Year Of Bunting Challenge 3: Knitted or Crocheted Bunting

April 18, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Year Of Bunting Challenge 3: Knitted or Crocheted Bunting

Welcome to the Year of Bunting Challenge 3!

Challenge 2 was to make some bunting embroidery and several people took part.

Hazel made a cross stitched book mark.

Julie made a needle case (she has a craft blog too which you can find here).

Christine made an embroidery hoop hanging with bunting and tassels.

Challenge 3

Challenge 3 is to make some knitted or crocheted bunting.

Since we’re already half way through April, this challenge will run until midnight BST on Sunday 12th May.

If you’d like to enter, all you have to do is knit or crochet some bunting, then either post it on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #yearofbunting, or post it on the Tea and a Sewing Machine Facebook page.

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

Tips and Ideas

If you’re stuck for ideas, here are some that might help.

You could use up odds and ends to make stripy bunting.

If there’s a stitch you particularly enjoy, you could make triangles featuring that stitch.

For crocheted bunting, you could make the flags either by crocheting rows, like knitting, or by crocheting in the round.

Crocheting in the round is a good way to make bunting if you want to start with a flower in the middle.

Another option is to make the flags, then add your design. You could embroider it or add knitted or crocheted details.

Some Tips

If you find that the edges of your knitted triangles are not as neat as you would like, try not knitting the first stitch of each row. Instead, slip the stitch onto the the needle, then knit the next one. If you are decreasing stitches, slip the first stitch onto the needle, then knit the 2nd and 3rd stitches together.

To crochet triangles in the round, start off with something that can be divided by 3.

Work out where the corners would need to be. Into those gaps, you’ll need to crocheted 2 groups of stitches. Into the other spaces, crochet one group.

For my crocheted bunting, I made a flower with 6 petals. Into the first space between the petals, I crocheted 1 group of trebles, then into the next space I crocheted 2 groups of trebles.

When that round was completed, I had 3 lots of 2 groups, and 3 lots of one. The groups of 2 made the points of the triangles.

So when I went round again, I crocheted 2 groups into the spaces at the points, and one group into each of the other spaces.

If you’d like some more inspiration, then please take a look at my bunting board on Pinterest.

I’m hoping you’ll join in!

Year of Bunting Challenges

April 11, 2019 · 2 Comments

Year of Bunting Challenges

So far we’ve had 2 Year of Bunting Challenges.

The first was to decorate some furniture with bunting, and the second was to make some embroidered bunting.

You can see what the winners made for the first challenge here. I haven’t written up the second one yet, but there was a lovely cross stitch design on a bookmark, an embroidered needle case and an embroidery hoop thing with tassels and bunting.

It’s lovely that people are joining in, but I know that having a timescale on something, although it is necessary for a challenge, isn’t always an aid to creativity! Some of us need plenty of thinking time as well as plenty of making time.

So here is a list of the rest of the Year of Bunting challenges. If you would like to download a PDF version, you can do so here.

There’ll be one a month until November. I haven’t decided whether to do one in December, but I might leave it as everybody’s so busy before Christmas. It will also give us a bit of extra time if we need it for any of the other challenges.

I’ll still introduce each challenge. They will start at the beginning of the month and run until the end of that month.

Having the list in advance means that you can decide which ones you’d like to do! If you want to start them early, that’s fine!

The winners will be notified by email and I’ll let everybody else know too. To make things a bit easier at my end of things, I’m going to assume that you’re happy for me to use your photograph and your first name if you win. If you don’t want me to do this, please let me know! You can email me at teaandasewingmachine@gmail.com.

I’m hoping lots of you will join in! If you have any questions, please ask me :).

Bunting Tote Bag Tutorial

March 29, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Bunting Tote Bag Tutorial

This is a post I actually wrote 3 years ago when a new law was introduced in the UK that required shops to charge for plastic bags.

I’m recycling it because it fits in nicely with the Year of Bunting!

For making the bunting tote bag, I’d recommend using a strong fabric, like a heavy weight cotton. The canvas I used was left over from some curtains I’d made, and the appliqued bunting from scraps of cotton from dresses and other things.

If you don’t have any canvas, you might have an old tablecloth or some curtains you could use.

If you’d rather use a lighter cotton or polycotton fabric, you could line it to make it stronger, or just decide to use it to carry bread and flowers instead of potatoes and gallons of milk!

The bunting tote bag has boxed corners, which means that depending on what you put it, it should stand up.

How to Make a Bunting Tote Bag

1. Cut a rectangle of fabric. Good dimensions would be the same width as a Lidl bag (or other bag for life) and twice as long, plus seam allowance. Mine measured at 48 cm x 120 cm.

If you are using fabric with a directional print, cut 2 rectangles and sew them together.

2. If you do not have an overwhelming urge to cover everything in bunting, you can skip this bit and go straight to Step 3.

To make the bunting, cut a rectangle 9 cm x 10 cm. Fold in half lengthways. Cut diagonally from the folded corner to the corner opposite. Use this triangle to cut 5 triangles. Position them onto the fabric, allowing for seams. Pin in place, then applique them to the fabric. Sew a piece on of ribbon so that it covers the tops of the triangles.

3. With the right sides together, pin the side seams then sew them up. Trim the seams. Finish the seams with zigzags, or an overcasting stitch if you don’t have an overlocker. This could be the difference between getting all of your shopping home and the bag breaking and veg and milk and stuff ending up all over the road!

4. To make the boxed corners, press firmly on the fold at the bottom. Squash one of the corners flat so that the seam is aligned with the fold at the bottom. Measure up 6 cm from the corner. Pin. Sew across the corner. Cut the corner off. For more detailed instructions for making boxed corners, visit this tutorial here.

5. Hem the top of the bag.

6. To make the handles, cut 2 pieces of fabric 40 cm long and 10 cm wide. Fold in half lengthways. Then fold the outer edges into the middle. Fold in half and pin. Sew. I like to sew along both edges so that it looks symmetrical. Repeat for the other handle.

7. Sew the handles to the bag. You will need to sew them on in a few places to ensure that they stay on when the bag is full of shopping.

Now all you have to do is remember to take it with you when you go shopping!

Tips

Heavy weight fabric will be strongest, but other fabrics can be made stronger by adding a lining.

Ripstop will make good bags that are both strong and waterproof.

You could make bunting tote bags in different sizes.

Decorate them as you like to jazz them up.

If you will be carrying your shopping a long way, add some wadding to the handles and quilt them to make them more comfortable.

They make great last minute Christmas gifts and are a good way of using up fabric that you don’t know what to do with!

Ideas For Bunting Embroidery

March 20, 2019 · 1 Comment

Challenge 2 for 2019 The Year of Bunting is to sew some bunting embroidery. The post that explains the challenge is here.

If you or the people you live with don’t want bunting hanging up everywhere, or if you already have a lot hanging up, this is a nice, easy alternative.

It doesn’t take very long (once you’ve decided what to do of course!), and you can either make it part of a new project or add it to something you have already.

If you want to join in with the challenge but you don’t know where to start, here are some ideas for embroidery, some things you could embroider and some tips to make it all easier.

Ideas For Embroidery

It’s probably easiest to sew the outline of the bunting then embroider the flags as you like.

With this one I made patterns.

For this one I sewed sheep from French knots.

In this design, the flags are appliqued, then the flowers embroidered between the flags using woven wheels and lazy daisies.

Other things you could embroider onto the bunting flags include:
Trees
Hearts
Flowers
Letters
Or you could just pick your favourite embroidery stitches and use those to decorate the flags!

Ideas For Things to Embroider

The nice thing about this is that you don’t have to make anything new if you don’t want to. It’s easy enough to add some embroidery to something that you have already.

You could even buy plain white tea towels and embroider them yourself!

Here’s a list of things you might have already, or could buy ready made, that you could add embroidery to:
Towels
Face clothes
Tea towels
Jeans
Shirts
The hem of a dress
Canvas shoes
A canvas bag
A shower curtain
A babygro
Baby bibs
Hat, scarf and gloves
A baseball cap
Plain napkins
Pillowcases

If you wanted to make something for your bunting embroidery, here are some ideas:
A drawstring bag
A purse or pouch
A fabric basket
A peg bag
Some trousers or a skirt that you’ve made yourself
A needle case

Another option is to display your finished bunting embroidery in an embroidery hoop.

Tips For Making Things Easier

You might find it easier to draw your bunting on a piece of paper first, then transfer it to the fabric.

If drawing isn’t your thing, you could make one triangle as a template, then use that to draw the others.

Instead of embroidering onto the item, you could instead embroider a piece of ribbon or bias binding. You can get ribbon made of pretty much anything! You might choose to sew onto the silky stuff, but ribbon made from cotton or linen would work well.

Sewing the outline of the bunting with the sewing machine might be quicker. On the other hand, it’s easier to keep some hand sewing near you so you can work on it whenever you have a few minutes!

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!

Year Of Bunting Challenge 3: Knitted or Crocheted Bunting

Challenge 3

Tips and Ideas

Some Tips

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Year of Bunting Challenges

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Bunting Tote Bag Tutorial

How to Make a Bunting Tote Bag

Tips

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Ideas For Embroidery

Ideas For Things to Embroider

Tips For Making Things Easier

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Easy Fleece Bunting Cushions

How To Sew a Bunting Cushion

You Will Need

Cutting Out

Sewing the Cushion

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