Sunday 10 May 2015

Bunting Stash Busting!



As many of you already know I am tying the knot in August so a lot of my time this year has been devoted to preparing for that. I now have my dress organised, catering booked, music sorted and a whole host of other bits are pulling together nicely but I have not spent much time on the pretty things which will give the event a bit of 'ahhhh' factor.

So I have started work on some fabric bunting using scraps of fabric from my stash and my trusty pinking shears!

My theme is hessian and lace - but with a colour injection! I am having bright, British Summertime flowers for my bouquet and the table decorations, and will carry the floral brights through to my little flower girl dresses (four floral print dresses of different colours), the cake, and the decor so that there is a colourful and happy theme to the day, without it all getting overly coordinated as that is just not me!

These floral triangles will be mixed up with some in rough hessian and others in lacy fabrics to create  my bunting.

When I worked out what size to make the triangles I did a bit of cutting to see what size of triangle I liked best and what would make the best of the fat quarters and scraps I had hanging around. I ended up with this template and I thought you may find it useful for creating that perfectly sized bunting triangle! Click on the image to get a free download of the template and print it out to use. 


There is a little twist to this tale. I'm on a shoestring budget for my event and will use every scrap of fabric I can find or recycle. Now I know there are incredibly worthy charities out there, my wedding not being one of them! So if you can put your fabric to better use for them I would much rather you did just that, but if you happen to have any fabric lying around of a floral or lacy variety and you would like to see it appear in my wedding bunting, not having any other use for it, I would love for you to send me an email or comment and I will let you have a postal address to send them to so that I can make them into flags! If you want to cut them to size to save weight and postage that is fine. I appreciate anything you can send.

I'm thinking that once it is done and I have used it I could pop a post on showing how it looks. That way if anyone has an event they could use it at down the line I could lend it out perhaps, paying it forward that way?! Just an idea really but there is something lovely about the idea of this happy bunting made from sad little fabric scraps which would never have had a chance at life otherwise!

One length of bunting I have been able to complete was made from crochet squares which I made ages ago, intending to cover a chair with them. I got rid of the chair rather than covering it so I had a rhino bucket full of squares! 


To bring the colourful squares into my theme I crocheted them into a chain of jute twine which I had picked up at yarndale a few years back. It worked a treat I think and here is the result! 


This is a small section of it strung out. I love the way the light shines through the colours! I ended up with just over 17 metres of bunting which sounds like a lot but won't amount to much in the face of the walls I need to cover! So time to destash the fabric!