Neon Hand Painted Bunting
How Much Bunting?
Calculate the length:
So how much to make? Hmmm…..it depends upon the size of the marquee, and where/how we want to drape, as well as the size of triangles and gap in between. I’m thinking there should be some kind of degree in buntology? Oxford, Cambridge? Ok maybe not. I’m not sure I’ve ever applied this much thought to bunting before….just made it until I got bored, and put it up wherever it fitted.
At first I thought I would do round the outside, plus an asymmetric criss cross design into the middle and back on both sides…..A quick doodle, and calculation….102m of bunting would be needed….Holy Cow! Even I dont love bunting that much. So my revised plan is just to do criss cross in the middle. It will give the impact, without bunting overload…
This works out at a slightly more manageable 50m of bunting. This is what 50m of bunting looks like!
How many triangles?
You will also need to calculate the number of triangles needed. Mine will be 15cm wide, and 20cm deep. I will leave a 10cm gap between each triangle. For each 10m of bunting, I will need 28.6 triangles (143 for my full 50m). Widening the gap between triangles will obviously reduce the number you need, but too wide, and the bunting looks a bit stingy.
Materials Needed:
- Canvas
- Back ground paint colour – I used old house paint
- Decorative paint colours
- Chalkmarker
- Bias tape
- Metal rings
- Sewing machine
Method:
Cut the canvas to the size you need, and paint it in your background colour on both sides. Left over house paint is perfect for this. I used two different colours of grey. Once dry, cut into strips as deep as your triangles.
Cut out the triangles.
The add some colour. To make the neon colours pop, I added chalk marker on some of the darker grey triangles. Rough and ready is the order of the day, as we are making so many. Feel free to take a bit more care on your designs. We did a mixture of shapes, sizes and neon colours.
Once all the triangles are painted on both sides, and dry, lay out in random patterns and colours ready for sewing.
Fold the bias tape over the top of the triangles as you feed them through the sewing machine. Make sure you allow enough extra tape on each end to tie into place. To make it easier to put up and take down, I sewed metal hoops (like the inner bit of a ring divider file) onto the strings.
Decorating with bunting
And there you go, ready to decorate. 
In situ in the marquee:
Comments 5
Brilliant bunting, Di! It’s amazing what a bit of bunting (or in your case, a lot!) can do to brighten up a place; it’s like a smile made from fabric. This week I’ve been getting out bits and pieces to make Xmas bunting 🙂 Love your idea of adding the metal ring (adding them to my list!) x
Author
Thanks Anne – Im a bit of a bunting freak. The rings are great, as you can easily hook and unhook, without tying on. Look forward to seeing your Christmas Bunting.
Di xx
This bunting looks really nice. Could you tell me how you workd out how much bunting you need please. It would be lots of help.
Hi Mary,
If you assume that your strips of bunting are like the long side of a right angled triangle (the hypotenuse), you can calculate the length using pythagorus theorem (sq of the hypotenuse equal to sq of the other 2 sides).
If you are wanting the bunting to be taught, this would give you your answer, I allow about 10% drop or swag but it will depend where you are hanging and how taught you want to have your bunting.
Hope this helps.
Thank you.