Birthday bunting, a year on

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?

Bunting my way

Those tissue paper pom poms which I posted last week reminded me of the bunting I insisted on making back in the summer for our 110th party, and how I hadn't shared more about that here. It appeared in the pictures from the party, but that's about it.

BUNTING MADE FROM SCRAPS

Every party needs bunting I think. And in fact I think everyone should have bunting, at least some anyway. I'd frustrated MOH ahead of the party by disappearing and knocking up a couple of strings of bunting when in his opinion there were more important things to be done. They didn't take that long to make and were a good stash-buster too, so pretty and resourceful.

I have a habit of saving ribbon and braid from boxes of chocolates, bouquets and even those posh paper carrier bags, and these came in useful for my bunting. I also have a fair bit of material, so I started by sorting out some of that. I'd hoped to go with the small floral Liberty-style patterns, but when it came to it I still didn't want to cut into some of that material. So instead I opted for material that I'd had for a while, was generally floral and fun.

Out came my pinking shears and I made a triangle template to cut around, cutting through several layers of material at once. I thought the shape didn't need to be exactly perfect to get the bunting effect, and I was right. The central one in the photo above proves that, and I bet you only notice the mis-cut on the left hand side as your eyes scroll back up. 

FROM A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

With the sewing machine threaded up, I started by joining my braids and ribbons together, and then simply attached my cut out triangles to that leaving approximately the width of the bunting between each flag.  Again that wasn't precise, but it worked out well. I didn't want the bunting to be too spaced out, and I did remember to leave some extra ribbon at each end so it was easy to tie into place.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and I think I'll be making more.  In total I made two lengths with about twenty triangles on each, and in truth it was so much fun and pretty addictive soI could have gone on for much more. 

A simple craft, but one that was quick easy to do and one that I think can't help but bring a simile to people's faces.