Happy Hanukkah Bunting

Appliqued Fabric Banner

This year I was delighted to start my seasonal sewing with a very special Hanukkah banner, which is now about to start its journey over the pond to some friends in America.

The backing fabric is from a pair of upcycled 'Mamas and Papas' nursery curtains and I always enjoy using it as the material is a lovely weight pure cotton canvas.  The dotty background also lends itself to almost any decor, which is perfect when I don't know the colour of the room where the finished banner will be hung!   It is also ideal for make-up pouches and pencil cases and you can read about this cute little Volkswagen Bug car here.

I created the Hanukkah bunting using raw edge applique, one of my favourite techniques.  I normally drop the feed dogs on my machine and free motion embroider around shapes when appliqueing, but as the flame on the candle was so small, I instead decided to simply straight stitch around it using an open-toed foot with a reduced stitch length.  Although this takes longer, it also gives me greater control when completing small scale designs.

I had originally intended stitching up the banner with the wording 'Happy Hanukkah', but as the festival has a number of different spellings I went with the somewhat safer 'Miracle'.  In retrospect I actually prefer this, as it makes a closer link to the meaning of Hanukkah.

At either end of the banner I stitched a Star of David with a candle, another reflection of the original story which tells the miracle of the Hanukkah oil. I stuck with a traditional blue for the main colour scheme but used a jaunty yellow bias-binding for the header tape, which really picks out the yellow of the candle flame.

Next stop Christmas!