fabrics work together is by mixing in some single block colours; that way the bunting will not get too busy. Take your time and experiment.
2. Cut out a triangle from the cardboard, in the shape of the bunting. The cardboard triangle will be your template for the bunting. You can make it any size you want.
3. Cut the fabrics for the bunting. The fastest way is to layer the fabrics over each other and cut the all the layers at the same time. Place the cardboard triangle onto the fabrics and trace around it. Cut the fabrics using, if you have them, pinking shears as that way you will stop the fabric from unraveling.
4. Pin the fabric triangles onto the ribbon or bias. I think that bias is a little bit easier to work with as it stretches a little bit and the bunting hangs better when it is finished, but ribbon works too. We left about a 2 cm (3/4 inches) gap between the triangles. I might be stating the obvious but again play around with the triangles to make sure they look good beside each other.
5. Once you are happy with the look of the bunting, all you need to do is sew it all up together.
I might be a hopeless romantic, but I love the idea of making bunting out of fabric that has memories attached to it. Your kid’s first dress, a long forgotten curtain from your childhood etc. It is such a nice way of keeping memories alive. You can keep scraps for years and finally put them all together and give them a new life as bunting.
– Emilie
Comments (12)
What a great idea. Too bad my daughter’s birthday is tomorrow otherwise I would surely make one of those. It is such a simple and wonderful idea.
What do you mean Paula, you still have the entire evening! (Just kidding!)
Thanks for the workshop Emilie, I’m going to give it a try! I love the idea of recycling my daughter’s old dresses!!!
Do you have any suggestions for places to order cute fabric on line? I live in Brussels and am very limited in choices.
This is a good question for Purvika! She often orders fabric from the US! Purvika: you got any good ideas?
I made bunting once for our campsite at ‘Bestival’ on the Isle of Wight. I bought some cheap off-cuts of material from the haberdashery section in Ikea. They had a 1metre pieces for about £1.50! They often have bright prints that contrast well with pieces of plain bold, bright colours. It’s a good place to start if you want to practise nmaking bunting or if you are on a budget.
This is something even i could make!
Do the zig-zag scissors prevent the fabric from loosing all the threads?
Angelia, in Brussels is a LOVELY fabric shop:
http://www.chienvert.com/
They have loads of great fabrics, and the shop is really special!
I love this!! So cute! I think even I (with my limited sewing skills) could make it! 🙂
There is also a VERY cute on-line shop that sells cute fabrics, yarns, etc. It’s a U.S. company, but they ship internationally. It is called PurlSoho. Check it out!
I am so jealous- a bunting master class! I love it!
Courtney is right, PurlSoho is pretty fantastic. And, they have two shops, one called Purl (devoted to all things knitting) and Purl Patchwork (devoted to all things fabric) located on Sullivan Street, just a couple of doors down from each other.
Hello!
I’m a fabric junkie so I buy fabric wherever I go and from all over the world, especially the US. I’ve used several sites but the ones I keep coming back to are Fabricshak and Z&S fabrics. Both have great sales and a variety of fabrics. For smaller ranges but often fast shipping and a more personal service try sellers on etsy.com. My fave is sewlove fabrics, its cheap, the seller (Ruth) is very efficient and responsive and she usually throws in freebies. Just remember that you will be charged by customs if the parcel value is over $36 (may vary in different countries) including shipping. I have to say though, there is NOTHING better than receiving a parcel of fabric in the post! Happy shopping!
[…] though, I have never gotten round to it…. So when my friend Purvika, who helped me make the Babyccino Birthday Bunting, invited four of us round for a sewing bee, I jumped at the chance! We used a pattern for a little […]