Simple Pennant Banner

 

This simple pennant banner is an easy and affordable way to add lots of charm to a wedding, party or other event where you’re looking for that extra decorative touch! Bryan and I got married last year at Elings Park, which is a gorgeous outdoor park venue in Santa Barbara. We hired lots of great vendors to take care of the big stuff – rentals, catering, etc. but did pretty much all the details ourselves, with the help of our awesome family and friends.

I was looking for a way to dress up the park and tie into our indigo color scheme in a fun and whimsical way. Luckily I happened to be binge-watching Downton Abbey and was inspired by the cute pennant flags at Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes’ wedding, ha!! A lot of blogs out there have how-to’s for these which are very detailed and include top-stitching, store-bought bias tape and other thorough procedures, which is great, but I needed to make flags to dress up a huge park venue so I couldn’t waste time on unnecessary hemming and pattern arrangement. I also wanted to avoid using store bought bias tape since the cost for that would add up really quickly. So, this is the quick and dirty version of a pennant flag banner, with awesome results!

Required Materials

• White fabric – the amount will depend on how long your banner needs to be. I was working with a limited amount, leftover from another project so my goal was to work backwards and get the most real estate I could.
  • 1.5″ strip for the banner
  • 5″ wide and 6″ long for each flag
  • The diagram below shows that you can make a four-flag banner which is about 2 feet long with a piece of fabric measuring 12.5″ by 9″ in total. So, use that as a base to determine either how much banner you can make from the fabric you have, or how much fabric you need to make the amount of banner you want.
• Thread – white, or colored to match your finished look
• Measuring tape
• Scissors, or rotary cutter
• Pins
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Optional: indigo fabric dye and large bucket

How To

Optional: I dyed my fabric ahead of time since I wanted it to tie in with the overall indigo theme of the wedding. You can dye your fabric too if you’d like – obviously a color of your choosing – or you can use printed fabric. I was able to get a ton of white cotton fabric down in the garment district in LA so ripping that up and dying it made the whole decor process really affordable. After cutting out all of the flag triangles, I made two different piles and dip dyed them in opposite orientation. I also dyed half of the long strips, so that they would continue the ombre effect on the flags with blue top halves. Alternatively if you wanted more of a tie dye print, you could dye your whole piece of fabric before cutting it up. The world is your oyster! I chose not to wash the flags or strips after dying since I wanted to keep the color super vibrant and I really did NOT want to iron every single one!! So, cut, dye, air dry, and you’re ready to go.

If your 1.5″ fabric strip is the full length of your desired banner, you can get started right away. If you want it to be longer, now is the time to sew multiple strips together. Just make sure the seams are all on one side so that they end up inside the finished bias tape. Once you’ve got the strip the length you want it, fold the outer edges of your 1.5″ strip in to meet each other in the middle – if you’ve read the COVID mask tutorial, you’ll be familiar with this process! Iron as you go to set the fold in place. Once you’ve got the whole strip done, fold it in half so the rough edges are completely contained inside and you now have a half inch wide strip of bias tape. Again, iron as you go.

Okay, now you have a nice long strip of homemade bias tape, and it’s time to add in the flags. This is a bit tedious so put on a good podcast or, like me, invite an amazingly supportive friend over to help, chat it up, and you’ll be done in no time! You’re literally just going to tuck the top of each triangle into the bias tape, and pin it in place, pretty simple. You’ll also want to decide on spacing – I left about an inch between each flag just to make the most of my fabric, but you might prefer to put the flags right up against each other. With this flag size, I wouldn’t space them out much further than I did. If you have bigger flags then a bigger gap would probably look okay! Test it out before you do too many, and decide what look you like.

Once you’ve got all your flags pinned in place, it’s time to sew the whole thing together. Run the bias tape through your sewing machine, sewing as close to the open edge as you can while making sure to capture both sides of the bias tape along with the top of the flag. And ta daa, you’ve got a beautiful piece of decor which will spice up your big event!

I loved the way that the flags popped in the background of our photos and just tied everything together. To make the most of my hard sewing work and get the most bang for our buck, I tied twine to either end of each of the banners and used that to tie around trees/poles/etc. What do you think? Are you going to try making some flags of your own for your next party??