I made this incredibly simple banner for my fourth of July party, and have since used it a couple times to give the backyard a pop of color. And like I said, it’s super easy. So easy that I didn’t even bother taking pictures of the steps in making it, because you’ll get it without the visuals.
Materials required:
- A long strip of bias tape, ribbon or rickrack; I used about 20 yards of undyed bias tape.
- A healthy stash of scraps; I used about two plastic-bags-full of red, white and blue scraps. I used mostly woven cotton, with a few synthetic knits and it worked fine, but I recommend sticking to woven fabrics.
- Either a ruled cutting board and rotary cutter or a piece of cardboard or cardstock, fabric scissors and a pen.
- A sewing machine and one spool of thread to match your bias tape.
- An iron.
- A shoebox or something similar for storing the banner; see step 7.
Steps:
- Iron your scraps.
- If you don’t have a rotary cutter and cutting board: Cut your piece of cardboard to 2×10″. Use that as a guide to mark 2×10″ rectangles on your fabric.
If you do have a rotary cutter and cutting board: Just use the lines on the cutting board to cut 10″ strips, then cut that strip every 2″.
Keep cutting rectangles until you get sick of it. I made about 180, but I wanted a really long banner. It’s not necessary to use anti-fray glue or seam the edges unless you really want to; a little fraying looks good on this banner, in my opinion. - Once you have cut a satisfactory amount of rectangles, organize them in the order you want them to be once sewn. I did a red, blue, white pattern, attempting to keep printed rectangles evenly spaced between solid colors. This doesn’t matter too much, as this is more of a “big picture” project; no one’s going to be looking too close.
- Take your bias tape, and fold about 4″ of the end toward the center to make a loop, so the banner will be easy to hang. Start sewing about 3″ from the fold, but do not cut thread once you’ve secured the loop.
- Begin attaching the rectangles to the tape, as shown in the pictures. Keep them at an interval of about 2″, sewing all the way down the tape. As you start to get a pile of sewn rectangles behind your machine, stretch the banner out to avoid wrinkling the rectangles. Do this every 5 feet or so.
- Once you’ve attached all your rectangles to your bias tape or ribbon, cut the tape about 8″ from the edge of the last rectangle. Fold back 4″ and sew to make a loop. Backstitch a couple times to make it secure, and cut your thread.
- To store: Wrap entire banner, without twisting the tape or ribbon, around the shoebox. This keeps the rectangles from wrinkling and makes it easy to hang in the future.
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions; or if you make one of your own! I’d love to see it.
