Pennant String Tutorial (Made from Recycled TShirt Sleeves)

My son's birthday is a week away - and the party is less than a week away! And I've done nothing to prepare. I told him that this birthday was going to be more low key than normal. I just don't have it in my lately to pull off the full party that we normally do when we celebrate the kids birthdays. Thankfully, he's old enough to understand. We will be having a picnic with some friends down at the beach and we are hoping for nice enough weather that we can roast some marshmallows into the evening. Cross your fingers!

So, I'll be taking our canopy and I thought it would be nice to have a few decorations for it. Robbie looks forward to decorations every year and I just can't deny him. This time I went to my scrap stash for inspiration. I think this idea would be great with tshirts from the last year... but I have so many already cut up that couldn't justify cutting up more just to make this little decoration.

I also made this pennant string with just the sleeves of tshirts and the bottom hem of the shirt. I'm not sure many people have that many sleeves and hems available, so this will also work with just using the entire tshirt. I think it would be fun to screen print on each flag - maybe something that has to do with a party theme. Like skull and crossbones for a pirate party. I hope to have the screen print tutorial up this weekend.

Anyhow, here's the tutorial for how I made this. This would work with fabric other than a knit. However, the knit is nice because it doesn't fray on the edges. Oh, and I decided to make my triangles small so that I could use sleeves. I was initially going to make them 8" wide and 10 inches long. This would also be cute with rectangles.

Materials:

Tshirt scraps
Rotary Cutter
Ruler
Cutting Mat
Pins

Step 1: Make a pattern. I used poster board because it was the closest to me. You can use anything to make the pattern.

Step 2: Position your triangle pattern - using the sleeve, I put the bottom of the triangle onto the hem of the sleeve. The left the top of the sleeve (the folded part) to use for another triangle.

Step 3: With the ruler and a rotary cutter, cut around your pattern.

Step 4: Repeat this until you have enough pennants to make the desired length of garland. I am making them to decorate the canopy which is 10 x 10. So I made 10 - one for each 12 inches. (You see more than 10 in the picture because I am making a total of 4 garlands).

Step 5: Starting at the bottom of the triangle, sew a quarter inch seam leaving the bottom open (you are sewing a "V").

Step 6: Do this to all the triangles. I chained mine together as I went to make it faster.

Step 7: Place the triangles in the order that you want them to hang. This will make it easier when you go to place them on the string. I stacked them after I figured out their order.

Step 8: To make the string, I used the hem of the tshirt. I used pieces that had the hem plus half an inch of tshirt. You can use just the hem if you don't mind the raw edge. I used the half inch to fold under. Measure enough hem for the length of garland that you are making. Mine turned out longer and it occurred to me later that the knit stretched quite a bit when sewing. So keep this in mind if you are working toward an exact measurement.

Step 9: Zig Zag the hem pieces together to make one continuous piece. I made sure that the hems were all facing the same way to make it easier when sewing everything together.

Step 10: Once you have your string joined, you will pin the triangles in place. I just used one pin for each triangle since it was just to hold the place where I wanted them. I placed them 12 inches apart (using the center of each triangle as the point where I measure from). Be sure to pin on the inside of them hem.

Step 11: Starting at the end, fold the edge in and the side (the half inch of tshirt above the hem) over (as pictured) to start your string. Fold it one more time to make a string that does not have any raw edges.

Step 12: Straight stitch folding the fabric over as you go. When you get to a triangle, roll the edge over the top of the triangle... feeling the bottom to be sure it is still lined up with the top roll.

Step 12: Continue that process until the end of the string - and you're done!

Hope that wasn't too confusing - I have trouble explaining things sometimes and what makes sense to me can come across as a foreign language to someone else :) Hopefully the pictures help, but if you have questions, please just ask. This would be really cute to spruce up a picnic, to decorate a puppet theater, and of course, to help celebrate that special day.