I’d like to thank the AWESOME at Red Ted Art for letting us use her amazing post on How to … make No-Sew Bunting! I can’t wait to give this ago!
Sewing is something that I really can’t do – I don’t know why, but my thread always breaks or gets all muddled up and my lines are never straight. Bah! Recently, I visited a friend’s house and she had sown a beautiful bunting for her son’s Birthday. It reminded me that my sewing skills indeed are rubbish, but that I really wanted to have a go too. So I sat and I sat and I sat. And I thought and I thought and I thought. My twitter friends came to my rescue when I asked about iron on ribbon: Wonder Web. What wonder wonder web is! Basically you place it between the 2 pieces if fabric you want to sew and iron it on. (It melts). Would this work for bunting? I saw. I tried. I succeeded. Now you can too!
What you need: My bunting is 3.5m in length. For this you will need: Fabric (approx 6″x24″ x 4 patterns or less patterns/ more fabric), Wonder Web (25mm, 8.5meters), Cotton Bias Binding (25mm, 8.5meters), Scissors, Card (6″x6″), Iron & Ironing board, 2 Tea towels – at the end some pins – but you can manage with safety pins/ paperclips, pen or even cloth pegs, pins do work though!
Step 1: Draw a template on the card, I made the bottom of the triangle 6″, drew a 6″ line from the centre and joined the top of the line with the botton part of the triangle. Makes nice dimensions, but ANY triangle will do.
Step 2: With pencil, draw the triangle shape on cloth – mind how the pattern goes it may look better in a certain direction. If you top and tail triangles, you save cloth, as well have less to cut. I cut 3 of each of the 4 patterns: 12 triangles. Am sure 9 would like nice too!
Step 3: place 2 piece
s of cloth together, cut a strip of Bias Binding the along one long side, cut a piece of Wonder web and place on Bias Binding. “Wrap” binding round the edge.
Step 4: place on tea towel, put another towel on top. Hold in place – it is v easy that the bias binding moves, so be careful. Place HOT iron on top. Check nothing has moved and repeat with hot iron – I leave it a little while so that the wonder web really melts. Don’t burn it though!!!
Step 5: tidy “tips”. And repeat Step 4 on other side of triangle. I make the bias binding longer on this side so it sticks out. This way you can trim to a nice crisp edge. Make up all 12 triangles.
Remember to place a tea towel underneath and on top – else you will get a sticky iron and ironing board!
Step 6: Trim all edges
Step 7: Lay “hanging” Bias Binding (I used 3.5meters) on floor and space out flags evenly – you can do this with a ruler or just roughly by eye. Mark middle of the bias as to where they need to go with a pencil or pin them.
Step 8: This was the trickiest bit of all, as it is such a long piece. And then iron section for section. Keep checking everything is nicely aligned. I press briefly with iron so that it holds, check it and if ok, then put the iron for longer, so that it really sets. I then went over the whole lot again making sure all the wonder web has melted and secured tightly.
It took me two leisurely evenings of watching TV to make TWO SETS!
Please DO email me if you have any problems/ questions!
Check out all Red Ted Art’s blog as she has numerous How to … make posts
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We came up with an even simpler solution for DD’s party 2 weeks ago 🙂 painted lots of a3 paper in funny patterns with the bday girl-to-be, then cut into triangles when dry. staple to ribbon. Hang. Enjoy!