And now... the Rest of the Story

The radio legend Paul Harvey passed away today :( He was 90 years old. I will greatly miss your 6 o'clock biographical/historical chat, Mr. Harvey. No one can do pauses like you!

In other news, we went to my husband's cousin's daughter's first birthday party today. So when I got home, I did what any mother of a 2-week-old would do... I started to make a birthday bunting for my son! Yes, I have fifty weeks until he turns one. So?

There's lots of blog entries out there dedicated to creating birthday buntings; I liked this one, although I'm not exactly following it. I did use it as a jumping off point, though.

I liked that she sewed the fronts and backs with right sides together and then turned them right side out so that the seams are on the inside. Many of the buntings out there are made with a single piece of fabric with the edges trimmed with pinking shears. That look is nice too, however I'd be afraid that it would fray over time. Since I plan on using this bunting forever, I just can't have frayed edges. Joel will be in his sixties, and I in my nineties, and I'll still be dragging the darn thing out...

I can't free hand letters very well, as evidenced by the baby blocks that I made. So instead of freehanding the letters, I found a font I liked in Microsoft Word, made it large enough, and then traced around the letters onto paper right off the computer screen. I then pinned the letters onto the felt and cut them out. Voila! Much better looking!

I haven't sewed the fronts to the backs yet, nor have I sewed the felt letters onto the fabric, however I decided to photograph a few of the little flags for your viewing pleasure. Notice the word that the chosen flags spell out... "DIRTY." That was a total coincidence! They even came out in that exact order! I think the sewing gods are trying to tell me something. Tear yourself away from your sewing machine for a little while so you can clean your house, damnit!




I had to use some heart fabric since my son was born on Valentine's Day!
Here's the same fabric I used for the the NY Rangers bib the other day.

Update: I finished the bunting today. Let me just say that bias tape is the devil. I thrifted a whole bag of it several weeks ago, so I figured now would be a nice time to use some of it. I planned on folding it over the top edge and sewing it down, however that wasn't working out for me. Instead, I ripped out the seam I had begun and started over with steam-a-seam. I decided to not fold the bias tape over, and instead used two strips of bias tape, one for the front and one for the back, held in place with steam-a-seam. I then stitched the top to keep the bias tapes connected together. That probably made no sense ... sorry. If you want to know more, I can try to explain it better. Right now I am sleep deprived from having a 15-day-old!

And now you know ... the rest of the story! Update: here's the bunting in use at his first birthday party :)