DIY Bunting Tea Towel

March 8, 2019 · Leave a Comment

DIY Bunting Tea Towel

There are lots of good things about being able to sew.

One of them is that there’s no need to be trawling the shops or the internet because there’s something you want or need, and nothing you find matches what’s in your head! You can just make the thing instead.

When I hit a gloomy patch, something that I find to be helpful is to remind myself of what’s important and focus on that. Unsurprisingly my family are at the top of the list!

Although I object to the amount of mess they all make sometimes, I actually quite like pottering about at home. And I like to make things for my house that are an expression of who I am.

So the other day I decided to make a present for my kitchen. I know that tea towels aren’t very exciting, but most of mine are old and have gone grey from being washed a lot. A nice new tea towel with bunting on it was just the thing!

The fabric behind my bedroom door is bordering on out of control. Every so often it falls over and nobody can get in or out! So I had a rummage in there to see what I could find. I found some white cotton and some red and white gingham.

I did start to overthink a little bit about whether the cotton was suitable, whether it was thick enough, whether I could reuse an old nappy to line it, before remembering that if you make it yourself, you can decide on these things as there’s not necessarily right or wrong!

So in the end I used the white cotton, some towelling, gingham ribbon and scraps of gingham fabric. I also found some red checked fabric left over from the curtains I made for the kitchen. I think I was saving it for something, but I can’t remember what! So I turned that into tea towels too.

How To Make DIY Bunting Tea Towels

You Will Need

Cotton or linen fabric
Towelling (you could not bother with this if the cotton you’re using is thicker than the stuff I had.
Scraps of fabric for applique
Fusible interfacing (optional)
Ribbon

Instructions

Cut a rectangle from the cotton fabric and another the same size from the towelling. You can make your tea towel whatever size you want, but if you need a template, use an existing tea towel as a guide.

If the fabric you’re using for the appliqued bunting looks like it might fray, you’ll need to iron some fusible interfacing to it before cutting out.

Cut 7 flags from the fabric. There are tips for cutting flags for bunting here.

Pin the flags to the fabric.

Cut a length of ribbon the same width as the cotton. Pin it to the cotton about 5 cm up from the bottom edge.

Check that everything is how you want it, then applique the flags to the cotton and sew on the ribbon.

Pin the cotton to the towelling with the right sides together. Leaving a gap for turning out, sew around the outside edge.

Trim the seams and cut across the corners. Turn it out. Pin the opening. Top stitch around the edge.

If you are using thicker cotton and don’t want to line your diy bunting tea towel with towelling, you could hem it with a folded hem instead.

Year of Bunting Challenge 2

March 1, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Year of Bunting Challenge 2

Hurrah for the Year of Bunting!

It’s not really catching on, but it’s only March so I’m still hoping. In case you’ve missed it and you don’t have a clue what I’m on about, I announced at the beginning of the year that 2019 will be the Year of Bunting.

To make it fun, I’m setting challenges.

Challenge 1 was to make some bunting to decorate some furniture.

This is Hazel’s that she made to decorate her dresser. She found inspiration in the snowdrops in her garden.

Here is Christine’s bunting with her pretty crocheted flowers in between the flags.

They both won pincushion craft kits. Challenge 2 will have prizes too, so please have a go and enter!

I know that sometimes it’s offputting. You wonder what other people are doing, whether yours will be as good, whether there’s any point as hundreds of people will probably be entering and whether anybody will even notice yours.

I love seeing what you’ve made! This blog has some lovely loyal readers but it’s small and your contribution will be noticed :).

Challenge 2

So are you ready for the next challenge?

Challenge 2 is to sew some bunting embroidery.

I love this because it’s an easy way to sneak some in! Even if some soulless person in your house objects to you hanging up bunting everywhere, it’s much harder to object to a little bit embroidered on a tea towel and, let’s face it, there’s a good chance they won’t even notice!

This is some embroidered bunting I’m working on at the moment. I haven’t quite decided exactly what I’m going to do with it yet, but as I’ve managed to lose all my bank cards this week, I might be turning it into a new purse.

Exactly how you do your embroidered bunting is up to you. You can embroider by hand or use the sewing machine. It can be something functional, like a towel or a purse, or something purely decorative.

Here are some ideas of things you can embroider:

Tea towels
Dish cloths
Bathroom towels
Face cloths
A table cloth
Napkins
A top or a pair of trousers
Pillowcase or a duvet cover

There are some more ideas here on my bunting Pinterest board, and I have an embroidery board too.

The challenge will end at midnight GMT on Sunday 17th March 2019.

Please enter, it will be fun! And there will be prizes!

Year of Bunting Pincushion Tutorial With Mini Bunting

February 22, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Year of Bunting Pincushion Tutorial With Mini Bunting

I’ve got a thing about pincushions.

It’s partly because I associate them with a simpler time, when milk lived in jugs with beaded crocheted covers and everybody ate boiled eggs, toast and cake for tea.

It’s also because when it comes to making pincushions, the possibilities are endless. And it’s fine to have a few!

My favourite pincushion is this one that I can wear on my wrist. That way I don’t lose it in the mess that always seems to accompany making things!

I have others as well, including these that I made last year while my concentration was taking a holiday.

I even have a Pinterest board devoted to pincushions!

The Year of Bunting needs a bunting pincushion, so I’ve made these.

The bunting pincushions are made from white felt with appliqued cotton circles on the top and bottom and bunting on the side. The button on the top actually runs through to another smaller button on the bottom. This allows the pincushion to sit on a flat surface without wobbling about to much!

For some bunting fun, I made some tiny bunting from diamond shaped pieces of cotton and bakers’ twine. The bunting is strung across the pincushion by some pretty flower headed pins.

I filled the bunting pincushions with polyester filling recycled from an old pillow.

You might prefer to fill yours with wire wool or emery, so that your pins are sharpened when you stick them into your pincushion. There’s a tutorial for making a pincushion with emery here.

I’ve got some kits for sale here and here on Etsy if you want to make some like mine but you can’t be doing with faffing about finding everything.

How To Make a Bunting Pincushion With Mini Bunting

You Will Need

Felt
Scraps of cotton fabric
Filling for your pincushion (polyester filling, emery or wire wool)
2 buttons
Bakers’ twine
Longer than normal pins

Or you can buy a kit here.

Cutting Out

From the felt, cut 2 circles and a long rectangle. The rectangle needs to be as longs as the distance around the circle.

When I was learning about pi at school, I’d never have guessed that I would use it as much as I do!

It doesn’t matter an awful lot if you can’t remember anything about it! The only thing you need to remember is that the distance around the outside edge of a circle is about 3 times the distance across the circle passing through the centre.

So your rectangle needs to be 3 times longer than the straight edge of your circle if you fold it in half, plus a bit extra.

You’ll also need to cut 2 smaller circles from cotton fabric. I used jam jars for the circles.

For the appliqued bunting, cut 5 tiny triangles from the same fabric you used for your smaller circles. For the bunting that’s strung between the pins, cut 5 diamonds from the same cotton.

Assembling Your Bunting Pincushion

Applique the cotton circles to the felt circles.
Applique the bunting flags to the side of the pincushion. To do this, I sewed the sides of the flags, then sewed across the top a couple of times. I sewed past the end of the flags by a cm or so.
Sew one of the circles to the side. The official way to do this is probably to sew the side into a circle, then to sew the circle. The problem with doing it this way is that the circles have to be exactly the same size! The way I did it was to start with one end of the rectangle and sew it all the way round the circle. I then sewed the rest of it so that it overlapped.
You might like to hand sew the seam of the side piece, although it might be fine to leave it if you are in a hurry.
Sew the other circle to the side, leaving a gap.Fill the pincushion then sew up the opening.
Cut a length of thread and tie it to the button that you’re planning on putting on the bottom of your pincushion. With a needle, pass the thread through the pincushion in through the other button. Take the needle back through the button and the pincushion to the button at the bottom. Pull the thread, then tie it off.
Making the tiny bunting proved to be fiddly! I tried a number of ways and this is the one that proved to be easiest. Take one of the cotton diamonds and fold it over the bakers’ twine. Sew a couple of stitches in the centre of the flag to hold both halves together.
Push a pin through the bakers’ twine at one end of the bunting. Do the same at the other end. Push the pins into the top of the pincushion.

The Year of Bunting Challenge 1

February 3, 2019 · Leave a Comment

The Year of Bunting Challenge 1

I announced at the beginning of January that 2019 would be The Year of Bunting.

It’s not a national thing (or an international thing!). It’s not been endorsed by the sewing community. It is just me in my little corner of internet land. I’m hoping it will catch on though, as I can imagine dozens of people happily making bunting at home and thinking about how much they’ll enjoy it.

I published the first bunting themed tutorial earlier in the week. If you missed it, it’s here. It’s for some appliqued bunting cushion covers.

To make it more fun that just a lot of sewing tutorials (not that those aren’t fun!), and so that everybody can be involved, there are going to be challenges too.

This is the first one. Are you ready?

Challenge 1 is to decorate a piece of furniture with some bunting.

How you do this is entirely up to you.

It can be sewn, knitted or crocheted. You could even paint it if you like!

The piece of furniture is also to you. I have bunting on the dresser and the fireplace. Bookcases and shelves are easy places to attach bunting to, but you can put your bunting on whatever you like.

This is the bunting I’ve made for my dresser to replace the Christmas bunting that was hanging there until a few days ago! It didn’t take very much fabric to make the little flags so I was able to use stuff I already had. The bakers’ twine was in with the Christmas stuff, and the wool was left over from another project.

When you’ve made it, you can either post it on the Tea and a Sewing Machine Facebook page, or Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag #yearofbunting. That way I’ll find it!

If you don’t do social media, you can email me a picture instead at teaandasewingmachine@gmail.com.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you make!

Easy Fleece Bunting Cushions

January 28, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Easy Fleece Bunting Cushions

These easy fleece bunting cushions are the first of hopefully several tutorials, challenges, competitions and giveaways to mark The Year of Bunting.

If you hadn’t realised that 2019 was The Year of Bunting, don’t worry, lots of other people won’t have either!

This is mainly because it’s only me who’s decided that it’s a thing!

You can find out a little bit more about why I have declared 2019 to be The Year of Bunting in this post here.

After the Christmas decorations have come down, the house can feel a bit empty.

One way to compensate for this is to make some changes, and a nice, simple thing to do is to make some new cushion covers.

I love jazzing things up with some new cushions and I do this at other times of the year as well, not just after Christmas!

Unless you want to, there’s no need to even buy new cushion pads. You can just whip the old covers off and pop the new ones on. Or even put the new covers over the existing covers if you’re feeling lazy!

A tired cushion pad can be brought back to life by being thrown into the washing machine. Alternatively you can pull the stuffing apart with your hands for a few minutes.

If you want extra cushions and therefore don’t have any spare pads, you can make square cushion pads from old synthetic pillows. There’s a tutorial showing how to do this here.

These cushions, like most of the cushions I make, have envelope backs. The reasons for this is because it’s easier and because I don’t like to have a zip poking into me when I’m sitting on the sofa.

I made them from fleece because I found I had quite a lot left over from another project while I was having a rummage. For the bunting I used the remains of a fat quarter I used for something but I can’t remember what! The string of the bunting is bias binding. This has the advantage that it stretches a bit, so it’s easy to sew it into a curve.

While making these bunting cushions, I didn’t measure a thing! I used the cushion pad as a guide for the cover. For the bunting, I experimented with paper triangles of different sizes until I found a size that I liked.

So grab a cushion pad, some paper and a pencil and your sewing stuff and let’s get sewing!

How To Sew a Bunting Cushion

You Will Need

A cushion pad
Fabric for the cushion cover (I used half a metre of fleece, but you can use whatever you have. It needs to be enough to go right round the cushion pad, plus a bit extra, and enough at the sides for the seams).
Scraps of fabric for the bunting
Bias binding or ribbon for the string of the bunting
Pencil and paper
Ruler (anything with a straight edge will do)

Cutting Out

For the cushion cover, you can use the pad as a guide.

Cut a piece of fabric big enough to wrap around the cushion, plus a bit extra so that the ends overlap by about 10 cm (4 inches). Make sure you allow enough for the side seams.

To cut out the bunting, it’s easiest if you make a paper template first. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. Draw a straight line from the folded edge to a point along the top. Cut along the line, open it out and you’ll have a perfect triangle! If it’s not the right size, just try again until you get one you like.

Using the template as a guide, cut some triangles from scraps of fabric. I used 4 triangles on one cushion and 8 on the other, but it will depend on the size of you triangles, the size of your cushion and how much bunting you want on your cushion!

If the fabric you are using looks like it might fray, you might like to iron some fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric before cutting out.

And if you want a tip for cutting triangles out quickly, you might like to have a look at this post here.

Sewing the Cushion

As I used fleece fabric for my bunting cushions, I didn’t bother hemming them as they won’t fray. If you are using different fabric or if you prefer a neater look, you’ll need to hem the two short edges first.

Fold the cushion cover piece in half widthways and gently crease it with your finger or mark with a pin.

Arrange your bunting on the right side of the cushion fabric. If you’re planning on having more than one row of bunting on your cushion, just pin the bottom row.

Applique the flags to the cushion cover. I didn’t bother with the top edges, just the sides.

https://www.awilson.co.uk/easiest-bunting-tutorial-ever/

Pin the bias binding or ribbon along the top of the flags. Sew it in place.

If your cushions are having more than one row of bunting, add the extra rows in the same way, one row at a time.

Once you’ve finished the bunting, you’re ready to turn it into a cushion cover!

Fold the top edge over, then the bottom edge. The wrong side should be on the outside, and the short edges should overlap in the middle. Using the cushion pad as a guide, check that it is more or less square.

Pin the side seams and sew.

Trim the seams and turn the cushion the correct way out. Pop your cushion pad inside its new cover!