This post will be about a pennant banner I created as a gift. I was debating on what to give my friend for Christmas until their spouse told me the following story.
Every year he would help his grand mother put up the Christmas tree and other decorations. It was a special time for the two of them. One of his favorite items was a string of pennants that spelled out HAPPY NEW YEAR. Each pennant consisted of a single letter. The decoration was really old and hand made. Upon his grandmother passing the pennant landed in the hands of his aunt who also cherished the decoration. I decided to create my own version so that my friend can continue the tradition in his own home.
I designed each pennant in EmbroideryWare using a new huge satin letter set I just created and surrounded the letters with two triangular outlines. The triangular outlines will be used later as a cutting guide. Each pennant measures about 6 X 8 inches.
They were all stitched in a 200 x 260 millimeter hoop on long piece of wool felt. The felt was rotated and re-hooped for each letter. This large piece of fabric was then roughly cut apart as shown below. If I were to do it again I would divide the fabric into smaller pieces before embroidering.
I placed each of the individual letter over a second piece of felt on my cutting mat. Using a ruler spaced one quarter of an inch from the outer most triangular outline I cut the pennants out. I then sewed straps to the front side of the back piece of felt for the string to go through. Then I joined the two pieces of felt together using Dritz Stitch Witchery. The following was the result.
Hemp was used for the rope to string them together but any rope can be used.
I am thinking it would be fun to create a whole alphabet of banners in different colors so that you can create any saying you want. This would be fun for other holidays, special occasions and birthdays.
Create one of your own and start your own tradition.
