Over my christmas break I was able to spend a fantastic few days cocooned in my craft room starting and finishing off some projects that I had started and some that I had wanted to start.
My first project was my nautical bunting made from the same fabric as the jumpsuit that my mum made me for my birthday. She gave me the remnants from the outfit and I cut out as many flags as I could, making sure that all of the boats were the right way up.
I had a lovely prezzie of a little snail pincushion to keep me company while I was crafting, and he has been a great help with keeping my needles tidy and out of my various sleeves and collars.
After sewing the nautical fabric to their calico backs I trimmed each flag to make it easier to turn out.
Once turned out I pressed each flag from the back and carefully teased out the points to try and make them as sharp as possible.
I chose an orange bias binding to coordinate with the orange in some of the boats in the print. After pressing it in half and neatening each end, I then pinned the flags along it and made sure that the flags were equal distances apart. To make projects easier to make and cost in the future, I made a spreadsheet of measurements and costs for each size of bunting flag which will save me lots of time when working on new designs.
The finished nautical bunting is 5 metres long and would make lovely decoration for a beach hut or a summer garden party.
My next bunting strings were three more christmas pieces. I thought it was a good idea to get a head start on next year! I wasn't very keen on the christmas fabric that I found in the bottom of my fabric stash. It's very traditional and wasn't particularly to my taste, but I decided to give it a try. Once I had cut the fabric into the flags the pattern was less overwhelming and I started to think that it would work.
For the smaller flags I decided to attach bells to the points to add a christmassy sound as well as appearance.
For the medium sized flags I sewed either a red, white or green pompom to the base of each flag, which proved a little tricker than then bells! I had to find the centre securing thread and make sure to stitch underneath this to make sure they were attached. However when it was done I was really pleased with how the looked, and I thought they gave a traditional fabric a cute and crafty edge.
After pressing, measuring and pinning, I sewed the flags to red bias binding...
...making one 14 flag string with bells and two 12 flag strings with pompoms.
The finished bunting with gold jingling bells.
One of the pompom strings of bunting.
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