Condo Blues: How to Make a Quick and Easy Christmas Pennant Garland

Monday, November 14, 2016

How to Make a Quick and Easy Christmas Pennant Garland

I excavated my craft room and found some cute red and green fabric scraps I’ve been moving from storage place to storage place in my sewing room.  That put me in a sewing mood. I decided then and there to use those quirky fabric scraps to sew a cloth pennant Christmas garland.


Pin this tutorial for later!

This is a quick and easy Christmas decoration project that takes practically no time to make. I streamed a couple of movies on Amazon Prime Video and before I knew it the project was done!

Christmas Garland Décor Tutorial


You Will Need

Scrap paper

Ruler

Pencil 

Paper scissors

Red fabric

Green fabric

Pinking shears

Pattern weights

Ribbon or long strip of fabric

Fabric scissors

Straight pins

Thread in coordinating  or contrasting colors

Sewing machine – If you are making this banner as an indoor decoration and don’t want to sew it, you can use fabric glue to attach the pieces to one another.

Iron – I have a Sunbeam no drip iron with automatic shut off and I can’t recommend it enough!
Folding tabletop ironing board – I keep it in my craft room so I don’t have to haul the big iron board up and down the stairs.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post.

The Step by Step How to Make It

 

1. Make a paper pattern for the flags.  Use the ruler and pencil to draw a triangle that is 7 1/2 inches across and 9 1/2 inches down (or however large or small you like.) Cut the pennant pattern from the scrap paper with the paper scissors.

2.  Anchor the large paper pattern on the red fabric with  pattern weights. Use the pinking shears scissors to cut a large pennant from the red cloth.


3. Repeat Step 2 as many times as needed until you have as many large red pennants as you need for the length of your garland. I cut three red banners for my garland.

4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 using the green fabric.

5. Optional: I like the pinked fabric edges and want to keep them that way if I decide to use my cloth banners outside. I sewed a straight stitch near the pinked edged of each pennant just in the case the pinked edge needs help to keep the fabric from fraying if it twists in the wind outside.



7. Cut a length of fabric or ribbon with the fabric scissors to use as the banner hanger. I cut my fabric hanger 2 inches wide and sewed several lengths of fabric to get the size I needed since I am working with odd sizes of scrap fabric.


8. If you are using a fabric hanger, fold the fabric in half length wise and iron the fold into place.

9. Pin one green pennant to inside of the folded fabric/to the hanging ribbon, followed by a red pennant.  Keep alternating green and red pennants until all of the banners are pinned into place.



10. Use the sewing machine and coordinating thread to sew the pennants to the fabric/ribbon hanger, removing the pins as you sew so you will be less likely to break your sewing machine needle.

 I sewed an extra top stitch row at the top of my fabric for interest and more importantly to try to use up a spool of red quilting thread that keeps jamming my sewing machines and that I will never ever buy again.

12. Sew or tie a hanging loop on each side of your pennant garland if desired.

13. Use the iron and ironing board to iron any wrinkles or creases from the pennants garland.

14. Hang it up and celebrate!




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