Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Sustainable bunting - DIY

As many of you may have read in the Fordhall Grazer (our newsletter) we are looking for people to help us to make decorations to celebrate the opening of our new visitor centre.
We want to make lots of bunting to use for the opening and that we can use for future events, and we would like your help. We would like people to make and then send us the triangles that make up the bunting then the bunting can be proudly displayed as a real community decoration. Bunting is very simple to make and many of you may know how to already, however if not Viv one of our wonderful volunteers has put together a simple guide below.
You can make one triangle for our bunting or as many as you like, the only thing we ask is that they are the size dictated in the guide below we would also like the bunting to compliment the colours around the farm, so earthy/autumnal colours – reds, oranges, yellows, browns and greens would be ideal, any pattern is fine too! Please send them to and we will put them all together – Thank you!

You will need.

* Scissors.
* A4 paper.
* Pen.
* Ruler.
* Material.
* Needle & thread.
* Pins or sellotape (to attach pattern).

Instructions





• Take a piece of A4 paper to make your pattern. Fold your paper in half (lengthways) open up the paper and then mark where the centre of the short side is -- this is going to be the top point of the triangle. Then use a ruler to draw a line from the top centre point to the bottom left corner. Do the same again to the bottom right corner; this should give you a long isosceles triangle.


 
 




  •  Cut out your triangle – this is going to be the pattern for the flag.
 
 
 
 




  • Temporarily attach the pattern to your chosen pieces of material and cut out two triangles.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
  • Put one triangle on top of the other,  with the patterned sides facing each other and sew the long edges together, making sure that you sew 1cm in from the edge to create a neat seam. Do not sew the top of the triangle together; we need this left open to attach to our tape.







  • Turn the piece of bunting inside out (so that the pattern is now on the outside).








  • Then iron your flag or flags and send them to us!





If you want to embroider your name etc...on your bunting then that would be a lovely extra however this is in no way essential.  We look forward to seeing the finished product!

Hannah

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

a really easy and sustainable way to make bunting is using broken old colourful umbrellas and cut up into triangles. waterproof and recycled!