Happy Birthday Bunting

I am not very good at decorating for the season, or for special occasions.  My mother-in-law, however, rotates out much of her home decor on a monthly basis.  I can't begin to imagine how to be that organized, so I am in awe.  In these parts, September is known as birthday month and I figured she needed some bunting to celebrate that.  The only problem is that no one on earth has a mantel long enough to accommodate the final product (which I winged without any planning ahead of time -- mistake #1).  We'll have to see if she is creative enough to find a place to hang up this puppy!

I had a lot of fun rooting through my fabric stash and scraps to find the brightly-colored fabrics.  It was like a trip down memory lane of projects past.  I even pieced together strips to make the binding for across the top.

The colors did not photograph well.  The background squares are a repeating pattern of red, blue, and orange.

It was pretty tedious to applique on all of those letters, but it was fun to see it all coming together.

The second mistake I made was adding a layer of felt in each square.  This sucker is HEAVY -- not exactly what you want when you're hanging something up temporarily.  Live and learn, I guess.  Not that I plan on making tons of bunting, but if I had to do it all over again I might just add a layer of interfacing to help the squares hang nicely and call it a day.

Otherwise, it ended up mostly how I pictured it!  I wish I had taken a picture of the backs of the squares -- they are all backed with different fabrics as well.  The bunting is already wrapped up and ready for the big birthday party this weekend, but maybe I will have a chance to photograph it from the back once Barb opens her gift.