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!
