Upcycled Bunting: Turn Old Clothes and Scrap Fabric into Flags
A shirt with a worn collar still has a perfectly good back panel. Sheets go thin in the middle and stay sound at the edges. Quilting scraps pile up in a shoebox until you have fifteen shades of the same blue and no plan for any of them. Bunting is the plan. It asks very little of the fabric you already own and turns it into something you can hang on a porch rail, across a market stall, or above a cake table in an afternoon.
Here is how to choose the cloth, cut it so the flags behave, and finish it well enough to survive more than one summer.
What Makes a Fabric Good for Flags
Bunting hangs, so weight matters more than anything. A flag should be light enough to move in a breeze and firm enough to hold a straight edge. Quilting cotton is close to ideal. So is poplin from a dress shirt, mid-weight linen, and cotton sheeting that hasn't gone see-through.
Fabrics to pass over:
- Jersey and other knits. T-shirt cotton curls at cut edges and stretches out of shape once it hangs.
- Heavy denim, canvas, and upholstery fabric. Too much bulk where the flags meet the tape; your machine will balk and the run will sag.
- Slippery synthetics and satin. They fray, they slide, and they show every pucker under the needle.
- Loose weaves and anything already splitting. If you can pull a thread out with your fingers, it won't survive weather.
Darker shirts, chambray, and ticking stripes give you the crisp, vaguely nautical look most people are after. Pale sheets are the workhorse for linings. Small quilting scraps are best used as accents — a single flag in a loud print, or a strip of pieced squares down the centre of a plain triangle.
Harvesting Fabric from Clothes and Sheets
Before you cut, wash everything once at the temperature you'd normally use, and dry it. Fabric that shrinks after the bunting is finished will pull the tape crooked, and there's no fixing that without unpicking the whole run.
Then take the garment apart properly. Cut along the side seams of a shirt rather than slicing through the middle. Remove the buttons and keep them; a jar of odd shirt buttons is genuinely useful later. Leave the collar and cuffs out of your bunting pile — the interfacing inside them is stiff and refuses to press flat — but the back panel, sleeves, and front plackets all yield usable rectangles.
For sheets, cut away the hemmed edge first. That doubled strip is thicker than the rest and will make one flag sit differently from its neighbours. The centre of a worn sheet is usually the weakest point, so cut around thin patches rather than through them.
Work around stains and holes instead of discarding the piece. A flag measures roughly 15 by 20 cm (6 by 8 in), so a stain in one corner costs you very little fabric.
Cutting Flags That Hang Straight
- Make a template. Cut a triangle from card, freezer paper, or an old plastic chopping board. A 15 cm top edge and a 20 cm drop gives a flag that reads clearly from a distance without looking flimsy.
- Trace with the grain. Line the top edge of the template up with the fabric's straight grain. Flags cut on the bias stretch and dangle at odd angles.
- Rotate to fit. Flip the template upside down to nest triangles into the gaps. You'll fit considerably more flags into the same fabric.
- Choose your edge. Pinking shears or a rotary cutter with a pinking blade give a zigzag edge that sheds very few threads, which matters if you're leaving the flags unlined.
If you're lining the flags
Cut two identical triangles per flag. If you'd rather fold the edges under and turn them, add 1 cm to each side instead. Don't mix the two approaches in one batch — the finished sizes won't match.
Finishing: Three Ways to Make a Flag
Sewn and turned. Place two triangles right sides together and stitch down both long sides, leaving the top open. Trim the point, turn, and press. This is the tidiest finish and holds its shape longest.
Single layer with a pinked edge. Much the fastest option. Zigzag along the two slanted edges if your machine has that stitch and let the pinked edge do the rest. Expect a little fuzz after a few months outdoors; trim it with scissors.
Fusible webbing. For anyone without a machine. Iron two triangles together with a strip of double-sided fusible web between them. The bond is firm but not permanent, so keep this method for indoor bunting.
Assembling and Hanging the Run
Use bias binding, twill tape, or a strip of fabric about 5 cm wide folded in half lengthwise. Lay the flags between the folds, spaced 3 to 5 cm apart, and pin them so the top edge sits snugly against the fold. Leave 30 to 45 cm of tape bare at each end for tying.
Stitch the whole run in one pass if you can. A walking foot keeps the tape from stretching and the flags from shifting; a zipper foot works nearly as well because it lets you get close to the fold. Backstitch at both ends.
Hang bunting loosely. A run pulled tight will snap in wind, and the tape will bow between the fixing points. If you're stringing it between two posts, allow a gentle droop.
Washing, Weather, and Storage
Bunting made from clothes and sheets is machine washable. Put it in a mesh laundry bag, use cold water, and hang it to dry. Skip the dryer; heat is what warps the tape. Colours from old shirts and quilting scraps will fade in direct sun, which is part of the charm but worth knowing before you hang a favourite print on a south-facing wall.
Take the run down at the end of the season, shake it out, and roll it around a cardboard tube rather than folding it. Creases pressed into flags over winter are hard to shift in spring.
A word on safety: keep long loops of tape out of reach of small children, and never hang bunting near a candle, heater, or open fire.
Start With One Shirt
Pick a shirt you've stopped wearing. Cut the back panel into four triangles, line them with offcuts from a sheet, and stitch them onto a length of tape. That's roughly a two-metre run and an hour's work, and it will tell you everything you need to know about how your machine handles the layers and how wide you like the spacing.
Once you've made one, the shoebox of scraps stops looking like clutter. Sort it by colour, cut a batch of triangles while you're at it, and keep them ready. Bunting is the rare project where a pile of prepared pieces actually gets you to the machine faster rather than slower.
Photo: _Mukula / Pixabay
