Elsie's Birthday Banner

When  my first granddaughter, Tristyn was about to turn 1 I made a Birthday Banner for her. I attached Velcro to the two pennants in the middle and made numbers and st, nd, rd, th to put after them. So each year she can put the appropriate numbers and letters on there to customize the banner. The way I did the numbers I think she can use it until she's 98 years old.

I decided that this would be a great tradition for all of my grandchildren. It is a fast and easy project and one that I hope they will want to use for many, many years to come. With the birth of three babies last year I have multiple banners to make. Little Elsie is the first of them to celebrate this precious milestone.

I purchased the fabrics when I was working in the Sew Batik Booth at Road to California Quilt Show in January. The pattern is Celebration by CW Design Co.

I started by cutting the yellow dot fabric into 3 strips that were 10 1/2" by the Width of the Fabric. This is what I used for the pennants. I placed the template onto the fabric and made the first cut which also cut off the selvages. 

Then I lined up the template on the opposite side. Sometimes I could line it up perfectly and only had to cut one side. Other times it looked like this where I had to cut both sides. It just depended on which side I cut from first if I cut both sides or how much I over cut at the point.

I alternated like this until I cut all of the pennants. I chose to use the same fabric on the front and back so I cut a total of 28. I really only needed 27 because I used Blackboard Fabric for the space. Since the fabric was folded in half it was just easier to do the extra one. The Blackboard Fabric was much easier and will look way better than the Velcro method I used for Tristyn's. I may actually ask her if she wants me to swap those pennants out for Blackboard Fabric on hers.

I traced the letters onto fusible web. I like Steam a Seam2 Lite. It isn't as stiff as Heat and Bond and Wonder Under.

I used the turquoise fabric for the letters. I cut a piece of the fabric roughly the same size as the traced letters. I peeled the paper off of the fusible web and placed the sticky side of it onto the fabric. Since I was working with a batik I didn't have to worry about right and wrong sides. If I was using a different type of fabric, I'd want to make sure that I put the letters onto the wrong side of the fabric.

 Then it was time to cut out all of the letters.

I fused them onto the yellow fabric with the dots. I needed to make sure that I had enough clearance at the top so that the fabric that will string the letters together wouldn't cover up the letters. There also had to be enough room on the sides so that when it came time to pink the edges I wouldn't cut off the letters. I did a rough measurement of where the start of the small letters like a, i and r would start. Then I applied that measurement to things like the hump part of the h, b and d so all of the letters would be in approximately the same part of each pennant. I played around with positioning of the letters too. This is what I came up with.

I decided to use a Satin Stitch to stitch around the letters. Normally my choice of stitch for a fusible applique project is a Blanket Stitch. For this one I wanted to use a contrasting thread and I wanted it to define the letters. I experimented with several different stitch lengths and widths until I settled on .4 and 2.0.

If you just stitch onto the fabric at this point it is going to pucker. So I needed a stabilizer behind the fabric. Several years ago I learned that a really good and very inexpensive stabilizer for machine applique is sheets of Smart & Final Sandwich Wrap. It is a thin paper that peels off really easily when you're done. Depending on how much of this kind of work you do, one package could be a lifetime supply.

I determined that I needed 5" squares. I was able to get 4 from a single sheet so I cut 7 sheets into 5" squares.

I pinned them to the back of each pennant making sure that the letters were completely covered from the back. I tried to place the pins far enough from the letters so that they wouldn't be in the way as I stitched around the letter.

One thing I discovered as I was doing the stitching is that it was important to let the machine do the work. I just guided the fabric, especially around the curves. If I tried to feed the fabric through the machine the stitches were uneven.This is what the letter looks like after I stitched around it.

After I finished all of the letters I put the backing fabric behind each letter and behind the Blackboard Fabric pennant. I put the letter fabric piece on top and started in the top right hand corner of each pennant piece and stitched 1/4" around both sides. It wasn't necessary to stitch across the top because the "binding" goes there. Once I had stitched around all of the pieces I used a pair of pinking shears to cut close to the stitching. I chose this method rather than a pinking blade in  my rotary cutter because there were some places where the letters were so close to the stitching line that I didn't want to accidentally cut part of a letter.

The pattern calls for a package of  Wrights Extra Wide Double Fold Bias Tape (1/2"). I opted to make my own. Since the banner is going to curve you really need the bias tape or bias strips at the top. If you want to know how to quickly and easily Cut Long Bias Strips you can read this earlier Blog Post. As I was working on the pennants I thought about what color I wanted here. Since it's for a girl I wanted to use either pink or purple. There is a lot of bright pink in the fabric but also a hint of purple. So I auditioned both colors. Even though the pink made the pink dots pop I liked the purple better. It went better with the turquoise letters.

 

You can view this Blog Post to see how to Make Your Own Double Fold Bias Tape. Here is my finished "Bias Tape." It will get attached to the top of the pennants.

I opened the strips at the ends and cut them so they were straight. I folded them under 1/4" and refolded the strip. That will give me clean, finished ends. I left 20" tales on both ends. It is definitely necessary to pin this in place. Normally I pin perpendicular to the sewing machine needle.  Bias strips means that the fabric has a tendancy to move more than a straight of grain strip would so in this case I opted to pin in the same direction as the needle. I really wanted things to stay in place.It just meant that when I sewed the strips I had to go slowly.

It is necessary to prime the Blackboard fabric. This is done by running a piece of chalk in both directions to cover the entire piece of fabric. Then you wipe it off and do the same thing again. Once this was done I wrote 1st on it so the Birthday Banner says "Happy 1st Birthday." Here it is hanging between two trees in the park across the street from my house.

My hope is that hanging it will be a birthday tradition for Elsie as she grows up. She may or may not think it's "cool" when she's a teenager. But sometimes traditions hold strong. Who knows? Maybe it will be important to her and she'll still want to hang it up when she's 50; I hope so.

Happy Sewing and Crafting,
Carol