Tea drinking...an essential part of this tutorial...

Sorting through all the craft cupboards and drawers (again!),

I found a box full of pretty lace.

All vintage, some antique, nearly all of them cotton.

Seems a shame for them to be boxed away and so I wanted to make something that used up even the tiniest of pieces.

Decided on bunting - this would look particularly good at a vintage wedding... Buy it from my shop at www.anniefloribunda.com or make your own -

Here's how I did it...

First, I sorted through the bits and pieces to see what I had and "played" around with them. I then decided to cut some cotton triangles and arrange the lace on each pennant (triangle). I decided to leave the edges rough so that they would fray naturally over time and give a nice vintage feel to them.

I used Gloria to stitch the lace randomly onto a cream cotton triangle.

I ended up with a selection of lace decorated pennants but

some of the lace was a lot whiter than the rest.

I decided it was time for a tea break (an essential part of this bunting making process, as you will see later on).

I enjoyed a cuppa and large slice of lemon cake

- (please note: the lemon cake is not an essential part of the process,

but was very nice!).

I decided to use some pretty floral bias binding I'd bought along the top to hold the pennants in place - but you could use any fabric cut on the bias, ric rac or ribbon.

Using the tea bag I'd made my cuppa with earlier,

(see, I told you it was essential :-)

I added it and about a pint of boiling water to a bowl and left it to steep.

I then added each pennant with a spoon and stirred

to ensure that they were all coated evenly.

After about 15 minutes the desired tea stain effect was achieved.

Each pennant was rinsed in cold water and hung on the line to dry. As you can see from the photo, there are no white bits now and the tea also gives the bunting a nice vintage look.

 
I folded and pressed the bias binding I had as in the picture above

 

If you're feeling lazy and you dont want to get the ironing board out, use your hair straighteners instead - works just as well!!

 

Then i stitched buttons, flowers etc onto each pennant and lay the top of the pennant in the middle of the binding and pinned in place. I stitched straight along the binding, making sure that all pennants were caught at the top.

 

This is what you should have as a finished result.

 

 This tutorial was interupted by the arrival of Mr & Mrs Sweeny, an intake of my delicious chilli with alcohol, folowed by a chat about IPhones, secret words and world politics :-)