Last summer we celebrated my dad’s 90th birthday and to mark the occasion I made some bunting. I’d printed the individual flags much earlier in the year at the Indian Block Printing course at our local library. Even then I was clear that a traditional ‘happy birthday’ banner was a lot of work - and would need a fair amount of space to hang, and I wanted something smaller.
In the end I settled on five flags, spelling I am 90 - and both the embroidery and assembly were finished way ahead of our family celebration, which was a relief - and almost felt like it was planned.
Which of course it was, but isn’t it great when a plan comes together?
Earlier this summer dad had another birthday, and so I thought I better provide an update, but without access to the same Indian blocks it would have to be different, so I decided to make it very different.
I’d picked up a large bag of buttons at my Sewing Group’s stash sale (along with the Vogue pictures, which are currently being framed) and more amazingly was able to remember where I put them and so lay my hands on them easily.
I’d drawn a 1 on a plain piece of fabric, and marked out the edges of the triangle which would form the bunting, and then played around with how the buttons would fit into the figure.
And once I was happy with that, I took a picture to remind myself of what I’d settled on, and set about sewing them on pretty much in the same position. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was very close.
The last button - the tiny white one at the bottom right - didn’t seem to fit where I’d had it, as no doubt other buttons had moved slightly, and I toyed with the idea of leaving it off altogether. But in the end I added it close to where it should have been in my plan.
To hem and finish off the bunting I used a navy thread with a fancy stitch on my sewing machine - they look like Christmas lights to me, or ice creams in cones if you look at them the other way up.
Anyway, job done.
And that odd little button, well - it seems it was supposed to be there. Dad, who was half expecting an update to his birthday banner asked if I’d included that number of buttons on purpose. I hadn’t, but it turns out the number of buttons I’d used was the same number as dad’s birth date. I almost wish I’d thought of doing that myself, but seems that fate managed that all by itself.
How fortuitously weird, huh?
