Scraps to Bunting

The fabric scraps had lived under my bed for years—I couldn’t tell you where most of them had come from, though the patterns were as familiar to me as a favorite outfit. Some were remnants of costume making, but most were too tiny for human-sized projects. So they served smaller purposes: a simple skirt or a quilted pillow for my dolls, a bedspread or a curtain for my dollhouse, a pouch for pretend play. I had visions of using one particular scrap to make a dress for my favorite teddy bear, but my sewing skills were never quite advanced enough to attempt it. Any time I needed a piece of fabric, I would bring them all out and lay them on my bed, running my hands over the well-known colors.

So when my sister and her fiancé charged me with providing the decorations for their wedding, I knew exactly what to do. By this time, the scraps had migrated to a wicker trunk, and I pulled it out in the basement to assess my resources. We were going to make bunting. Strands and strands of it, colorful flags to festoon the reception tent. I began by cutting out shape after shape, mostly triangles, from the stacks of cloth. Their wedding was in June, and I started at Thanksgiving, but it was slow going at first. A new pair of fabric scissors was blissfully life-altering. Many a winter evening was spent with helpful siblings and piles of flag growing around us, though the growing never seemed quite fast enough.

And suddenly the wedding was two weeks away. After cutting and ironing and trimming all 405 cloth pennants, I was rather paralyzed by the next step. With the assistance of a faithful friend, I sorted all the flags into color-coordinated (or at least non-clashing) groupings, and then we laid out the order of the first 30-foot strand. I had carefully calculated how many pieces I needed to string from one end of the rental tent to the other, but now that it was June, the measurements seemed impossibly long. I sewed the pennants into bunting strings for six days straight. My youngest sister was my pinch sewer, sewing a few feet when my hands grew tired. My grandma would laugh every time she walked through the living room and saw me perched on one of the side chairs with cloth triangles and strings of yarn filling my lap.

As I sewed, I tried to think of all the other events we could use the bunting for, since I certainly was not pulling them apart when finished. Birthday parties, probably, and maybe an anniversary or two. Other weddings, perhaps. Bridal showers and baby showers, room décor … funerals? If a good person lived a good life and you’re celebrating them after they’re gone, can you hang up festive pennants? I figured you probably could.

Each step of the way, I got to revel in the loveliness of the fabric. By the time I had finished, I had worked with each flag about five times, and it felt like I was sewing the beauty of our childhoods into the colors that would celebrate my sister’s marriage.

The completed bunting was not the end of the process, however; I had to figure out how to get each strand up about 20 feet to the top of the rental tent so that they could swing down to the tent edges in graceful arcs. We had a piece of fishing line tied to the center of the tent as it was set up, but math has never been my strong suit, and I miscalculated. The end of the fishing line was still much higher up than we could reach with the stepladder. So we pushed two folding tables together, put the stepladder on top, and my mother climbed to the top step while I held the contraption steady. It would have been enough to give my ER doctor father a heart attack if he’d been there, but we all came out unscathed.

It was all worth it in the end. My sister and her new wife danced the night away under the colorful swirl of bunting made by love and history and family and collaboration and more than a little determination.

When the festivities were over, my sister took half the bunting strands, and I took the other half. They’ve moved with me from house to house, adorning birthday celebrations and wedding showers. No funerals yet, but they did provide a bright antidote to the year of COVID lockdown, as we added strand after strand for every birthday our household celebrated, without taking any down. They were hanging when my mother called to share the news of my grandma’s death. They’re hanging now, anticipating all the beautiful reunions that come with the winding down of the pandemic. Someday I plan to pull them out when my sister and her wife reaffirm their vows. Whenever I see them, hold the familiar colors between my hands, watch the bunting brighten the gloomiest day, I feel connected to every person who helped me make them. A quiet happiness settles in my bones, and I’m grateful for my younger self, who collected beautiful scraps to decorate a future she could not yet see.