Fabric Streamers

If you have been to Spool of Thread, you likely noticed the fabric streamers hanging from the ceiling brightening up the lounge on grey Vancouver days. You may have even been one of the many people who asked us how to make them. Well, we are going to share our streamer secret in 3 simple steps so you can bring some colourful cheer into your own home.

You will need:

• ¼ yard of fabric (not a fat quarter). We used Kona solids for the streamers in the shop as well as for this tutorial. Thanks to Kona’s amazing selection of colours you can mix and match hundreds of combos. We used Royal (the dark blue) an Azure (the light blue) for this tutorial.
• Olfa rotary cutter and healing mat -or- scissors
• Clover Chaco Pen
• Omnigrid ruler

1) Cut your ¼ yard strip in half length wise. You will have two 4.5” x 42” strips. I used my ruler and Chaco Pen to mark the half way point. I used my rotary cutter to cut down this line but you could use scissors instead. You will now be working with one strip at a time.

2) Using your Chaco Pen, make marks on the long edges of the fabric strip every 2 inches. Lay your ruler down on the fabric and mark along one edge at 1”, 3”, 5”, 7”, etc. Then make marks on the other long edge at 2”, 4”, 6”, 8”, etc. You will now have marks 1” apart alternating on each edge.

3) With the fabric strip lying on the healing mat, make cuts starting from the edge with the mark towards the other side, stopping about 1/2” away from the edge. I found it easy to start at one short end and make cuts on alternate edges, working my way to the other short end.

If you are using scissors, instead of a rotary cutter, I would suggest making all your cuts along one edge at a time so that you are not moving your scissors from edge to edge for alternating cuts.

Once you have completed these 3 steps, tug on your strip to reveal your fabric streamer. That is it! You will now have a cheery, colourful, fun and festive 8′ streamer to hang wherever you like.

Repeat these steps on the other fabric strip. To make a longer streamer, overlap 1 short end from each streamer and stitch the layers together. Use your streamers for your next family dinner, birthday party, Christmas festivities or ‘just because’.