Arlan's Name Banner

It was baby shower central this weekend, and it began with Arielle's shower on Saturday morning.  She is pregnant with her first baby, a boy they have named Arlan (after her husband's grandpa).  Arielle is due just one week after me, so I expect our little guys are going to be great friends!

Her baby's room is painted grey, with splashes of color here and there, and lots of books.  I love making name banners for my friend's children, and so it was especially delightful to know his name ahead of time!

Here is the banner I made for baby Arlan.  I really loved picking out this fabric.  It was the first "boy" fabric I've been able to shop for (besides our son's quilt fabric).  I'm so attracted to grey and orange and green color combos.  I'm glad boy colors aren't just blue any more.

Personalized Banners

You may remember at the start of the summer I began making fabric banners to sell at the market.  If you've forgotten, you can read about it here.

Well, the first week I started selling them, a local teacher asked if I could personalize 2 banners for her classroom.  She gave me colors to match when selecting fabric, and asked if the banners could say "READ" and "IMAGINE".

Of course I jumped at the challenge.  I purchased the fabric, and then contemplated how to go about doing the lettering.  I experimented with cutting felt shapes using metal dies and my cuttlebug, and found that it works REALLY well!    Woohoo... I ended up using the diesel alphabet by sizzix, and the scallop circles from nestibilities.  Here is a photo after I stitched the letters to the circle.  (Please ignore the massive amount of leg showing.  I WAS wearing shorts - I promise.)

The next step was sewing the letters onto the fabric banner.  I finished the banners at around 9 pm and had to give them to the teacher the next morning at the market, so I wasn't able to get really good pictures, unfortunately.  But hopefully you'll get the idea!

Here they are pinned, and ready to be sewn on.  Then I sewed the triangles together using twill tape.

It was hard to fit the whole "IMAGINE" banner into one photo.  It's about 6' long.  The two blue fabrics on this one are different, even though you can't see it well in the photo.  One is a navy and cream stripe, and the other is a medium blue with small dark blue flowers.

I'm going to make one for each of my girl's rooms next!  If you are interested in having a banner made, please email me directly for pricing and more information.  nonapearl@firebin.net

Fabric Pennant Banners

I've been deathly afraid of sewing machines for DECADES.  (I think it has something to do with a few sewing projects going horribly wrong as a child.)  Anyway, about 2 years ago, stitching on paper became all the rage, so I had a sit down tutorial with my mom and started stitching on my scrapbooks and cards.  It went well.  No fingers were lost, no hair was torn out, projects got compliments... all in all success in my book.  So my mom loaned me (pretty much permanently) her sewing machine.

This bad boy is over 30 years old now.  It has a lovely old, machinery and oil smell, and it makes a delightful clackity clack when it stitches.  It even has a sweet little hum after it's been plugged in.

The only bad thing...

I've been terrified to use it again!

After paper crafting with it for about a year, I tucked it in the corner with great hopes of doing more.  Ruby came along, and it continued to sit.  We moved, and it sat.  Life  happened, and it just patiently, quietly, waited for me in the corner of my craft room.

Then, inspiration hit.  I found the most gorgeous fabric and I had to do something with it!  But it was fabric.  And I'd only ever sewn on paper.  YIKES!  However, the love of this fabric, and the flooding of ideas took over, and I just had to pull out my old, lovely, Brother sewing machine.

It took a few tries to get it threaded, and a few more to get a bobbin wound and reloaded (there's no automatic anything on this puppy).  But I made my first pennant triangle for the banner.  Then I made another, and another, and another.  I was on a roll!

And surprisingly, I was smitten too.  All those fears, and past comments that I "hated sewing" or that I was crafty with everything but fabric just seemed to melt away.  Believe it or not, I was having FUN!

So, many hours later, I have two lovely fabric pennant banners finished, and a stack of fabric ready to make an additional 10 or so.  Perhaps I'll even share a tutorial - so long as you accomplished sewers and quilters don't point out all the mistakes I'm making.  Haha!  I'm just sewing by the seat of my pants here, so I'm sure that I'm breaking a few rules.

Here are pictures of my banners.  They are double sided - 3 different fabrics on each side.  12 pennant triangles total and about 2 1/2 yards long.  I made one in blues/golds, and one in purple/pink floral and golds. They need to be steamed, but I'm so happy with how they turned out!

Close up of the "boyish" fabric:

Close up of the "girly" fabrics: