Flag Banner

It occurred to me in a bit of a panic that my friends’ beautiful girl Charlotte was turning 5. I don’t pretend to try and keep up with all my friends’ childrens birthdays, and I figured after the first birthday they usually had so many presents they didn’t need any more from me. However, with Charlotte turning 5, I thought perhaps I could manage some milestones.

The father Richard is a builder and has made their house absolutely gorgeous. As part of the work he was doing when I last visited they were working to have a rumpus room finished so they could have a kiddies party ( – lucky girls to have a play room. It’s also where Richard will be relegated to play his drums.) Anyway, I thought I’d make a wee banner to celebrate and also with the dual aim of annoying Richard if he thinks for a second it’s his room and not the girls’ room. So I opted for a banner spelling out “Big Girls Room” (is it wrong to make presents to annoy your friends? Perhaps I have the giving spirit a bit skewed?).

Anyway, I had some scraps fabric and left over kiddie patterns from a quilt I’d made for my niece and so I thought I could use those up. I opted for the front to be pretty with flowers, and the back to be a bit less girlie

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised, I think it turned out looking ok.
It’s pretty intuitive but just in case anyone appreciates a step by step:

1.) plan what you want to have. I am terrible at planning as I’m too impatient and always skip this step. Despite projects always having flaws due to failures to plan (I call them made-with-love-idiosyncrasies), I still just charge into projects. Key point though – make sure you have enough fabric for the each flag.

2.) I cut out triangles at a size of 7inches along the base and 9inches in height. They seemed a decent size – not too big, not too small. They are large enough to put lettering on if that’s your thing, but don’t require it. They show off the fabric pattern too. (When cutting them out you can cut a strip 9 inches high and then do the triangles side to side. So, the right side of one cut down like a “V” becomes the left side of one pointing upwards “^”.)

3.) I then did the lettering. In hindsight the letters could have been a bit bigger. I used a piece of black felt and some fusible bonding. Note if you haven’t used this before, remember to write your lettering onto the fusible bond back-to-front so when you finally turn the piece round to fuse it onto the finished fabric it faces the right way. You could also applique the letters if you like that look or have the time. Given this was panic job, I didn’t bother.

4.) With right sides facing and a 1/4 inch seam, I stitched the sides together down the sloping sides, just turning the fabric with your needle down in the fabric when you get to the tip of the flag. Do this for all the flags. I trimmed the seam on the tip so it wasn’t too bulky when turned. The tops were left open to allow the flags to be turned right sides facing out.

(At this point I realised I hadn’t made enough to allow a gap-flag in between the words. I also managed to get some of the same backing fabrics together when I wanted them to be dispersed randomly – not the end of the world but that kind of thing would irritate me if it was hanging in my room. I also suspect you need to be careful if you’re planning words on both sides to make sure the words read correctly in both directions. In short – this is where your planning or no-planning approach comes to the fore.)

5.) I choose a thick bias binding I had lying around as the joining line. I am not good with bias binding as I find I don’t have the patience to do it perfectly and whilst the concept seems simple and easy it never quite seems that easy in practice. In the end it may not have been the most perfect sewing but I figure kids don’t really care about that. I sewed each flag to the ‘ inside back’ of the binding and then folded it over and topstitched the ‘front outside’ of the binding to the front of the flags. This means on the back there are two lines of stitching in the bias binding which can look a touch scruffy for those perfectionists out there, but I matched the thread to the colour so it’s not very obvious. (If you’re a perfectionist or making this for a designer banner rather than a children’s’ banner then read up on sewing the bias binding so the stitching matches perfectly over each other. As I say – I’m too impatient but it can be done.)

I quite liked the result and not a bad effort for a couple of evenings work. I have posted it off.