Valentine's Flag Bunting Tutorial

This tutorial was a guest post that I did over at At Home With K a few weeks ago as part of Kindra's 2nd Annual Be Mine Bonanza...

This year I have a Valentine's Flag Bunting tutorial for you...

I've made similar buntings over the past few years, one for Halloween and one for Thanksgiving. I decided it was time to add a Valentine's bunting to the list, too. And since I've never shared a tutorial for how I make these, this is the perfect time :)

Materials:

• felt (I used gray for the flags and white for the hearts)
• cotton fabric (I used two different fabrics)
• 3 buttons (I used 3/4" diameter)
• embroidery floss
• ribbon or twill tape - about 2.25 yds (I used 1/2" wide white twill tape)
• disappearing or water soluble marking pen or pencil
• pinking shears
• scissors or rotary cutter
• ruler
• coordinating thread
• needle

Instructions:

Step 1: Click HERE to print out the template for the flags. Print at 100%, no scaling. Cut out around the larger triangle.

Step 2: Trace your template from Step 1 onto your felt. Do this five times. Cut out your five felt triangles.

Step 3: Take your template from Step 1 and cut it down to the smaller triangle size. Trace this triangle onto your cotton fabric. You will need five of these triangles. I used three solid red triangles and two red and white striped triangles. You could make all five the same or all five different, too. Cut out these five triangles using pinking shears on the angled sides.

Step 4: Take one of your felt triangles and set it in front of you with the point toward you. Lay one of your cotton triangles on top of it, lining up the top edges of the triangles and centering the cotton triangle horizontally on the felt triangle.

Sew from the top edge to the point of the cotton triangle, about 1/8 - 1/4" from the edge.

Leaving the needle down, lift your presser foot and turn the triangles so that you can sew up the other side of the cotton triangle from the point to the top edge. Lower your presser foot and sew.

Repeat this step for all five felt/cotton triangle combinations.

Step 5: Now for some decorating. I drew a heart on a piece of paper and cut it out, but you could also do a Google Images search for a heart outline to use. My hearts are about 2.5" square. Trace your heart template onto your felt. You will need three hearts if you are adding them to every other flag like I did. Cut out each felt heart. Choose which flags you are adding your hearts to. Place your hearts about 1.5" down from the top of each flag and pin in place. Carefully sew around the edge of each heart, about 1/8" from the edge.

Step 6: More embellishment... Use embroidery floss to attach a button to the center of each heart. I just knotted mine on the front to hold them in place.

Step 7: Take your ribbon or twill tape and leave an 18" tail at one end. Line up the top edge of your ribbon over the top edge of your first flag. Pin in place.

Leave a 3" gap and pin your second flag in place. Repeat this for each flag, leaving a 3" gap between them and an 18" tail of ribbon at either end of the bunting.

Sew over each flag along the top edge of your ribbon, remembering to backstitch at the beginning and end of each flag. If you are using a wide ribbon, you may want to add a row of stitching along the bottom edge of the ribbon as well.

You're finished! Now hang it up :)

Don't sew? Use glue to hold all of your layers together :)

I'm linking up...