<![CDATA[Saturday Sewing – Spring Bunting Made Easy]]>I’m a firm believer that you can never have too much celebration bunting. I’m also a believer that this bunting does not need to be saved for special occasions. Every day should be a celebrated! I needed some new spring bunting to add some new colour and whimsy around my house so I whipped up this new scallop bunting using two amazing Janome accessories. These accessories made this project so quickly and easily that I ended up making twice as much bunting as I planned!

For this project, I pulled out my ‘I Love my Janome’ thread tin. I wanted to use some of the beautiful Hilos Iris Polyester thread. Polyester thread holds up better to UV exposure and moisture. If I leave my buntings outside for too long, the Polyester thread is going to hold up better and longer than cotton thread.

The two accessories that I will be using to make this bunting are the Janome’s Circular Sewing Attachment and Janome’s Taping Guide Foot. I swear, with these two accessories these buntings almost make themselves!

I selected a variety of fabrics for my bunting and then cut them to be approx 1” bigger than I wanted my finished scallop. You need 2 layers of fabric for each scallop with right sides facing. I used the Janome Circular Sewing Attachment to sew only half a circle although you could choose to make full circles at this point and then cut them in half. I folded my fabric in half along the long edge to find the middle. 

After attaching my Circular Attachment to my machine, I carefully put my fabric on to the pokey pin approximately 1cm from the top along the marked middle line.

Using the lock lever and slider, I selected the radius that worked for my pre-cut fabric. Then I went to town sewing my scallops! This is a great time to use the auto-pivot function on your machine if it has it. This allows you to stop with the needle down and the foot will raise automatically. You could also use the knee lifter to raise the presser foot, as well, if your machine is compatible to use one. Stopping periodically while sewing your half circles and lifting the foot helps relieve any drag that may happen, giving you a nice smooth circle.

Once I sewed all my circles, I used my rotary cutter to carefully cut out the circles approximately 2cm from the sewn line. I flipped them inside out, smoothed out the edge and gave them a press. Using the Janome Circular Sewing Attachment again. move the slider in approximately 1cm to easily top stitch around the scallop. This step isn’t absolutely necessary but it gives your scallops a really nice finished look. 

Now it was time to attach all my scallops all together! For this I used the Janome Taping Guide Foot which makes attaching the scallops to the double fold bias tape super easy. The Taping Guide Foot can use tape up to 20mm wide! You can use pre-made tape or make your own. I’m using leftover quilt binding that I refolded into double fold tape. 

To use this foot I first feed the binding through the clear plastic guide and use the screw to tighten the binding into place. Then, I attach it to the machine. I made adjustments to my needle position so that it was sewing close to the open edge of the binding. I sewed a few inches without any scallops first so I could use this to secure the bunting when hanging.

I carefully inserted my bunting between the binding and between the plastic guide and continued to sew. Leaving approx 2 cm between scallops, I continued to add until I was happy with the length. Then I sewed the binding together to match the length at the beginning. 

Just like that the bunting is made! The Janome Circular Attachment and the Janome Taping Guide Foot really made this project quick and easy.

Contact your local Janome Dealer today to find out how to get your very own Janome Circular Sewing Attachment, Janome Taping Guide Foot AND I Love my Janome thread tin!

Stitch on!

~AmandaBee

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