burlap (I used a wide burlap ribbon)
natural fiber twine/string (I used burlap)
printed fabric
matching thread
sewing needles (one with an eye large enough for the fiber twine, one for the thread and
one long tapestry needle)
small piece of chalk (or pen)
scissors
straight pins
buttons (enough to place one every 10" of the final length of the project)
To make:
First lets start with the measurements! Measure the doorway or whatever you are going to hang your bunting along (a fireplace mantle would be lovely but we don't have one over our pellet burning stove). The doorway I used was 62"(measure in inches so that the math is easier). Once you have this number we are going to do the following calculations and cut to size:
- The natural fiber twine/string: length of the area + 4"
- Mine was 62" + 4" = 66"
- Cut two of these lengths
- Burlap: length of area x 2
- Mine was 62" x 2 = 124"
- Fabric: length of area x 3
- Mine was 62" x 3 = 186"
- cut to the same width of the burlap
- for me it was 7" wide
- Make sure to mark the fabric using the chalk (or pen)
Now that you have all of the materials measured and cut, lets start to assemble. Take your natural fiber twine and thread it through a wide-eye sewing needle. At one end, measure 2" from the end and form a loop with the 2" piece. This will serve to help with hanging the finished product, as well as keep the twine from slipping through the burlap.
Here is a picture of the wide burlap ribbon I used (I found it at Michael's)
Now, sew long stitches (it doesn't have to be perfect) along the length of the burlap, about 1" from the edge. When you get to the end, with the last 2" of thread, tie another loop like the one you tied before. At this point, your burlap will be nice and gathered.
Hang it up to make sure it fits. If you did the measurements correctly, the twine should be pulled tightly from end-to-end of the doorway/ space.
Super cute already, right? I forgot to mention, the way I designed this project was so that it is in two pieces and the holiday ruffled fabric will be interchangeable so that you can just take off Valentine's Day, make one for St. Patty's Day (and other holidays) and attach it to the burlap piece… cleaver, I know. In all seriousness, I hate to make the same projects over and over again so I wanted to make sure that this was a multi-use DIY.
Ok so now that you took all of 5 minutes to do that (I hope it didn't take longer), lets move on to the fabric ruffle.
My original piece of fabric was only two yards long so I had to cut multiple 7" strips until I had enough length per my calculations (it ended up being just under 3 pieces). If this is the same for you, just seam the strips together (1/4" seam allowance) so that you have one really long piece of fabric that is the length that you calculated.
In the picture below, I showed you my chalk markings, this makes life so easy when you have to cut really long strips of fabric. So anyway, take the strip and fold right sides of the fabric together (the wrong side of the fabric will be facing outward) and pin together. You are going to sew 1/4" from the edge, either by hand or on your sewing machine, the entire length of the fabric.
Now comes the most annoying part of the whole project - turning the fabric right side out! Since my strip was like a gazmillion inches long, this got really old, really quick. So once you feed the fabric back through itself, get your iron and press both the fold and seam nice and flat. Some people skip steps like this but, I have to tell you, it makes a big difference.
Once everything is pressed nicely, you are going to top stitch (if you don't sew, its just a fancy word for sewing on top of the right side of the fabric) the entire length of the fabric, 1/4" from the seam side. Once you sew all the way down, do the same thing again, 1/4" away from the stitching you just made. You will see what I mean in the picture below. You are making a pocket for my "I'm too lazy to make real ruffle stitches" method lol.
At this point, we are going to make this crazy long strip turn into the pretty ruffle in the lower corner of the picture above. Take that second piece of twine but this time, thread it through the long tapestry needle. The reason that you want the long tapestry needle is because it becomes a pain to try and feed the twine through all of this fabric with a short needle. Once it's threaded, tie at knot again, 2" from the end like you did before. Now thread the twine in-between those two rows of stitches you made (its a little pocket for the string). Be careful not to loose the end of the twine when making the ruffles. Since the fabric is 3 times longer than the string, things are going to get a little tight so be careful. Once you get to the end of the fabric, tie that loop again, with the last 2" of twine. Take some of that matching thread and quickly tack the end of the twine to the end of the fabric. This is so that the ends of the twine will never slip through the ruffle (even when you are storing it after the holiday).
For the last part… we are going to "sew buttons" (literally) and attach the two pieces together. Take your needle and thread and a button and sew to the very beginning of the burlap ruffle, right over the stitching you made with the twine. Then, sew one button every 10" from the previous button, for the length of the burlap - make certain to sew a button at the end of the burlap on the other side (you must have one button at each end)
Now, take pieces of twine and knot small loops (big enough to fit over the buttons but not so big it will fall off). Take your needle and thread and sew these loops to the fabric right where the twine is fed through, making sure to match them up with the buttons you sewed on the burlap. Once all of the loops are sewn on, loop them onto the buttons and poof - the two pieces are attached.
Happy DIY'ing
Danielle
No comments:
Post a Comment