The first thing I bought for the nursery when I found out I was pregnant was the red hot air balloon in the photograph above. I didn’t think much about it at the time, it caught my attention, I was over the moon with the news and decided it would be cute for the baby.
When I brought it home and started looking at it, inspiration hit and that little balloon mobile was the basis for our baby’s nursery. Obviously the first project to tackle in my mind was… bunting. How could I not? I had visions of little flags going all over the room.
Off to the fabric shop I went with the balloon in tow to try and find matching fabrics. A little bit of calculations – which done with a pregnant brain must be revised a few times – and I was set to go.
I had a yard of each of the five colours so I designed my flag pattern to be a long and skinny triangle of roughly 5.5 inches wide by 9 inches. I washed, ironed and marked the back of each piece and thank the heavens for my lovely big cutting mat with a quilting arrow and cutter that I got for last Christmas. I try not to have too many gadgets but the right tool for the job certainly makes things easier.
I got 7 flags out of 4 colours and 6 out of the 5th as I used two fat quarters for the last colour fabric. I cut them all, ran them through the sewing machine and then sat down patiently to tie knots on the seams and turn each one of the triangles inside out.
Next came ironing them nice and straight and measuring them on the long strips of bias tape and once again running them through the machine.
I was quite pleased with the result and it was very sweet when my husband took the utmost care to hang the flags just right all around the nursery walls.
I would very much recommend the project. It takes a while to complete but it’s easy and there’s a nice rhythm to it. Every time I walk into the nursery and see them, I remember cutting all those flags and tying all their knots and going through all the next steps while a little someone was kicking away in my belly. Sweet memories.
