Nursery Sneak Peek & Fabric Pennant Banner Tips

I've been diligently working on getting our new baby's nursery ready. Room painted, check. Dresser delivered, check. Carpet installed, check. Now it's time to decorate!

I'm making a lot of my own touches for his room, but it all began with this Treetop Friends bedding set and wall decals.  I love the design, and it goes well with the nature theme I had planned before I even knew if baby was going to be a boy or a girl.  (It's a boy, in case you missed it.)

Little by little I'll showcase each handmade element in the room and then I'll do a big reveal of the whole nursery when it's complete.  I'll start with the fabric pennant banner.

I took a piece of the bedding set with me to Joann and picked out patterned fabric in colors to match, plus a striped fabric that I will use to make a curtain (more on that in another post). I incorporated the striped fabric into the banner so it all ties in.  I love the patterned fabric choices, if I do say so myself.

In typical Kelly fashion, I winged it and didn't use a pattern....and I love how it came out!  There are so many pennant banner tutorials out there that I'll spare you one here, but instead maybe I'll cough up some of the tips I discovered along the way, since I pretty much made this thing up as I went along. Here we go!

Fabric Pennant Banner Tips

1. Create a triangle template out of lightweight cardboard, such as a cereal box. Here's where you get to decide on the type of triangle you're after. Isosceles? Equilateral? I went with isosceles for a traditional look (two sides are of even length). When you measure and cut your template, be sure to account for seam allowances -- I made mine a quarter of an inch.
    
2. Fold your fabric up right sides together so you're cutting at least four triangles out at once (more folds = more triangles = less individual cuts). A rotary cutter, ruler and mat are must-haves for this project.
    
3. Since you cut your triangles with the right sides together, it's now much eaiser to pin and sew them. Any minor ndescrepancies in size won't be problematic while pinning.
    
4. Sew your seams a quarter inch from the raw fabric edges, trim allowances near the main triangle point and turn triangles right side out.  I've found that a bodkin helps speed up the initial turning of the point, and, of course, a point turner gets you nice, crisp points. Sewing them in the color order in which you plan to arrange them later will shave a few seconds off your overall time.
    
5. To easily press your seams flat, insert your cardboard triangle template into your fabric triangle before pressing. Talk about easy pressing!  I barely had to fuss with a seam to get it to sit right before pressing.
    
6. Buy more double bias tape than you think you'll need. Unless you like making extra trips to the fabric store.  Apparently I do.  I used this tutorial for sewing the piece of bias tape together.

Stay tuned for the rest of the handmade items in our new baby's nursery!