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Year of Bunting July Challenge: Bunting For a Card or a Cake

July 11, 2019 · 2 Comments

Year of Bunting July Challenge: Bunting For a Card or a Cake

Over the last 10 days or so, it’s somehow become July.

So it’s time to have a look at what people who took part in June’s Year of Bunting challenge made!

There was only one entry last month. It was this bunting from Hazel, cleverly made from compost bags.

This isn’t something I would have ever thought of doing, so it didn’t make it onto the list of possibilities when I introduced last month’s challenge. I did think of using a plastic table cloth, but not compost bags! And actually they are often quite pretty with pictures of flowers on them.

Onto July’s challenge!

This month the challenge is to make bunting for a card or a cake. July is the month when I’m required to acknowledge that I’m a year older! I will be making some bunting to stick into the pink cake I will be making (and eating!) a bit nearer the time.

Here are some ideas for making tiny bunting and for using bunting on a card or a cake.

Ideas For Making Tiny Bunting

There are lots of different ways to make tiny bunting.

One option is to make it in the same way that you would if it was larger, by sewing little triangles to ribbon.

Or you could cut diamonds from scraps of fabric, fold them over a length of bakers’ twine and sew the sides together with a couple of stitches in the middle. That’s what I did here with these bunting pincushions.

year of bunting pincushion tutorial with mini bunting bunting for a card or a cake

A less fiddly alternative is to use washi tape. Cut some pieces of washi tape, fold them over some thread or baker’s twine and then cut into triangles. I’m going to write a post about this, so watch this space!

You could do the same with scraps of paper.

Ribbon bunting can be made in a similar way (there are instructions for this here).

Using Bunting On a Card

When I made this card, I used scraps of paper folded over bakers’ twine to make the bunting. This could work equally well with washi tape or ribbon bunting.

Sewing triangles made either from paper like this one, or from fabric like this one, is another possibility.

I like this card with bunting on the inside. The link doesn’t go anywhere but it would be quite easy to recreate something similar. The only thing to watch out for would be making sure that the bunting is contained within the card when it is folded up.

If you get carried away, you could make a whole range of bunting themed stationery! These bits are for a wedding, (warning: this site is very pink and has lots of adverts!) but it could be adapted for a party. You could also make sets of little notelets and things if you prefer to send handwritten notes rather than updating the whole world via Facebook. They would make a nice gift too.

Using Bunting On a Cake

A word of warning here too: looking at all the bunting themed cakes on Pinterest made me very hungry for cake!

You could use your washi tape or ribobn bunting, tie it to kebab sticks and push them into the cake, like this one.

Another option is to make flags from royal icing, like on these cakes.

This cake combines both!

If you’d like some more ideas, there are plenty more on my bunting Pinterest board!

If you want to take part (go on!), you have until the end of July. When you’re ready, take a photo and either share it on Tea and a Sewing Machine’s Facebook page, or on Instagram with the hashtag #yearofbunting. 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!

DIY Bunting Card

June 15, 2019 · Leave a Comment

DIY Bunting Card

Having concentrated mostly on sewing for the last few years, I’ve decided with one thing and another to change direction a little bit and include more of other crafts.

This is actually what I did when I started Tea and a Sewing Machine. It was called something else then, can’t remember what, and it was awful! The website was impossible to navigate, the design was eye-poppingly bad and the photos were blurry.

I promise we’ll not go back to that! But somewhere along the way, sewing took over and the other crafts were more or less abandoned.

So I’m bringing them back. I’m already feeling a lot more inspired than I have over the last few months, so we’ll try this for a bit and see how it goes.

If you’re mostly here for the sewing, don’t worry! There will still be sewing, just some other bits and pieces too.

So here’s the first non sewing project that I’ve written about in a while!

I was inspired to make a bunting card when I saw one that Julie from Sum of Their Stories had made.

She’d made a lovely card for the May challenge for The Year of Bunting.

When I saw it, after thinking how pretty it was, I remembered how I used to make cards and how much fun it was.

So I had a rummage, found some pretty paper, and had a go myself!

How To Make a DIY Bunting Card

You Will Need

https://www.sumoftheirstories.com/blog/make-a-floral-bunting-birthday-card

A5 card or a card blank
Scraps of pretty paper or washi tape
A larger piece of pretty paper (to cover the front of the card)
A paper doily (I got mine from Poundland)
Bakers’ twine
Buttons and beads (optional)
Paper flowers (optional)
Glue (PVA and a glue stick)
A ruler and a pencil

Instructions

If you’re not using a card blank, take your piece of card and fold it half.

Trim your paper so that it’s the same size as the front of the card.

Lay the doily over the top of the paper and move it about until you like where it is. Holding the card and the doily together, turn it over and draw round the paper. Cut out the doily.

Stick the paper to the card, and the doily to the paper.

Making the Bunting

To make the bunting, cut diamonds from the paper scraps. The easiest way to do this is to cut a rectangle and fold it half. Find the halfway point along the open edge and mark with a pencil. Join this point to the corners of the folded edge. Cut along the lines.

Cut a piece of bakers’ twine. Cover the wrong side of one of the bunting diamonds with glue. Fold it over the bakers’ twine and stick both halves together.

If you’re making your bunting from washi tape, you can make it in the same kind of way. Cut a piece of washi tape and fold it over the bakers’ twine. Cut the corners off the rectangle to make it into a triangle.

My strings of bunting each had five flags on them, but yours can have as many as you like! A handy thing to remember is that for some weird reason, odd numbers of things look better.

Decide where to put your bunting on the card, and trim the ends of the bakers’ twine.

Stick the ends of the bakers’ twine to the card with PVA glue. You might like to use a little bit of glue stick glue to stick some of the flags down too.

If you’re using buttons or beads, stick them between the flags with PVA glue.

I added some paper flowers to the bottom right corner. You could use a button if you don’t have any flowers.

Another option would be to write something like Julie did on hers. If you want to get into hand lettering, I can recommend this book (affiliate link).

Year of Bunting June Challenge: Bunting For Outdoors

June 14, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Year of Bunting June Challenge: Bunting For Outdoors

Welcome to the June challenge for the Year of Bunting!

May’s challenge was to make some bunting featuring flowers.

Hazel made some lovely bunting for her dresser with appliqued flowers. I was thinking about doing something similar to this myself, only I didn’t quite get around to it!

Julie made a floral bunting birthday card for her friend with scraps of pretty paper and floral washi tape. There’s a tutorial for her card on her blog here.

Liberty made some bunting with some treasures she found in the American equivalent of Poundland, and you can see what she made here on her blog.

If you entered, thank you. I love to see what you’ve made and it makes it fun!

June’s Challenge

This month the challenge is to make some bunting for outdoors.

From time to time, I make bunting to hang off the front of my house. I used to hang it between to brackets for hanging baskets, but a few years ago some clown decided to swing on one of the brackets and it came down. I still haven’t got round to putting it back up.

It also means that I haven’t made hanging baskets for a few years.

I think bunting is an acceptable alternative to hanging baskets, and it doesn’t need watering!

Also the front of my house is tatty, so I hope that the bunting serves as a distraction!

This time last year my insomnia was bad (it’s quite a lot better now), and I used a sleepless early morning to make this.

I wrote a post afterwards called The Easiest Bunting Tutorial because it was very easy!

I had some pretty cotton fabric left over from other things, so I chose some pink and blue and cut triangles.

Each flag was only one triangle. It was decent fabric so wouldn’t fray very much. I sewed it to a length of bias binding and tied it to the outside of my house.

It was every bit as cheery as my neighbours’ hanging baskets!

Making Bunting For Outdoors

Unless you live somewhere where you have glorious summers year after year, the weather needs to be taken into account when making for bunting for outdoors. You don’t want it to be so precious you have to run outside to retrieve it every time the skies open!

I’ve made mine from cotton and polycotton in the past. You could also consider:
Doilies (might be precious though!)
Net curtains
Tea towels
A duvet cover that’s seen better days
A plastic table cloth (my friend Wendy did this and hung it off her fence. It looked nice.)

You could sew the flags to bias binding like I did, or you could use twine or garden string.

Some Suggestions For Using Bunting Outside

Make some to decorate a patio or deck area.

Hang it off a fence.

Use some bunting to brighten up a little yard or children’s area in your garden.

If you’re lucky enough to have a big garden, string some between 2 trees. You could put a hammock there too (affiliate link)!

If you have a wreath on your door, you could make some bunting to match and hang it near your door.

For those of you who are campers, you could make some to hang on your tent. This is especially useful if you go to a festival or something and there are other people there with similar tents!

The challenge will run to the end of June. I’m hoping it will stop raining here for long enough so that I can hang some bunting up outdoors!

Hoping you’ll join in!

Year of Bunting Challenge 4: Bunting With Flowers

May 4, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Year of Bunting Challenge 4: Bunting With Flowers

I have a hard time deciding which is my favourite season, do you?

I like the autumn. Crispy leaves, golden light and woodsmoke.

Winter’s nice when you get a clear crisp day. When it’s horrible out, you can light the fire, make a cup of tea and snuggle up with your favourite humans and non humans.

When it’s summer you don’t have to bundle up in coats and you can go out and do stuff (not that you can’t in winter, but it’s more fun when you’re not cold!).

Spring’s lovely though. After the dead of winter, buds and green shoots are a reminder that hope springs eternal. By this time of year when there’s blossom on the trees, the days are longer and the weather is warmer, it’s enough to make your heart glad.

So May’s Year of Bunting challenge is to make flower themed bunting. You have until midnight BST on the 31st May. When you’ve made your bunting, either post a picture on Instagram using the hashtag #yearofbunting, or on the Tea and Sewing Machine Facebook page.

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

There will a prize!

By the way, if you’re doing the previous challenge, that’s still going on. The last day is Sunday 12th May, so the two challenges are overlapping this month.

How you make your bunting is up to you. Here are some suggestions.

Flower Themed Bunting

Appliqued flowers. I made this a while ago with appliqued trees.

12 tips for making bunting 12 things to sew in the autumn bunting is best year of bunting challenge 4 bunting with flowers

Retro flowers are fairly easy as are made using simple shapes. I did this with this laptop sleeve and also with this dress I made. Machine embroidery could be added to the applique if you wanted to jazz it up a bit.

Flower quilt blocks. I was going to say that quilt blocks are usually square and you’d have to turn them into triangles, but you could keep them square if you wanted to! I’m not the bunting police :). If I was, I might fine people for not having any bunting, but not because the flags weren’t triangles!

Crocheted bunting with flowers at the centre. You could adapt a pattern for granny squares. There are plenty of flower themed ones on the internet, and I have several on my crochet Pinterest board. As with the quilt blocks, you could turn them into triangles or you could keep them as squares, it’s up to you!

Tulle or net flowers attached to the flags. You could make flowers like this, from net, tulle or even cotton or polycotton, then attach them to the bunting.

Flower embroidery. By machine or by hand!

Flowery fabric. I made this last year and hung it off the front of my house.

easiest bunting tutorial ever year of bunting challenge 4 bunting with flowers

Another option would be to choose something with a bold print and cut the triangles so that the flowers were at the centre of the flags.

You could even choose a bold floral print and embellish the flowers in some way, perhaps with embroidery or with shiny things. Nobody will be judged for using a glue gun!

You have until midnight BST on the 31st May to make your flower themed bunting. When you’ve made your bunting, either post a picture on Instagram using the hashtag #yearofbunting, or on the Tea and Sewing Machine Facebook page.

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

There will a prize!

By the way, if you’re doing the previous challenge, that’s still going on. The last day is Sunday 12th May, so the two challenges are overlapping this month.

Please join in, it will be fun!

Free Crocheted Bunting Pattern

April 25, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Free Crocheted Bunting Pattern

Making crocheted bunting is a fun way to use up odds and ends of yarn from other projects.

This pattern shows how to make traditional bunting triangles, worked in the round. The triangles are quite small, although obviously that depends on the weight of the yarn and the size of hook you use!

If you want to make your flags bigger, you could go round again a couple of times. There are instructions for doing this in the pattern.

I used 2 colours to make mine because I wanted the centres to look like flowers and to stand out from the rest of the flag. You might choose to use more colours, or just one.

year of bunting free crocheted bunting pattern

5 flags from this pattern makes a little bit of bunting, perfect for hanging off a bookcase, a smallish dresser or a fireplace. If you want to make more, for some weird reason odd numbers look best!

Hopefully you know already that I’ve declared 2019 to be the Year of Bunting! You can read about why here, and if you’d like to join in, there’s a list of challenges here.

If you’re planning to join in with Challenge 3, feel free to use this pattern!

Instructions

Please be aware that as I am English, I have used English crocheting terms.

In colour A (white):

4 ch, then join with ss.
3 ch, *then yarn over hook, insert hook into ring, yarn over hook. Pull back through ring, yarn over hook again and pull through 2 of the loops on the hook.* Repeat the starred section once, then yarn over hook and pull through remaining stitches. This makes the first cluster.

Clusters 2-5:
*3 ch, then yarn over hook, then insert hook into ring. Yarn over hook again, then pull through the ring. Yarn over hook once more and pull through 2 loops on the hook.* Do this 3 times, then yarn over the hook and pull through the rest of the loops.

Repeat this 4 more times, then 3 ch. Join to the first cluster with ss. Fasten off.

In colour B (blue):

Round 1
Work dc into a ch sp to join. 2 ch (counts as 1 tr), then 2 tr onto the same space.
3 tr into next ch sp, 1 ch, then 3 tr into same ch sp.

*3 tr into next ch sp. Into the next ch sp, 3 tr, 1 ch, 3tr.* Repeat starred section once. Join with ss.

Round 2
*3 tr into next ch sp. Into next ch sp, 3 tr, 1 ch, 3 tr. 3 tr into next ch sp.* Repeat twice. Join with ss.

To add extra rounds for bigger flags, work 3 tr, 1 ch, 3 tr into the points of the triangle, and 3 tr into the other ch sp.

When you’ve finished your flags, thread some ribbon through the chain spaces along one edge of each triangle.

Year of Bunting July Challenge: Bunting For a Card or a Cake