DIY Honey Bee Patchwork Banner

Practise your patchwork skills and sew up some sweet bunting with our free guide to how to make Bee bunting! We’ve got a free template below, and step by step instructions for how to make your very own honey bee wall hanging. You can adjust this project to customise it for your occasion – stitch extra flags to make your bunting double sided or longer, or back it with a sweet print! Your finished garland would make a lovely wedding or party decoration, or sew it to brighten up a plain wall of your home.

The letters and bees in this project are made using a technique called foundation paper piecing. It’s a magical method where you sew tiny scraps of fabric to a paper template (using our free download below) to create intricate patterns and shapes from patchwork. It’s one of our favourite ways to use up fabric scraps. If you’re new to FPP, see our guide to how to do foundation paper piecing and we’ll talk you through it. Once you’ve caught the FPP bug, you might also like these free foundation paper piecing patterns.

You’ll find it helps if you cut out your pieces as you work, using a generous ½in seam allowance. Then trim the seam allowances back after sewing each line. If you want to make a larger quilt, you could easily adjust our free bee paper piecing template below to make a full size honey bee quilt pattern with lots of smaller bee quilt blocks.

This project was designed by Susi Bellingham for Love Patchwork & Quilting magazine. See more of Susi’s work on her website tinytoffeedesigns.blogspot.de

Project supplies

• Assorted scraps for bees and letters
• Background fabric: ½yd
• Backing fabric: ½yd
• Binding fabric: two (2) 2½in x 42in strips
• Dark blue embroidery thread
• Sewing machine (see our guide to the best sewing machines for quilting)

Fabrics used

• Floral fabrics are from a strip roll by Liberty.
• Coloured solids are from the Sleeping Porch collection by Heather Ross for Windham Fabrics.
• Background fabric is an Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Oyster by Robert Kaufman.
• Backing fabric is Birds in Green from the Strawberry Biscuit collection by Elea Lutz for Penny Rose Fabrics.

Free honey bee patchwork templates

Download our free Bee Foundation paper piecing templates (PDF)

You’ll need to download one (1) copy each of

• Letter templates B (Section A and B)
• H, A and Y (Section A and B)
• Left and Right Bee templates (Section A and B)

Plus Two (2) copies each of the Letter templates E and P

Finished size

42in per strip of bunting

Notes

• Seam allowances are ¼in, unless otherwise noted.
• Press seams to the side, unless otherwise instructed.
• FPP = Foundation Paper Piecing.
• FPP templates include seam allowances around the outer edge only.
• For FPP, set your stitch length to 1.5.
• Fabrics supplied by Alice Caroline (alicecaroline.co.uk) and Sew Hot (sewhot.co.uk)

Honey Bee bunting tutorial

Susi Bellingham

Paper piecing pro Susi has a head full of ideas by day and sews up her crafty plans by night. She is passionate about the joy of paper piecing – picking the patterns, colours and fabric choices. She shares her work on her blog tinytoffeedesigns.blogspot.de and sells the cutest foundation paper piecing patterns in her Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TinyToffeeDesigns. Her designs help you to piece teeny tiny designs from fabric scraps to create patchwork motifs from animals to fruit and everyday objects. You can find her on Instagram @lillaluise

See author's posts