Spring is in the air

A while back I wrote a blog about making festive mini buntings with ribbon samples and now I can’t stop making buntings.

Here is how that happened: I decided that I wanted to try and come up with some projects with the FabMo materials that aren’t, well, super popular. Think small beige samples, dull colored stuff and especially carded samples.

If you have ever been to FabMo you know what I am talking about: small fabric swatches that come with a cardboard backing. The colors and patterns can be very nice, the materials are often for outdoor use and therefore really durable and high quality. The issue: the things are just so darn small. What can you do with a bunch of non-matching 4 x 5” fabric samples?

If you have any ideas other than buntings, please do let me know because buntings is the only thing that came to my mind and people can always use more of those! Right! Right?

Getting to work

So I collected maybe 20 pieces of coordinating carded samples - something that takes like 2 minutes at FabMo. I also found some longish narrow pieces of remnant fabric to sew the little flags onto and took my bounty home.

Next I started ripping off the paper backing which is easy for like 85% of the paper and almost undoable for the remained, namely the part glued to the fabric. I finally managed to get all the paper off, but the glue remnants remained. For a bit I debated whether I could iron that stuff off, but on second thought I was convinced, that I would gunk up my iron beyond repair if I tried. So I cut the glue stuff off and then used pinking shears to cut the pieces all the same length and width.

Next I cut the white remnants into 3” (or thereabouts) wide strips which I ironed. Then I folded them in the middle, ironed them again so that the fold would be nice and crisp. Next I opened the strips up again and folded both edges to the middle so they meet at the ironed fold. Now I have a doubled up 1.5” strip with the edges meeting in the middle. Out comes the iron again to go over this doubled up strip.

Then I folded that over again to get a 0.75” strip with an opening on one side with nice clean edges everywhere.

In that opening I slid my little flags and secured each with a pin.

To get them equidistant from each other I measure 3” from where one flag ends to where the next begins. I left about 12” at either end so the bunting can be tied to something. Maybe a bit more would be better, especially if you plan tying it to something big, like a tree branch.

I pieced the strips together as I went, overlapping them by about a half inch and pinning them so they wouldn’t slide.

The last step is to stitch everything in place by sewing closely to the open edge to secure the flags and close the opening.

Optional: instead of using the fabric samples as they are with blunt bottom side you can cut them any shape you like, e.g. cut out triangular pieces.

Ready! Now I just need to plan a garden party to show off my new spring colored, outdoor fabric buntings.