how to make a ridiculously long silk dupioni bunting

at casa hart, it's party time all the time. at least in this corner of the house.

when i hung this bunting in november of 2008, luca exclaimed,

"it's like we have a party every day now!" 

sounds good to me.

here's a little how-to for this project.  we get a lot of comments on it (on-line and in person) and all of those nice things people say make me want to spread the love.  i think you should be able to have one too.  so let's get going.

materials used:
dupioni silk swatches
pinking shears
sewing machine and thread

okay, i started with about 30 different 8" square swatches.  i had bought these as a sample pack for $20 when looking at drapery options.  when purchasing, i knew i would use them at some point later for some crafty goodness.  now this will make a long garland.  like ridiculously long.  with the open floor plan of our upstairs, it really helps break up the room.

what i loved about choosing this fabric for a bunting - no need to back the fabric!  yay for less work!  and it has a pretty pretty sheen to it that just makes the whole room a bit more magical. 


step one:  i cut each square in half diagonally with pinking shears.  then i took one of the triangles and cut that in half diagonally, leaving me with one large triangle and two small triangles.

step two:  i spent an afternoon deciding on the order of the triangles.  i went with a one large, two small pattern.  remember i now had 30 large and 60 small pieces.  this is a lot of triangles.  so i couldn't just lay them out on a table or the floor.  just not enough room.  so i taped them to my walls and they wrapped around more than half of the entire second floor.  i played around with the colors and such until it just looked right.

step three:  i took my pieces in a great big ordered stack, sat down next to my threaded sewing machine and started sewing.  i ran each triangle through the machine and when i reached the end of the fabric just slipped the next one right next to it.  i was largely inspired by this garland on purl bee.

easy, right?  i think you should make one.  and have a party everyday somewhere in your house.