Old Buildings and Bunting

I love taking photos of old buildings, even if they don't have bunting.  The photo below is of the old Ustick Merc.  My best friend and I used to ride our bikes out here from Ash Park Lane to post letters to our pen pals, when we were in Junior High.  It had worn wooden floors and lots of sweet goodies for the random bicycle rider to enjoy.  My favorite thing, at that time, was Shasta Apple Soda. 

I am glad this building is still here.  Boise has grown so much, torn down so much, built so much, and disappeared too many acres of farmland.  The area around the Ustick Merc used to be farmland, even in the 1970s, when I rode my bicycle out here.

Happy New Year!

It has been about two years since I last posted about bunting.  Life is busy.  Last month, as described on my quilt blog, I went on a day trip, with my daughter, to Twin Falls.  We saw a lot of bunting that day.  I have three or more photographs of bunting.  The best bunting was hanging over the door at Altered Purposes on Main Avenue.

But there is more.  There was bunting behind the bunting.  More bunting!  It is secret Halloween bunting.

And . . . there was amazing scrappy bunting decorating the inside back wall of the store.

I know it is difficult to look past all the amazing stuff in this photo to see the bunting going across the top, but it is worth it.

Trick or Treat!

 I had a wonderful time at a quilting retreat in Cascade, from Oct 27 -Oct 31.  I got back just in time to hang out my freshly finished Halloween bunting, so all the ghouls and monsters (and Spiderman) could get that festive feeling during their Trick or Treat endeavors.  

I left it up overnight and when it started to rain later in the afternoon, my wonderful husband went out and took it down and folded it up neatly for me.  When I got home from work, it was a pleasant surprise.

Halloween Bunting

I worked on more bunting on our recent camping trip up at Brownlee Reservoir.  Recent was last week.  Got it done in no time.  Here it is just hung in our little entry hallway.  I will hang it outside, next week, for Halloween.  I will be watching the forecast closely, as I think I would rather it not get rained on, it's very first time outside.

Of course, it is washable, but it looks so crisp and colorful right now.  It is a few feet longer than you can see in this photo.  Happy Haunting! 

Add Bunting to Your Pop-up!

The bunting I made last year, to go on the awning of our RV, actually fits perfectly around my blue and white pop-up.  We had a patio extension made from pavers installed in our back yard.  Then I put up my pop-up for shade.  My ladies club came over and it was quite festive with the bunting on our shade producing pop-up.

My 2020 Bunting

 We had to cancel our scheduled vacation plans for 2020. I think everyone knows why that is.  So, we have been taking time to go camping in our RV.  The week before Memorial Day, there were so many people up at our favorite 'hooked-up' camping place and hot springs, we decided to go off the grid!  We have been camping on the Boise National Forest (Cottonwood District as it used to be called).  We camped at Long Gulch, where the Guard Station used to actually be located, Rattlesnake Creek, and Smith Creek.

When we were at Long Gulch, my husband said I should sew some bunting just for our RV.  So, we measured our awning and I got to work on some obnoxious bunting.  Obnoxious is what several of my quilts, this summer, have been named, due to their very bright qualities.  You can see my posts about those on my main blog:  http://glutenfreequilter.blogspot.com   I used many of the left over fabrics from Obnoxious I, II, III, and IV for the bunting, and I pieced a couple wonky house bunts, and a skull bunt, and used some Pete the Cat fabric.  It turned out marvelous and not obnoxious at all!

The photo, above, is showing the back side of the bunting.  This was at Rattlesnake Creek, the week of August 10.  Where I actually go to sew, with my Necchi sewing machine, being powered by six solar panels and one battery.  I sewed for over an hour, with my bunting gently waving in the breeze.

I used some of those little clips all the quilters like to clip their binding on with, to clip the bunting to the awning.  I made the bunting binding with approximately 36 inches of leader on each end with button holes and buttons for securing the ends.  I have taken photos of my construction process, so I will be adding a tutorial on how to make this, in September.  It was easy and 'sew' much fun to get crazy and make fun bunting to help cheer up our 2020 time off from work experiences.

Holiday Bunting

Bunting is definitely for holidays, but can be for anytime you need a little spruce-up of your surroundings.  That one bunting that is on my blog header, you know the one; look at the top of the page.  Anyway, I used it last year to decorate a booth at the quilt show and to decorate Mr. R's old pickup truck for the Kuna Days Parade.  I used it on the patio for when the CLS came over to visit and do some fabric painting.  I washed it, pressed it, folded it up and put it away for the winter.  It is already for fair weather spruce-ups in 2020.

However, I think I want to make another one that is longer in length, so the sprucing goes farther.  The one below, I made for the quilt show a few years back.  It was awesome!  I have it all wadded up in a bag of scraps in my cabinet.  If you have a bunch of scraps, you don't wish to throw out, you could do something along these lines, but perhaps a little tidier.  You could pink the edges of the scraps and make a tidy binding for them to be hanging from.  That would be nicer looking, yet easy.

This was announcing the theme of the next show, which was "Scrap Happy"

Below is the bunting I hang in my dining room at Christmas time. I did not make this bunting.  I bought it at the Craft Warehouse.  I connected both ends to some loops of scrap fabric then hung the loop ends around the knobs at each end of my curtain rod.  Rods with knobs rock!